Meru brings virtualisation to wireless LANs

The virtual port technology optimises radio frequency (RF) resources to raise WLAN performance and reliability to wireline levels, while reducing the cost of wireless networking.

For the first time, every client device on a Meru WLAN will have its own dedicated virtual wireless network.

According to Jonathan Ordman, director of Wavelink, just as with dedicated ports on a wired switch, enterprises gain control over wireless resources allocated to each client, lowering both initial expenditures and ongoing management costs.

"Virtualisation has brought dramatic cost savings, resource efficiencies and predictability to the server and storage worlds," said Ordman.

"Now it is doing the same for wireless LANs – at a time when the increasing diversity of devices and applications in the enterprise makes cost-effective use of assets more critical than ever.

“When applied to the WLAN, the fine-grained control and effective resource-sharing of virtualisation lets each user device live within its own 'virtual world,' where performance and other policies can be customised to its specific needs," he added.

Virtualisation technology has two chief components – pooling and partitioning. In 2003 Meru pioneered the concept of wireless "virtual cells," which enable all wireless access points (APs) in an organisation to share a common, pooled radio channel resource.

With the introduction of virtual port technology, the common pooled resources of virtual cells can be partitioned into multiple virtual WLANs, with a unique WLAN for each user device.

Virtual port technology is included in Meru's System Director 3.6 software, which is available now from Wavelink.