1. Pervasive Wireless LANs Serving The Needs Of Higher Education Kamal Anand VP Marketing kamal@merunetworks.com

2. 2 Company Background  Founded in 2002  Customers include Higher Ed, Healthcare, Retail, Manufacturing, F500  Deployed in over 30 Higher Education Institutions

3. 3 Wireless LAN Evolution Hubs, Switching to Coordination Number of Clients and Coverage Applications Products / Technology Email, Web Stand AloneHot-Spot Email, Web Voice and Data Business applications Primary connectivity Video emerging Pervasive Architecture Bridge Wireless hub Centralized security and management Minimal AP WLAN Switch High Density, QoS, Transparent mobility Multi-Services WLAN Coordinated WLAN* * Gartner’s Dulaney describes as “4 th Generation

4. 4 Enterprise WLAN Product Evolution Generation 1 + Central Management Security 2000-02 1 st Generation Stand-alone 2003-4 2nd Generation Centralized 2004-5 3rd Generation Coordinated Aggregated AP’s Central Switch/ Appliance Stand-alone Cisco 1200+SWAN Symbol Aruba, Trapeze, Airespace … Meru Generation 2 + RF Intelligence High Density QoS Zero Handoff Cisco 350 Orinocco RoamAbout Basic Connectivity Services / Scale Coordinated AP’s Central Controller

5. 5 Meru WLAN Products Simple Deployment Architecture Floor 2 Floor 1 Data Center L2 / L3 Backbone Virtual AP AP Meru Controller Meru AP  Coordinated Access Point ► Air Monitor + Access Point ► Application Flow Classification ► Contention management  Controller ► Centralized appliance for coordination, management and security ► Built-in application Flow-Detectors e.g. SIP, H.323, Spectralink SVP ► Platform for services: e.g. Location Tracking

6. 6 Enterprise Scale Deployment Floor 2 Floor 1 Data Center Meru AP AP Remote Office Central Campus Servers - Radius, DHCP, LDAP Web Branch Office Internet Deployment Options:  L2 LAN between AP and controller (e.g. branch office, corp bldg)  L3 campus network between AP and controller (e.g. campus)  L3 WAN between AP and controller (e.g. remote office) Overlay Network Leveraging:  Existing L2/L3 devices  Existing WAN connections  Existing WiFi clients Meru Controller

7. 7 Pervasive WLAN Requirements  Deployment and RF Intelligence  Predictable Performance in High Density  Multiple Applications: Data, Voice, and Video  Seamless Mobility  Integrated Security ► Budget constraints and service level expectations ► Lecture halls, classrooms, libraries, unions. ► Data today ► Voice emerging – soft phones, Wi-Fi phones ► Video – lecture content, video presentations ► Students, faculty, visitors – constant movement ► Student / faculty / guest security ► Integration with network access control Higher-Ed is Key Example

8. 8 Wireless Channel Planning Problem  Access Points are hubs: RF is shared medium  Connectivity bound by physical proximity to AP ► Signal strength degrades with distance ► Trade-off between data rate and coverage  Spectrum is limited (particularly in 2.4GHz band): Capacity is bounded in space  Interference is dictated by neighborhood of both transmitter and receiver (i.e. transmit power control is necessary but not sufficient) Goal is to deploy APs in a way that minimizes contention for shared spectrum across APs How should you place Access Points in order to achieve pervasive coverage and optimum performance?

9. 9 RF Design and Planning Myth By doing channel planning and deploying on the three non-overlapping channels you can avoid co-channel interference

10. 10 Deployment of APs in Pervasive WLAN: Co-Channel Interference Signal Strength Distance -68dBm -95dBm 54Mbps 1Mbps There are 3 non- overlapping channels in 2.4GHz (Ch 1, 6, 11) x x x xx x

11. 11 Meru Coordinated WLAN Architecture  APs act as a coordinated system of antennas rather than each AP acting as an individual wireless hub ► All APs on the same channel have the same BSSID (wireless MAC address) ► Client only sees only one AP on a channel Physical WLAN Infrastructure Client’s View of Meru WLAN Benefits:  Minimum RF Planning  Handoff totally transparent to clients  Load balancing transparent to clients  Ok to over-deploy APs for redundancy and rogue detection

12. 12 Meru Simplifies Deployment Meru’s RF Planning Framework  Automatic channel planning  Automatic power control  Coordination of channel access across APs  Virtualization of a “cell”  Global optimization of settings based on environment goals

13. 13 MAC problem: Trade-off between Throughput and Density 20-25 Total Bandwidth at Peak (Mbps) 5 8 11 1 3 Baseband + Protocol Overhead Contention Loss Contention Loss 802.11 MAC Performance Number of Simultaneous Contenders Peak Aggregate Throughput in Single Cell Environment  CSMA throughput degrades with contention  Contention loss is more severe in 802.11 than Ethernet  Cannot detect collisions directly  Backoff scheme trades off fairness for scale

