Manage Your Wireless LAN with Meru Service ... - Meru Networks

Service Assurance Made Easy
Meru Service Assurance
Management Suite

“Forrester found that organizations using the Meru solution can benefit from
potentially avoiding repeated site surveys, reducing the number of access points
deployed and the staff to manage them, reusing the wireless network for new
technologies, delivering greater network quality of service, and improving security
compared to previous generation WLAN infrastructure.”
– Forrester, Total Economic Impact of Meru’s Virtualized Wireless LAN Solution
Wireless like Wired reliability delivered
We don’t think it’s too much for users to expect their applications to
work wirelessly. We also don’t believe it’s too much for IT to provide
Wireless like Wired connectivity and reliability. That’s why we created
the Service Assurance Management Suite.

It’s Time for a New Approach To Wireless
Network Operations
Best-in-class enterprises have been experiencing escalating management costs for their wireless LANs. Why
They are finding that more users with more devices require predictable, on-demand connectivity that supports
their workflows – whether applications run on wired or wireless infrastructures. Unfortunately, traditional
microcell wireless networks aren’t keeping pace.
Wi-Fi devices are entering the enterprise from every direction – smart phones, tablets, laptops, sensors –
and the help desk is getting more complaints. The way traditional systems operate, IT doesn’t believe they
can foresee problems so they only address them once they occur. Worse yet, it takes highly experienced
staff to find the root cause of complex, unpredictable wireless problems that occur in dynamic wireless
systems. Without stabilizing the wireless network or the ability to get a clear understanding of the end-toend,
application level performance and easily view what’s going on with the network down to the client level,
as users increase, IT resources quickly become overstretched trying to close helpdesk tickets generated by
unreliable wireless connectivity.
That’s About To Change:
Virtualization = Visibility
By virtualizing the wireless architecture from the start, Meru brings deep visibility to every device and
every interaction across the network. Unlike traditional microcell networks where client devices control
communication and access points avoid communicating with each other, Meru virtualized wireless LANs
control and see everything:
:: Access points are on the same RF channel so they can see and test each other
:: Clients get their own secure operating environment, a virtual port, controlled by the network and providing
optimal quality of service, security, and application performance
:: All network interactions are governed by the system to ensure 99.99% availability and maximum
performance for every user and every device
The system records all this information, delivering visibility into network operation at a level never before
achieved by an integrated system. Meru Service Assurance Management Suite uses this visibility to allow
you to deliver Wireless like Wired reliability in three simple steps.
:: Predict
:: Simplify
:: Scale

