28 September 2012

Meraki releases free enterprise mobile device management for Android

Meraki, the leader in cloud-managed networking, has announced a new version of Systems Manager, its enterprise mobile device management solution for diverse network environments. The latest version of Systems Manager introduces support for Android devices along with a number of powerful new features that enhance Meraki’s already-robust device management for the enterprise.

Systems Manager provides centralized over-the-air administration of mobile devices using the same cloud-based dashboard as Meraki’s enterprise networking solutions. Since its launch in 2010, Systems Manager has been deployed on over 200,000 customer devices running Windows, Mac OS, and iOS, providing a robust set of tools that forms the backbone of device management for companies as diverse as Mimeo and Jefferson County (CO) Schools..

“The introduction of the Android client allows to me to truly manage my multi-platform environment from one pane of glass with no gaps,” said Shawn Winters, IT Director at Mimeo, the innovator of online, on-demand document printing and distribution.

"Since its release, our enterprise customers have found Systems Manager to be an indispensable tool as multiple mobile device platforms have become the norm," Meraki's Chief Evangelist, AJ Goldman, said. "Meraki's integrated solution of wired, wireless, and MDM is unique among vendors and gives administrators unprecedented control no matter how complex their deployment is."

Powerful New Features
The latest version of Systems Manager includes many new features developed in response to changing needs of enterprises confronting the proliferation of mobile devices and BYOD.

Android support — Meraki Systems Manager is now available for Android smartphones and tablets running version 2.2 (Froyo) and above. Like the iOS client, Systems Manager for Android gives administrators fine-grained control over mobile devices, including pushing apps, disabling undesired features, and locking or wiping devices remotely.

Backpack — Backpack is a new feature that simplifies the distribution of content to enrolled devices. Allowing administrators to easily push files wirelessly to client devices, Backpack is completely integrated with Meraki’s dashboard, creating a single point for managing content no matter how many devices are enrolled. Backpack can automatically keep files up to date with changes that occur on the server. (iOS support is coming in Q4)

Systems Manager app — The Systems Manager app is available for download in the iTunes App Store and the Google Play Store, making it easy for users to download and self-enroll. (iOS app is coming in Q4)

Meraki Network Access Control (NAC) Integration — Enterprises running Meraki wireless networks can restrict access exclusively to devices enrolled in Systems Manager, preventing unmanaged and potentially insecure clients from accessing sensitive network resources. (Q4 availability)

In addition, the latest version of Systems Manager includes a slew of features designed to make administration of hundreds of devices easier, including WiFi provisioning and improved location accuracy.

The new version of Meraki’s Systems Manager is free for all users. More information and installation instructions can be found at http://www.meraki.com/sm.

Meraki Press Releases

18 September 2012

Tintri Wins “Best of VMworld 2012” Gold Award in Hardware for Virtualization Category

Tintri, Inc., the leader in purpose-built, VM-aware storage solutions, today announced that it won the Gold level award in the hardware for virtualization category as part of the TechTarget “Best of VMworld 2012” awards. The judges recognized Tintri’s VMstore T540 storage platform, which enables organizations to overcome storage-centric bottlenecks and extend the benefits of virtualization from the server side to storage, as the top hardware product for virtual environments. Tintri was recognized in an awards ceremony at VMworld 2012 in San Francisco.

The Best of VMworld 2012 awards winners were selected by an independent team of judges consisting of experts and editors from SearchServerVirtualization based on innovation, performance, ease of integration into environment, ease of use and manageability, functionality, value and whether the solution was able to fill a market gap. TechTarget received over 200 nominees for the contest, which is in its sixth year.

“Tintri won the hardware for virtualization category because it provides end-to-end monitoring that provides IT administrators with visibility into their environment so they know what to fix,” said the SearchServerVirtualization.com editors in an official statement.

“We’re thrilled to be recognized as a ‘Best of VMworld’ winner this year,” said Kieran Harty, Tintri CEO. “We’ve seen great customer response ever since we launched almost 18 months ago, and it’s clear that the market requires storage that is VM-aware. This award is a strong validation to our status as first movers in the VM-aware storage space along with the innovation and tremendous value that we’ve brought to the market.”

