Juniper resellers on fast track to next-gen wireless

The local bosses of Aruba Networks and Juniper Networks have told CRN that their strategic partnership will help channel partners meet rising demand for 802.11ac wireless technology.

The partnership, announced in early June, will see the two vendors team up on a reference architecture for integrating Aruba's wireless and mobility solutions with Juniper's enterprise switches and routers.

It will give Juniper's partners access to Aruba's 802.11ac wireless solutions; Juniper's existing wireless LAN technology, which it acquired through the buyout of Trapeze in 2010, only supports the previous 802.11n standard.

Robert Kingma, chief executive of Sydney-based Juniper partner ICT Networks, said he was "excited by the opportunity to introduce Aruba's market-leading solutions to our clients".

"Mobility is one of the fastest-growing segments in technology. The WLAN market is growing at double-digit rates year on year. Together with switching, the total addressable market is north of $26 billion in 2013," said Kingma.

He called the combined technology "the most comprehensive, best-in-class set of ethernet switches and enterprise-grade indoor and outdoor wireless access offerings on the market".

Juniper's new country manager for Australia & New Zealand, Nathan McGregor, said corporate networks were being bogged down due to the bring your own device (BYOD) trend – and that 802.11ac would help.

"If you look at trends and the huge growth in BYOD and BYOA [bring your own application] in the market, 44 percent of organisations do BYOD already. Of those that don't, 34 percent intend to," said McGregor.

Aruba's Australia & New Zealand managing director, Steve Coad, said: "In the future, it means we will be developing API integration between Juniper and Aruba product and primarily around common simplified management and visibility between the two network platforms – between Juniper core switching and routing and our network access layer, the WLAN and access switches."

Coad said he didn't see the Aruba deal as creating competition with Juniper's existing 802.11n technology. "Fifty percent of our shipments in Australia are 11ac; that is the fastest-growing market for wireless LAN. A lot of Juniper customers will be looking for a platform and they don't have that option with Juniper."

Another local partner, UXC Connect chief executive Ian Poole, said Aruba had excellent wireless technology and mobility solutions, but that it was important to understand how the partnership would impact existing channel partners and customers.

"When vendors make announcements on acquisitions and/or partnerships, it is important to understand the impact on channel partners and customers. These issues include accreditations, training, sparing, support, as well as software versions and integration into existing customer systems," said Poole.

Juniper's McGregor said that the vendor would still support its existing technology and that the deal shouldn't create an undue certification burden on partners, because they'd never had to train up on 801.11ac.

"We haven't swayed from our position on wireless as it relates to 11n. We still have that product available and support it. The next gen, 11ac, we hadn't gone to that level with our partners in technology enablement," said McGregor.