Predict, Simplify, Scale, and Save
Meru provides the most comprehensive – and easy to use – integrated operations center for managing
mobile workflows. The Meru Service Assurance Management Suite provides a single point of visibility
into the application, RF virtualization, and hardware layers of the virtualized wireless network. With deep
visibility into every aspect of wireless communications, the ability for the access points to test each
other with live application data, and the resulting rich data available instantly, you CAN predict the user
experience, simplify management, and scale wireless network without overburdening already stretched
network operations staffing.
Meru Service Assurance Management Suite takes this user-centric view and understands both wireless
and wired environments without requiring network overlays or multiple hardware systems.
Predict
Traditional wireless environments keep IT staff on the defensive, but
Meru Service Assurance Management Suite helps you identify and
eliminate or mitigate issues before users experience their applicationdisrupting
affects significantly reducing calls to the helpdesk by
dissatisfied end users and lowering network operational costs.
Virtual clients sweep through the network, testing elements with
live application data and provide the results to the executive level
network health dashboard to highlight areas where users are most
likely to complain and enable you to direct your efforts to the most
critical areas first! You can see exactly what a client would experience
and immediately focus troubleshooting in the right place before you
ever receive a help desk call. Meru Service Assurance Management
Suite is the only system capable of using this integrated, user-centric,
predictive capability to reduce user downtime while also reducing the
number of calls to your help desk.
With Meru Service Assurance Management Suite you can easily
track statistics for predictive planning and quality monitoring. You
can forecast when quality will pass the service-affecting threshold
and alert IT before users experience issues. You can also automate
network tests, even in areas with no active users, to ensure that
users will have an optimal experience everywhere they go.
Simplify
Reduce or even eliminate the need to add staff for wireless LAN
management by leaving nothing to chance. In any wireless network
the vast majority of communication is done by users (clients) - in a
crowded network there can be 20-30 times more user traffic than
access point traffic. Since the virtualized WLAN is in control of the
communications of everything on the network and doesn’t leave
decision making to unpredictable clients, the Service Assurance
Management Suite can use all that information to provide unique
visibility down to a level that other systems simply miss out on - the
user. Other systems can’t correlate network issues to wireless user
events because they don’t understand or control the user state,
hence losing out on a vast majority of critical information needed
to accelerate root-cause analysis. Service Assurance Management
Suite leverages the visibility provided by virtualization into a range
of rich, integrated wireless services to greatly simplify network
operations:
:: Wireless Time Machine: Rewind and replay the history of the
entire network state, anytime, in any location, for any user or
device.
:: Client State Information: View details of client associations,
mobility, traffic, and station events.
:: Packet-level detail: See a detailed packet-level history of every
connection
:: Automated Correlation: Meru provides automatic correlation
between user and network events with automatic root-cause
inference.
:: Expert Systems: Meru provides answers, not more cryptic data
by performing heuristic analysis for identifying potential client and
infrastructure issues.
Scale
Meru Service Assurance Management Suite enables you to scale
the network and your staff with previously unimaginable ease.
Because Meru Service Assurance Management Suite and the Meru
virtualized wireless LAN together form a wireless application delivery
platform, you can add business critical applications to every location
– from headquarters to remote offices and branch locations – and
validate the applications’ performance without lifting a finger. The
global interface provides access to all wireless services and lets you
manage up to 25,000 access points per Service Assurance appliance,
regardless of where they are located. Manage from a desktop, laptop,
iPhone, or iPod Touch with customized dashboards, and leverage
virtual clients with remote diagnostic capabilities.
With Meru, the system manages the RF and puts you back in control
of your network.
Save
Meru customers find that a highly reliable network and detailed
visibility through Meru Service Assurance Management Suite
greatly reduces the number of network incidents and accelerates
troubleshooting to significantly reduce overall downtime. For
example, one Meru customer with a network of 1,000 access
points documented a 75 percent reduction in costs associated with
downtime and reduced actual hours of downtime by 80 percent.

