The next level for WiFi
Cloud WiFi will be able to address demanding connectivity needs, writes Izwan Ismail
...we’ve gone beyond simply onboarding and connecting users and devices.
Phal Nanda
PROVIDING a stable and reliable Wifi connectivity has become more challenging than ever for companies and public institutions today as they face increasing demand for high-speed connectivity from employees and customers.
At the same time, wireless networks have to deal with higher bandwidth requirements due to the rise in streaming video and newer, bandwidth-intensive apps.
The pace of digital transformation today, combined with other trends like smartphone ownership, means WiFi is a fundamental requirement for businesses everywhere.
“Business owners recognise that embracing digital transformation helps them keep up with the competition, yet ensuring a reliable and high-performance WiFi network sometimes feels like an overlooked element of the equation,” says Phal Nanda, Ruckus Networks’ business leader and senior director of PLM, Ruckus Cloud platform.
COSTLY DOWNTIME
The Ruckus Asia Pacific State of WiFi study finds that connectivity downtime has cost organisations in the region US$51 million (RM208 million) over the past year, with workers experiencing at least six instances of connectivity downtime over a 12-month time frame.
Nanda says for consumer-facing businesses, there’s also the matter of customer reviews.
The study reported that nine in 10 (90 per cent) businesses and IT leaders agree that bad WiFi experiences will negatively affect brand image.
“A WiFi experience that fails to meet this expectation can blemish your brand, worry your IT team, and, even worse, may lead to a lost opportunity to engage the customer and possibly, generate a sale,” he says.
For organisations such as schools and retail companies which typically have lean IT teams, the ability to effectively manage this growing and increasingly complex WiFi infrastructure is a challenge.
“Meanwhile, for SMEs, chances are that either the business owner, or perhaps the youngest, most tech-savvy employee, effectively operates as the IT department. This takes them away from their day job, hindering productivity and impacting business growth.
“If you look at organisations and enterprises with multiple sites, whether in the same country or globally, the ability to manage network configuration and monitoring from a birds-eye standpoint can make it much easier to simplify management and optimise IT efficiency at the same time.”
ADDRESSING CHALLENGES
There is a massive shift towards consumption-based IT outsourcing, with fewer and fewer customers wanting to own IT.
This trend is also evident in a growing number of IoT networking applications, where manufacturers reinvent their product as a service.
“On the other hand, we’re also seeing customers interested in doing more with their networks instead of simply providing a fast and reliable connection,” says Nanda.
For example, brick-and-mortar retailers use cloud-managed WiFi to capture detailed in-store analytics, streamline logistics and eliminate checkout lines. In addition, hotels are leveraging wireless networks to support smart devices and utilities such as connected locks, air conditioning, lighting, water and power.
“Add to the mix the trend of streaming video and other high-bandwidth applications, and it becomes clear that traditional WiFi networks are buckling under the strain, as they weren’t originally designed to carry such a load.”
THE NEXT WIFI
The new WiFi technology called WiFi 6 is going to be so important this year, enabling much greater capacity using the same network infrastructure.
This new standard will deliver faster network performance, connect more devices simultaneously and transition WiFi from a best-effort endeavour to a deterministic wireless technology that has become the de-facto medium for Internet connectivity.
With an expected four-fold capacity increase over its 802.11ac Wave 2 predecessor, WiFi 6, deployed in dense device environments will support higher servicelevel agreements to more concurrently connected users and devices with more diverse usage profiles.
At the same time, the industry upgrade to WiFi 6 access points will require a commensurate upgrade on the switch side to multi-gigabit, enabling a wave of migration to new technologies that support WiFi 6.
Today, there are more connected devices than ever before.
“It’s not just about connected printers and media player devices, and we’ve gone beyond simply onboarding and connecting users and devices,” says Nanda.
All these connected devices generate and consume huge amounts of data.
Administrators can now get information about network behaviour, as well as analytics about users on the network, and how connected devices are being used at the edge.
Better yet, enterprises can leverage the intelligence derived from analysing that data to drive operational efficiency, obtain rich insights into customer behaviour and to proactively alert users if something goes wrong.
ADVANTAGES
With traditional WiFi networks, companies need to manage each separate network individually.
“With Ruckus Cloud Wifi, our aim was to simplify setup and management of WiFi networks as much as possible, reducing the time and money spent in the process,” says Nanda, adding that instead of needing a “muscular” IT team, a much smaller employee count can remotely set up additional access points and new sites in just minutes, as well as manage multiple network locations through an intuitive web interface, or mobile app, for anywhere, anytime network management and monitoring.
“More importantly, this lets organisations lower the total cost of ownership compared to competing alternatives by combining cloud efficiency with high-performance access points that serve more users over wider areas,” adds Nanda.
One of the biggest challenges associated with deploying large-scale distributed wireless networks is the time-to-deployment.
It can take several weeks for physical installation, provisioning and configuration of access points, switches and firewalls.
“Using the Cloud WiFi mobile app, a number of our customers significantly reduced access points installing and provisioning time to a matter of days or even hours; one of our customers was able to install seven access points/hour including physical installation time and cloud onboarding of access points. You can even manage your network from halfway around the world via an intuitive web interface; all you need is an Internet connection.”
FOCUS MARKET
Nanda says some organisations work with very lean IT teams, with two or three individuals that handle everything from switching to wireless, routing, firewall and more.
“These teams don’t have enough manpower to be trained on each vendor’s products to understand every little detail. Their job is to make everything simple and intuitive, but they also want enterprise-grade quality without compromising on features, performance or reliability,” he says.
Meanwhile, some organisations have multiple sites. This customer wants to deploy new access points, for example, on multiple office locations around the world, remotely, without having to send IT employees on-site. “How can these deployments also be troubleshot, and managed from afar with the right tools, without having to keep costly IT teams on standby at each location? These kinds of customers are usually those who are ideal candidates for Cloud WiFi.”