Tintri VMstore is the first and only production proven VM-aware storage platform that provides enterprises simplified and intelligent storage for virtual environments. Designed from the ground up to address virtualization storage challenges, Tintri brings intuitive VM-level manageability, simplicity, and flash performance at the industry’s lowest cost per VM workload. The unique approach has allowed the company to grow at an average quarterly rate of 100% since launching in March 2011. Tintri VMstore has helped over 100 enterprise customers in more than a dozen countries run a wide range of virtualized production enterprise applications, including databases, analytics and reporting software, Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint and virtual desktops.

Tintri Wins “Best of VMworld 2012” Gold Award in Hardware for Virtualization Category

17 September 2012

Vyatta Selected to Virtualize Networking for Leading Cloud Provider’s Datacenter - scott@cloud-distribution.com - Cloud Distribution Ltd Mail


Vyatta, the leader in software-based networking for virtual and cloud environments, today announced its enterprise-class virtual networking and security solution is providing the software for NS Solutions Corporation’s newest cloud service, Advanced Business Space on Network (absonne) datacenter.

NS Solutions is a leading IT solution provider in Japan operating a utility computing service called absonne. NS Solutions provides integrated solutions, which address customer needs for both business applications and systems platforms, offering end-to-end solutions including system consulting, planning, design, development, operation and maintenance, as well as total end-to-end outsourcing services. NS Solutions is adept at providing multi-vendor and mission-critical systems solutions as well as incorporating best-of-breed products and technologies to address customer needs.
For the absonne datacenter, which entered production in July 2012, NS Solutions deployed Vyatta Network OS for full-featured, redundant network and security infrastructure on a per-customer basis, ensuring uninterrupted service.

“NS Solutions’ absonne cloud is really a business platform at the core of hundreds of enterprises,” said Satoshi Kitazawa, Director of IT engineering division of NS Solutions. “From its inception, absonne was designed to be completely virtualized for agility and Vyatta plays a key role in enabling NS Solutions to realize that potential.”

Vyatta runs as a virtual machine on the VMware ESX 5 hypervisor and its primary role is to provide network edge routing and security services for NS Solutions’ customers. Within the datacenter, Vyatta runs VRRP and NAT and stateful firewall for redundancy in the event of a hardware failure. Should service be disrupted, Vyatta’s HA functionality will route traffic to another Vyatta instance with no interruption to the customer’s service.

“Vyatta is the only networking and security software solution capable of adjusting to customer and network demands with the agility of applications,” said Sheen Khoury, Senior Vice President of Sales and Field Operations. “With compute and storage virtualization at their respective tipping points, cloud providers, such as NS Solutions, are now focusing on virtualizing the network to further reduce costs and increase flexibility.”

Originally architected and tested with Vyatta Network OS Core, the need for the assurances that come with enterprise-tested and supported software became apparent for the NS Solutions team.

“Even in the event of a disaster, absonne is built to ensure continuous service, and this is what makes NS Solutions a leading cloud provider,” Kitazawa said. “Vyatta’s world-class support team truly simplified the deployment and in many instances worked side-by-side with our engineers to guarantee our service met customer demands.”

In addition to adapting to fluctuating business and customer demands, Vyatta empowers NS Solutions to take advantage of future technologies, such as software-defined networking (SDN).

“NS Solutions’ absonne datacenter is one of the more advanced and agile datacenters in existence today servicing enterprises,” said Kelly Herrell, CEO of Vyatta. “By virtualizing its network, NS Solutions is at the forefront of providers that will be able to quickly deploy and take advantage of software-defined networking advances as they mature.”

For more information on Vyatta’s networking and security software solutions, visit www.vyatta.com.


Vyatta Selected to Virtualize Networking for Leading Cloud Provider’s Datacenter - scott@cloud-distribution.com - Cloud Distribution Ltd Mail

What the iPhone 5 means for your network

After months of rumors, leaks, and speculation, Apple’s product announcements today were impossible to miss. The clear star of the show was the iPhone 5 with its bigger screen, LTE, and upgraded camera. If you’ve been following the hype as closely as we were, not much of this was a surprise, but we did find one upgrade particularly interesting: dual-band 802.11n WiFi.