Meru Service Assurance Management Suite
The Meru Service Assurance Management Suite is the industry’s most advanced suite of applications
for managing every aspect of wireless LAN operations in the most demanding wireless environments.
An extensible hardware platform, open APIs, and a full suite of wireless management applications
allows you to:
:: Provide a wireless utility and reduce the overall number of help desk calls.
:: Dramatically reduce time to resolution for wireless problems.
:: Reduce the time and cost of providing wireless across a distributed enterprise.
Management Applications
E(z) NM Network Manager
This comprehensive wireless management and troubleshooting
system provides network visualization, configuration, wireless
performance dashboards, and fault management capabilities
through a single interface. View activity details at each level of
the infrastructure and gain real-time and cumulative performance
metrics:
:: Comprehensive dashboards deliver over-the-air performance
metrics.
:: Rapid troubleshooting is further simplified with a view of network
trends.
:: Use Wireless Time Machine to recreate a wireless station state for
help desk support.
:: Context-aware search makes the management dashboards easy
to use.
E(z)RF Location Manager
Automatically track the physical location of thousands of wireless
devices, including laptops, PDAs, wireless VoIP handsets, and
unauthorized access points. You can also create wireless security
policies based on enterprise-defined parameters, and integrate
location tracking capabilities with other business applications, such as
asset tracking.
Wired/Wireless Management
Meru’s Wired and Wireless Management solution provides a
centralized view of all network resources and operations for both
wired and wireless networks. Easy to use and easy to deploy, the
solution delivers enterprise scalability, automated alerts, and multivendor
fault and performance management.
Through a partnership with SolarWinds, you can combine E(z)RF
Network Manager and SolarWinds Orion Network Performance
Monitor to increase deployment efficiency, improve operational
efficiency, accelerate problem resolution, and evaluate the impact
of network issues across the entire wired-wireless network
infrastructure.
Diagnostics
Services Assurance Manager
Now you can set service level expectations for users, proactively
monitor the performance of the network, and predict end user
disruptions before they impact productivity. Utilizing the virtualized
wireless architecture provided by the Meru System Director
operating system, Meru Services Assurance Manager provides
a self-monitoring and testing capability that delivers end-to-end
performance statistics and predictive capabilities by testing the
network with live application data and recording the results. With
Meru Wireless Sentinel, IT staff in the network operations center can
launch remote diagnostics to assist in end-to-end diagnosis. Alerts
and alarms notify you of impending service and SLA impact before
clients experience them.
Intelligent wireless forensic capabilities and advanced performance
heuristics accelerate root cause analysis. The Wireless Time Machine
provides a centralized view of the global network for every wireless
device and packet on your network.
Spectrum Manager
Wireless connection quality can be affected by other systems and
devices using the same or adjacent RF spectrum. Meru Spectrum
Manager continuously scans all WLAN channels in both IEEE 802.11
frequency bands (2.4 and 5GHz) to identify sources of potential
interference. Automated RF Signature Mapping classifies the source
of interference in 2-4 seconds, the fastest in the market today.
Identified sources of interference and interferer data are presented
in rich graphical dashboards, as well as detailed current and
historical reports. Spectrum Manager also automatically classifies RF
interference from multiple sources and creates interference logs of
current and historical interference detected.

Security
Wireless Intrusion Prevention Solution
A signature-based Wireless Intrusion Prevention Solution (WIPS)
detects and counters wireless security issues. You can customize
threat response based on your organization’s individual needs, as
well as define new signatures and generate reports of all activity
that affects security. Meru’s dual-radio access points can scan on all
bands, even while serving real-time traffic such as voice and video.
Meru WIPS:
:: Recognizes rogue access points and back doors.
:: Recognizes and blocks floods of Authentication, Association,
EAPoL Start, EAPOL Logoff De-authentication and Dissociation
messages, as well as other denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.
:: Prevents Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) crackers from gathering
enough information to execute an attack while detecting
and blocking unauthorized use of NetStumbler. It also tracks
unsuccessful EAP Handshakes.
:: Finds spoofing and faking
attackers before they are able to do any damage.
PCI Compliance Reporting
Meru makes it easy to follow PCI best practices with Meru
Compliance Manager, which enables comprehensive PCI auditing.
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
mandates a minimum layer of protection and a set of best practices
for business that handle credit and debit card information. Meru
extends security to the wireless network and offers physical security
that prevents outsiders from even knowing the network exists. Once
legitimate users have connected, Meru’s Virtual Port technology gives
each device its own personalized firewall for fine-grained access
control.

Start Simplifying Now
Giving users exactly what they want is actually easy with a Meru
virtualized wireless LAN and the Meru Service Assurance Management
Platform. Customers around the world have saved time, significantly
reduced management costs, and freed their staff for other projects. Let
Meru manage your network—so you can manage your business.
For more information about Meru the Service Assurance Management
Platform, visit www.merunetworks.com or contact us at +1.408.215.5300.

MERUNETWORKS.COM
About Meru Networks | Founded in 2002, Meru Networks provides a virtualized wireless LAN solution that cost-effectively optimizes the
enterprise network to deliver the performance, reliability, predictability and operational simplicity of a wired network, with the advantages of
mobility. Meru’s solution represents an innovative approach to wireless networking that utilizes virtualization technology to create an intelligent
and self-monitoring wireless network, and enables enterprises to migrate their business-critical applications from wired networks to wireless
networks, and become all-wireless enterprises. Meru’s solutions have been adopted in all major industry vertical markets, including Fortune
500 enterprises, healthcare, education, retail, manufacturing, hospitality and government. Meru is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., and has
operations in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.merunetworks.com or call 408.215.5300.