With warehouses difficult to wire, manufacturing, supply chain and distribution organisations have long been a user of wireless LAN technology. But all too often, wireless systems pose their own problems thanks to metal obstacles and electromagnetic interference that make warehouses a harsh radio environment. The microcell architecture used by traditional wireless LANs exacerbates the problem, with complex channel planning needed to deal with the network’s own interference as well as that from external sources. Meru is different.
Meru Single Channel Architecture
From the beginning, Meru designed its network for the All-Wireless Enterprise: an organisation that never needs to depend on wires for connectivity. For a manufacturing, supply chain or distribution organisation, this can be a game-changer in terms of business agility and operational efficiency.
Meru’s virtualised Wireless LAN architecture avoids channel planning and gives every user on the network a strong, contention-free signal through a dedicated Virtual Port. Virtual port ensures that each client connects at its own optimal speed. The system is cost-effective, easy to set up and adaptable to any application. Whether needed for telemetry, telephony, location-tracking or security, Meru delivers an Ethernet-like connection with cellular-like mobility.
Wireless like Wire. Meru’s virtualised Wireless LAN offers all the performance that users expect from wired Ethernet combined with the mobility of cellular.
Quality of Service. Data applications get all the bandwidth they need while toll-quality voice is assured.
Business Agility. High-performance, proactive monitoring and solid reliability assure users that the network meets tight SLAs.
Airtime Fairness. Each client in a packed warehouse – be it an RDT device, Wi-Fi phone or Voice-Picking system – gets the same experience as a single user connected to the entire wireless network.
Meru customers belong to a diverse range of industries and geographic areas. They have an equally diverse range of reasons for choosing Meru: Universities that require very high bandwidth density for lecture theatre’s; Manufacturing companies that need smooth roaming for telephony users; Hospitals that demand rock-solid reliability for critical patient monitoring systems. And there are enterprises that need all of these and more.
I am new to wireless
Most people have experienced the benefits of wireless in home networks or hotspots, but some enterprises are understandably reluctant to deploy it. With flaky performance and complex management requiring an understanding of the dark arts of RF, wireless can seem like a lot of pain for very little gain. Meru networks changes that, making wireless so good that wired edge networks aren’t even needed anymore.
Why upgrade from microcell?
Most wireless networks still aren’t good enough to rely on for primary connectivity. Performance isn’t predictable, connections are dropped just when people need them most and support eats an ever-growing portion of the IT budget. This is because most networks are still built on the microcell architecture, an important step in wireless evolution but one whose limitations have become clear as wireless LANs scale. Meru is different, offering a next-generation approach to wireless LANs.
I need to reduce Network and Operational Expense
Most wireless LAN management systems are reactive, responding to user complaints and fixing problems after they occur. This is unacceptable in manufacturing, supply chain and distribution organisations that need the assurance of network and application availability. What’s needed is a way to detect potential issues before they negatively impact real users, without having to send support staff out into the field to run time-consuming tests.
Meru’s Service Assurance Manager is the industry’s first proactive operations and diagnostics system for wireless networks and the applications that run over them. It uses Meru’s virtualised WLAN technology to give an IT Manager a true clients’-eye view of the network, finding and fixing potential problems before they affect real users.
Instead of passively monitoring the network, Service Assurance Manager creates virtual clients on existing access points which actively inject traffic over the air using application profiles that match the requirements of real network services. Requiring no manual troubleshooting or extra sensors, it gives manufacturing, supply chain and distribution organisations a way to guarantee high service levels for any application running over a wireless network.
Come and talk to us on the Meru stand (31) at Logistics Link South, quote this code (WHN12) and qualify for a free wireless network survey.
ADA Networks
Mike Burns
Tel: 0844 871 8081
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