14. 14 Meru Air Traffic Control Technology Predictable Performance with Density 20-25 Total Bandwidth at Peak (Mbps) 5 8 11 1 3 Contention Loss Contention Loss Today’s AP Performance Meru AP Performance Active Users Per AP TodayMeru 20-25 100+ Number of Active Users Peak Aggregate Throughput

15. 15 Predictable and Better End User Experience  Predictable, uniformly fair throughput across all clients Throughput 1 AP + 20 Clients Throughput 1 Meru AP + 20 Clients

16. 16 QoS Requirements Wired and Wireless LANs  In order to provide Quality of Service, the infrastructure must have the following components: ► Low delay ► Low jitter ► Low packet loss  Wired LANs addressed this by utilizing switches instead of shared medium hubs as well as increasing bandwidth

17. 17 QoS: Wireless Requires More S R Wired Network Scheduling Packets Meets Requirements S R Needed: Scheduling + Contention Management I I I Wireless Network ► Packet scheduling provides QoS as duplex, switched medium ► Even with the old hub architecture collisions could be detected in real- time unlike wireless. ► Multiple stations contend for the same shared medium ► While transmitting, sender cannot listen at same time for collisions ► Scheduling not enough for QoS ► Predictable channel access is key for jitter and QoS – typical 802.11 implementations don’t provide this Sender Receiver

18. 18 Meru Air Traffic Control Application Flow Detection Global RF Resource Knowledge Admission Control Control Mechanisms in 802.11 Standard Meru QoS Algorithms +  Global knowledge of interference and resource usage at AP’s including knowledge of clients  Time-based accounting, not bandwidth-based  Inter-cell Coordination  Deep packet inspection for understanding resource requirements of Application (e.g. SIP/Codec)  Resource management + +  Virtual carrier sense for uplink reservation/QoS  Contention-free periods and contention periods. Per-flow Scheduling  Uplink and Downlink accounting of packets / expected packets  Reservation-based QoS +

19. 19 Generic Access Point + Standard Client Access Point with Over-The-Air QoS Standard Client Meru Air Traffic Control Over-The-Air QoS Converged Network - voice and data on same channels Typically data and voice on Separate channels/network 20+ Low AP Wired QoS Standards-based Over-the-air QoS AP Voice Quality MOS Score 4.0+ Over-the-air QoS

20. 20 How Meru Over-the-Air QoS Compares to Others MeruOther Approaches Global RF Knowledge and Inter-cell Coordination Yes-- Application Flow Detection and Classification Yes (Dynamic) Static ESSID-based or Filters Admission ControlYes-- Downlink (AP to Client) Reservation-based True over-the air QoS Simple Priority of packets Uplink (Client to AP) Reservation-based True over-the air QoS -- Fairness across clients Per-class, Per-station, time-based fairness FIFO or packet based

21. 21 Meru Air Traffic Control Technology Zero Handoff Meru WLAN Virtual AP Architecture No Handoff For Client BSSID = M 00:00 100ms – 1 sec between handoff Today’s WLAN BSSID = ABSSID = B 01:00

22. 22 We needed a WLAN system that was easy to deploy across many buildings on campus, could be centrally managed over an IP routed network, and could implement different security policies for different classes of users. Meru’s plug- ‘n-play deployment model with centralized policies and control, its ability to deploy access points anywhere on campus across IP subnets, as well as its flexibility in supporting 64 different ESSIDs each with a different security policy made the system move to the top of our evaluation list. Mr. Richard W. Reeder, Chief Information Officer of SUNY Stony Brook University ” “ SUNY Stony Brook Meru Customer Success Story

23. 23 Contention Management Effortless Scalability and Deployment  Supported over 500 users at the Conference on Instructional Technologies  With L3 mobility, extending wireless to a new site is as easy as plugging an AP into any data jack on the campus  Supports any user with a standard 802.11device without any client software L2/L3 Network Virtual AP Student Center Library Computer Lab Dormitories Meru Controller

24. 24 Key Benefits of Meru for Pervasive WLANs 1. Minimal RF Planning: Meru virtually eliminates RF planning and manages co-channel interference 2. Highly Scalable: Meru supports extremely high user densities with any dynamic mix of voice and data 3. Handoff: Meru provides for client handoff without any loss for higher quality voice and data applications 4. Convergence: Meru allows you to deploy WLANs with voice and data on the same Access Points, in multi-cell networks. 5. True b/g Performance: Meru gives g clients full rate performance in mixed b/g networks

25. Thank You Serving The Needs Of Higher Education Kamal Anand VP Marketing kamal@merunetworks.com