While we aren’t sure what chip the iPhone 5 is going to use, current speculation is that it’s a new version of the venerable Broadcom BCM4330.The 5GHz capability means faster speed connections, but it also brings a few more benefits for your wireless network and the other devices connected to it. First, the 5 GHz band is less crowded than 2.4 GHz. A lot of other devices like cordless phones and microwaves use the lower band and create interference that gets in the way of WiFi signals. On top of that, the 2.4 GHz band has only three channels that don’t overlap with each other. The 5 GHz band is much roomier with many more available channels and less interference. Overall, 5 GHz WiFi means faster speeds on a much more stable connection. As device density increases, 5 GHz capability will lead to much a more efficient network that can pack more users onto a finite number of radio channels.



The 2.4 GHz band does beat 5 GHz, however, when it comes to distance. The lower frequency band is able to transmit over much longer distances, but you might start to notice the range limitation of 5 GHz just by moving from one room to the next. That’s why the ability to use both bands is so important: that flexibility can select the right band to maintain the best connection under different circumstances.

Meraki wireless APs have cloud-based channel optimization to optimize channel assignment. Until now, the iPhone had no choice but to use the 2.4 GHz band, but its latest iteration is now equipped to take advantage of the flexible technology in the access points it conects to.

According to Apple, the iPhone 5 will deliver a much faster browsing experience than its predecessors, but it will also make use of more of the available spectrum and avoid crowding bands for other wireless devices. If you need an excuse to make the upgrade, don’t do it for yourself. Do it for the greater good of everyone else on your network.

06 September 2012

Empowering SDN – Vyatta’s Networking Products Pave the Way | www.vyatta.com

Vyatta, the leader in software-based networking for virtual and cloud environments, today announced its new Empowering SDN initiative, designed to guide enterprises and service providers in building an enduring software-defined networking (SDN) strategy.

SDN has rapidly emerged as one of the hottest trends in the datacenter because it offers specific and measurable improvements in cost, speed of deployment and the efficiency of operations. As this new set of technologies take shape, many datacenter architects are reluctant to risk transferring critical business infrastructure to technologies still in development.

The significance of the Vyatta Empowering SDN program is the ability to take steps now, using established protocols like OSPF and BGP, to create agile, capacity-on-demand networks for the future. With Vyatta software-based routers, network engineers and architects can:
  • Utilize the Vyatta API to start today, by integrating software-based routers and firewalls into their management tools and server deployment infrastructure
  • Adopt a consistent routing and security approach to span existing production server farms and emerging, trial SDN-enabled server farms
  • Build toward, rather than catch-up to, the new SDN enabled operating environment
“Web monsters are certainly at the forefront of software-defined networking, but the majority of Fortune 1000 companies are looking for a strategy that will guide them toward SDN as it matures,” said Kelly Herrell, CEO of Vyatta. “With an enterprise-class networking and routing solution, Vyatta delivers a clear-cut strategy that enables enterprises and cloud providers to realize many of the benefits of SDN, today.”

One of the exciting promises enabled by SDN in cloud-based datacenter architectures is agility. Networks need to quickly respond to business needs as computing and storage capacity are deployed with just a few mouse clicks. Emerging SDN products allow users to allocate groups of servers on-the-fly – an important advancement in the datacenter.

Vyatta empowers enterprises to fully capitalize on the opportunity of SDN by connecting and securing these groups. Vyatta software-based routers, firewalls and VPNs use mature, stable code and can be operated as virtual machines (VMs). This approach removes the constraints of a fixed device with a finite, predetermined amount of physical ports and other resources. The Vyatta VM can be replicated and positioned where needed, avoiding network congestion due to unneeded trips out to a central router. Additionally, software-based networks can provide significant savings over a large, proprietary router – leveraging the economies of the x86 architecture.

Vyatta software-based networks are built on open source projects, resulting in code that has been downloaded more than a million times and tested extensively in production networks worldwide. Vyatta code has demonstrated interoperability with a wide range of network gear and continues to extend its capabilities, adding to the management and API with a roadmap to include OpenStack, CloudStack and other emerging cloud provisioning tools.

“Empowering SDN is our vision for using Vyatta’s stable and proven technology to aid in the transition to a more agile software-defined datacenter,” said Dan Tuchler, vice president of marketing for Vyatta. “SDN represents an important opportunity for customers and Vyatta is an important building block that can assist in their SDN strategy.”

