“Aruba Leads the Pack” is how Forrester puts it in their recent report, The Forrester New Wave™: Wireless Solutions, Q3 2019 - The Eight Solutions That Matter Most And How They Stack Up. The objective of the report is to help infrastructure and operations professionals select the right partner for their requirements for both Wi-Fi and the burgeoning need to connect a wide range of IoT devices and protocols as part of their digital transformation.
Aruba is the only vendor in the “Leaders” category, delivering, in our opinion, a commanding performance that includes a differentiated rating, the highest possible in 6 out of the 10 evaluation criteria provided by Forrester:
- Wireless connectivity
- Wireless hardware
- Spectrum/device visibility
- Security
- Solution positioning
- Road map
Forrester’s view that the new wave of wireless solutions include wayfinding, location services, and IoT connectivity aligns closely with the capabilities in Aruba’s wireless portfolio. As Aruba’s CTO, Partha Narasimham says, “the network has become the central nervous system” for IT – enabling services that provide location information and real-time directions, visibility into assets and people to improve operations and connecting Internet-of-things (IoT) devices to the business to support digital transformation.
Wi-Fi As An IoT Platform is More Than Connectivity
The world of IoT comprises many different device types but also a wide of variety of protocols. Wi-Fi 6, Zigbee and Bluetooth 5 enable “things” from door locks to electronic shelf labels to insulin monitors to interact with the network in order to deliver exceptional user experiences and value to the business.
Traditionally, IT has needed to stand up overlay networks to accommodate these protocols, but now, as highlighted in the Forrester report, wireless connectivity solutions must expand beyond Wi-Fi. For this reason, Aruba has integrated support for IoT protocols in our latest Wi-Fi 6 access points and will be releasing new IoT expansion radios to help existing customers maximize investment protection – for more information, check out our IoT session at Mobility Field Day 4.
But you don’t become leader of the pack by stopping at simple connectivity. Aruba starts at the beginning of the IoT value chain to deliver a holistic solution—from setup to application integration to business result. Beyond the networking infrastructure, the focus of our IoT solution is to easily enable third-party integrations with our ArubaEdge partners, which include:
- Siemens – for converged, plant-wide networks that bridge OT and IT.
- EnOcean – for connected lighting, sensors, and other systems
- SES-Imagotag – for electronic shelf labels
- Solu-M – for electronic shelf labels
- Zebra Technologies – for tablets, imagers, scanners, and printers
- ZF Openmatics – for industrial-grade asset tracking solutions
- And additional partners listed on our IoT ecosystem
The Aruba wireless LAN is front-and-center, providing Dynamic Segmentation to deliver intelligent deep packet inspection that isolates mission-critical applications, separates them from the rest of the network and forwards their traffic to the appropriate destination. This level of insight is key to ensure that the network is optimized for the convergence of IoT systems while minimizing the impact on mobile users.
Based on Forrester’s evaluation, Aruba is the best fit for companies needing advanced wireless services – and this is why we believe they named Aruba as the Leader in this business-critical space. To download the full Forrester report, please go to arubanetworks.com.
