When growing a business and competing against larger companies, midsize businesses want right-sized networking solutions. The just-released “The Right Tools for the Job: Simplifying Network Transformation for Midsize Organizations,” an IDC study commissioned by Aruba, singles out this desire as a common problem, citing:
“Too often, solutions available to the midmarket either are lower-end products geared at small business that don’t have the business-class capabilities that midsize organizations require or are targeted at large enterprises, making the solutions prohibitively expensive and require specialized expertise to operate.”
Midsize solutions need to be tailored to the needs of midsize customers. When Aruba looks at roadmaps and discusses product design goals—that’s what we have in mind. Our advanced wireless network solutions keep the business running with less fuss while adding high-end, business-class performance, security, and reliability.
When we think about business acceleration for small and mid-sized businesses, here’s how we’re aligning our products with midsize business needs.
High-quality app performance on a traffic-heavy wireless LANs.In many 2019 SMB trend articles, analysts and bloggers wrote that IoT apps would move into production this year. I hope they’re right and IoT does make gains, but what I want even more is that standard business apps reach the performance gains that users need every day.
Aruba has built-in application visibility and control features that support priorities and policies for more than 2,800 applications. You can make sure that Microsoft Office 365 and Skype for Business deliver the best possible performance during regional meetings. Similarly, on payday you can prioritize employee payroll processing. With these capabilities, workforce applications perform as expected when they are needed most.
Multiple Aruba wireless switches support multi-gigabit Ethernet speeds that keep VoIP, file sharing (yes, even large ones), payroll, and videoconferencing performing beautifully, Previously, these business apps were quarantined to the wired network, but when supported by the right solutions, wireless can easily handle these high bandwidth, latency-sensitive apps with ease. Aruba also offers switch options that support the new 802.3bt power standard needed to support high-performance 802.11ax APs.
Aruba Central also provides the necessary visibility to let you monitor client and app performance. When performance lags, drill downs help isolate problems so you can see who, or what, is causing problems. Aruba Central can track on-premises wired and wireless activities, as well as across remote branch locations and the wide area network.
Agility that drives business growth. Economic analysts predict the U.S. GDP to grow 2 percent to 3 percent in 2019. Within that steady growth, small and midsized businesses expect to realize higher profits in the coming year.
Responding to an increase in customer sales, a merger or acquisition, or a spurt of new employee hiring can drain network performance. For businesses curious about cloud services, Aruba cloud management puts agility front and center, enabling scalability for an increasing number of complex applications as well as a growing number of users and locations. Businesses only purchase what they need and can adjust as business needs change. When new business spikes, companies can easily throttle up to accommodate additional bandwidth needs.
Do more, with less—and win. The number of new projects and service requests flowing into IT sometimes feels like an atmospheric river. Even as asks increase, more resources are hard to find. The budget rarely has space for more headcount, even as technology sets mushroom and artificial intelligence or the latest IT innovation joins mobile on the network.
Aruba has an answer for this pain point. Aruba’s ultra-reliable infrastructure is easy to deploy and maintain with limited staff thanks to zero-touch provisioning, cloud-based network management, built-in security, and centralized operations. Adaptive radio management monitors the RF environment to prevent interference and allow for adjustments to maximize performance. Aruba’s patented ClientMatch feature constantly evaluates all aspects of the environment directing clients to the AP that provides the best service. All these features add up to a network with fewer disruptions. With less hassle and time spent troubleshooting, IT has more time to focus on accelerating business growth.
What we’re seeing among our customers is that IT leaders are moving into more strategic business positions. Aruba’s no-fuss networking means they can give the business the attention and leadership it needs while the network stays up and running. Small teams can easily handle day-to-day system maintenance while carving out time to focus on more strategic projects.
Networking that Just Works
From our engagements with small and midsized customers, we know SMBs are unique. We want to make sure Aruba fits into these environments like your warmest sweater on the coldest day. Behind every update and improvement, we are building simple-to-use networking solutions that hum along trouble-free in the background, letting you run your business.
Read what IDC has to say about identifying the right tools and resources for the midsize market in this study commissioned by Aruba.
