Ruckus launches two new Wi-Fi technologies

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Ruckus Wireless introduced two new Wi-Fi technologies, SmartWay and BeamFlex+.

"Network services devices that have historically been accessible through wired Ethernet connections are now integrating Wi-Fi to provide greater deployment flexibility," said Steve Martin, VP, Engineering, Ruckus Wireless. "For these devices to be accessible by users on Wi-Fi networks, they must advertise themselves. These advertisements, often performed by multicast protocols such as Bonjour or UPnP, create unique challenges that administrators must struggle to solve."

Ruckus SmartWay is a new Wi-Fi software technology that can simplify administration and optimization of service discovery traffic, such as Apple Bonjour and UPnP protocols over Wi-Fi networks, says a release.

Ideally suited for K-12 and higher education environments, SmartWay helps organizations enable users with Apple devices to exploit other resources on their networks. For example, SmartWay makes Apple Bonjour services such as AirPrint, AirPlay, and the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) used in wireless printers and multimedia devices usable and controllable across subnets, adds the release.

Current competitive approaches simply bridge all multicast traffic (e.g. Bonjour) between two virtual LANs (VLANs) or bridge the traffic from a single VLAN to all VLANs on a service-by-service basis. This means that a given service, such as Apple TV, becomes available everywhere - creating security concerns as resources are visible in undesired locations.

Without SmartWay a teacher, for instance, can use AirPlay to transmit from an iPad to the Apple TV in the classroom only if both devices are on the same subnet. However, with SmartWay support for Bonjour, the teacher can access any AppleTV as well as have any student transmit from their iPad (on the student Wi-Fi network) to the Apple TV (on a different Wi-Fi network).

Ruckus is natively integrating SmartWay support for bridging Bonjour and other multicast traffic directly into its ZoneFlex software system. This allows service discovery traffic to be selectively bridged across subnets to enable large-scale deployments without overloading the network.

Ruckus BeamFlex+ adds essential technology to Ruckus-patented BeamFlex adaptive antenna arrays. BeamFlex+ is 'polarization-agnostic' and automatically adjusts.

BeamFlex+ leverages maximal ratio combining (MRC) technology in combination with polarization diversity.

Available now, Ruckus BeamFlex+ is supported at no cost in select Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi access points that integrate Ruckus-patented dual-polarized adaptive antenna systems.

Ruckus SmartWay, available in Q2, is a free software capability supported within Ruckus ZoneFlex software operating system. SmartWay can currently be tested using existing Ruckus ZoneFlex systems with a beta software upgrade.