For more information on Empowering SDN, visit www.vyatta.com/learn/empowering-sdn.

Empowering SDN – Vyatta’s Networking Products Pave the Way | www.vyatta.com

Verizon Wireless & Sprint Certify Pepwave's Multi-Cellular Router - Peplink

Peplink, a leading provider of load balancing and VPN bonding solutions for enterprise networking, today announced that Verizon Wireless and Sprint have certified the Pepwave MAX HD2 Multi-Cellular Router for use with their 3G networks. Available now to distributors, system integrators, and others seeking to take advantage of this high-growth market, the MAX HD2 is the first carrier-grade cellular router to feature multiple embedded modems for bandwidth bonding and failover, dramatically increasing both speed and reliability on the go.

Built to withstand the most demanding mobile-use conditions, the MAX HD2 operates in temperatures ranging from -40 to 65 °C and features industrial-grade shock resistance. The rugged MAX HD2's dual embedded EVDO/HSPA modems and patent-pending SpeedFusion™ bandwidth bonding technology seamlessly fuse multiple Internet connections for stutter-free teleconferencing, HD video delivery, and other bandwidth-intensive mobile applications. In addition to connecting using the MAX HD2's embedded cellular modems, users can also employ Wi-Fi, satellite, and other Ethernet- or USB-based Internet connections.

Widely deployed in diverse mobile networking roles worldwide, the Pepwave MAX HD2 is a favorite in applications ranging from industrial telemetry and surveillance to news unit field broadcast and public safety.

"I'm consistently impressed by the sheer variety of ways our customers are putting the Pepwave MAX HD2 to work in the field," said Keith Chau, Peplink General Manager. "Just when I think I've seen it all, a new customer comes along and tells us how the MAX HD2 has improved operations in an application we'd never foreseen."

In addition to being certified by Verizon Wireless and Sprint, the MAX HD2 is also fully compatible with AT&T, T-Mobile, and other GSM/HSPA cellular networks worldwide. This broad-based network support makes the MAX HD2 a compelling option for any enterprise in the market for a complete, multi-environment mobile networking solution.

"We take great pride in earning Verizon Wireless and Sprint certification for the MAX HD2," added Chau. "We're very excited to see how Verizon Wireless and Sprint customers will use the MAX HD2 in retail, industry, public service, media, and other M2M applications. And we look forward to serving these customers with the commitment to innovation, advanced engineering, and service for which Peplink, and its sister brand, Pepwave, are known around the world."
Verizon Wireless & Sprint Certify Pepwave's Multi-Cellular Router - Peplink

04 September 2012

Meraki named to the CRN list of Coolest Emerging Vendors for 2012

Meraki, the leader in cloud-managed networking, announced today that it was named one of CRN magazine’s Coolest Emerging Vendors for 2012. The Company earned its place on the merit of its enterprise solutions, which combine high-performance networking equipment with Meraki’s powerful cloud management platform. Meraki’s product suite includes wireless LAN access points, security appliances, Ethernet switches, and mobile device management, all centrally managed from its award-winning cloud-based dashboard.

This year’s list recognized companies founded after 2005 that have already made an impact in their respective industries, and CRN highlighted Meraki as one of 25 making particularly cool innovations. These Emerging Vendors are breaking ground in a variety of enterprise technologies including cloud computing, networking, storage, security, virtualization, and software.

Meraki continued to lead the networking category in 2012 with a number of achievements:
  • Created the industry's first cloud-managed Ethernet switch with Layer 7 application visibility
  • Released Air Marshal for ultra-secure wireless LANs
  • Launched iOS support for Meraki's cloud-based mobile device management
  • Grew Q1 and Q2 revenues more than 125% year over year
In addition to technological innovation, CRN stresses the importance of channel strategy in selecting the Emerging Vendors. Meraki’s channel partners have found considerable success selling solutions to enterprises of all sizes across a range of industries. Meraki’s philosophy of deep channel relationships has garnered Partner of the Year honors from multiple VAR 500 resellers.

“It’s great to be recognized by CRN as a leader in next generation networking solutions,” said Peter Atkin, Director of Worldwide Channels at Meraki. “We look forward to continuing to deliver innovative technology to our customers and partners.”