Enterprise IoT Deployments require a bottoms up approach to be successful

James Carville, famed campaign strategist for Bill Clinton
in 1992, facing an incumbent President with a post-Gulf War approval rating of
90%, a year and a half before the election, coined the phrase, “the economy,
stupid”, to remind all staffers to concentrate on the importance of economic
issues.  It was short, pointed and
effective.  Similarly, when I look at
enterprises trying to deploy IoT networks, too many are focusing on a specific
use case or some payoff from big data, when they must remember, all successful
IoT deployments starts with the network.

Enterprise IoT deployments need a bottoms up approach

First, some definitions:

• Bottoms up = build wireless network (Wi-Fi +
  IoT).  Stable, scalable, secure – then
  build solutions on top of it
• Top down = find a solution to focused
  problem.  Create an overlay network to
  connect app to a “thing”. 

Every house needs a solid foundation.  You would not want your electrician pouring
concrete, nor would you want your brick layer to work on your plumbing.  So why do we feel comfortable with sensor,
device or manufacturers of “things” providing the components for an enterprise network?  We shouldn’t. 
Thing vendors make things, and network vendors make networks. In
addition, each device vendor only cares about their own device, which means
their own network. Deploying a network for one device type adds complexity,
adds cost, is highly redundant and has the potential to create security
holes. 

Benefits of a bottoms up network

Just as James Carville beseeched his staffers to focus on the economy as a primary driver for success, so to do I beseech Enterprise IT and OT managers to think about the network first.  It will serve you well and provide significant benefits. And here are things to consider in making make a stable, scalable, secure, cost-effective IoT access network that can meet the needs of an enterprise IoT ecosystem.

1. World-class backbone – enterprise-grade wired and wireless infrastructure.
2. Integrated front end – AP supporting best of

The Ruckus Room recently caught up with Ruckus CTO Mehmet Yavuz and Ruckus VP Greg Beach on the sidelines of a very busy MWC 2019 to discuss 5G and the IoT.

As
Yavuz tells The Ruckus Room, 5G is an
extremely hot topic at the conference in Barcelona. While enhanced mobile
broadband is certainly something to look forward to, says Yavuz, the deployment
of 5G also brings its own set of very real challenges, particularly since 80%
of mobile data is consumed indoors.

“The traditional cellular deployment model has big macros outside with outdoor
antennas. This is a really good model for wide-area outdoor coverage. However, 5G
uses the spectrum band – at the higher end of the spectrum at 3.5 gigahertz or even
higher,” he explains.

“[This makes it] difficult for the signal to penetrate indoors. So, you really need an indoor solution [such as CBRS private LTE] to help solve these indoor data demands. The indoor solution also needs to be scalable, low-cost and easy to deploy.”

Another important aspect of 5G, says Yavuz, is its expected ability to support mission-critical applications.

“You hear about ultra-reliable low latency or millisecond latency and these are targeted at high-end applications,” he elaborates. “It may be a venue [with a need to support] AR/VR, or it may be a factory [supporting] automation. [These applications] all require edge compute capabilities because you don’t have the luxury of using traditional mobile core networks ”

Yavuz also touched on the IoT, noting that there are a plethora of available technologies on the market today.

“We bring all these [disparate] technologies together under one umbrella with our Ruckus IoT suite,” he says. “For the IT department or the operational department, this means there is only one network to manage. For us, what is really important is simplicity, performance and the complete solution.”

Overall, notes Yavuz, the picture for 2019 and beyond looks quite exciting.

“We have all these great technologies coming together with our partners. We’re bringing all these great applications …

Ruckus Networks, an ARRIS company, welcomes Eric Law as Vice President of EMEA Sales. In this role, he will be responsible for leading marketing, sales, and operations throughout the region.

“Eric is a highly-regarded industry leader who strategically supports partner, enterprise and channel communities to drive business success,” said Bart Giordano, Sr. Vice President, Worldwide Sales. “We’re confident that Eric will help grow our existing efforts in EMEA, and we’re excited to welcome him to the Ruckus pack.”

Eric previously spent more than 17 years
with Cisco driving results and scaling the business in enterprise and channel
leadership positions. He later joined Purple to lead its worldwide sales
operations. He grew the business from the ground-up and defined the company’s
go-to-market strategy, including proving the impact of a SaaS business model. Eric
will leverage his extensive background to bring strategic growth opportunities
to customers, partners and the company. He will also extend Ruckus’ presence in
vertical markets.

“I was first attracted to Ruckus because of
its partner loyalty and passion; it was unlike anything I’d seen before,” said
Law. “The quality of its people is unmatched, both in their perseverance and in
their hunger to achieve results. The technology is exceptional and speaks for
itself. I see tremendous growth opportunities for us in EMEA.”

After 22 years living in Spain, Eric has a deep-rooted understanding of the European, African, and Middle Eastern market (as well as a soft spot for the Real Madrid football team).

The post Ruckus Networks Appoints Eric Law to VP of EMEA Sales appeared first on The Ruckus Room.

from The Ruckus Room https://theruckusroom.ruckuswireless.com/wired-wireless/company-news/ruckus-networks-appoints-eric-law-to-vp-of-emea-sales/…

Ruckus Networks, an ARRIS company, welcomes Eric Law as Vice President of EMEA Sales. In this role, he will be responsible for leading marketing, sales, and operations throughout the region.

“Eric is a highly-regarded industry leader who strategically supports partner, enterprise and channel communities to drive business success,” said Bart Giordano, Sr. Vice President, Worldwide Sales. “We’re confident that Eric will help grow our existing efforts in EMEA, and we’re excited to welcome him to the Ruckus pack.”

Eric previously spent more than 17 years
with Cisco driving results and scaling the business in enterprise and channel
leadership positions. He later joined Purple to lead its worldwide sales
operations. He grew the business from the ground-up and defined the company’s
go-to-market strategy, including proving the impact of a SaaS business model. Eric
will leverage his extensive background to bring strategic growth opportunities
to customers, partners and the company. He will also extend Ruckus’ presence in
vertical markets.

“I was first attracted to Ruckus because of
its partner loyalty and passion; it was unlike anything I’d seen before,” said
Law. “The quality of its people is unmatched, both in their perseverance and in
their hunger to achieve results. The technology is exceptional and speaks for
itself. I see tremendous growth opportunities for us in EMEA.”

After 22 years living in Spain, Eric has a deep-rooted understanding of the European, African, and Middle Eastern market (as well as a soft spot for the Real Madrid football team).

The post Ruckus Networks Appoints Eric Law to VP of EMEA Sales appeared first on The Ruckus Room.

from The Ruckus Room https://theruckusroom.ruckuswireless.com/wired-wireless/company-news/ruckus-networks-appoints-eric-law-to-vp-of-emea-sales/…

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In part four of this series, we explored a range of Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) features, including target wake time (TWT), 1024-QAM and Long OFDM Signal. In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at the benefits of Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) for new and legacy devices, as well as the expected feature set arriving in Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) Wave 1 and Wave 2.

Wi-Fi 6: Current and legacy devices

Although there are relatively few Wi-Fi 6 devices (802.11ax) on the market today (90% of the devices of are still Wi-Fi 5), it is important to note that the industry faced a similar situation when Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) was first introduced. From our perspective, there are several reasons to begin moving to Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) as soon as possible.

Firstly, a Wi-Fi 6 access point (AP) can serve new Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) devices, along with legacy Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) and Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n) devices. Secondly, a number of manufacturers are already selling Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) clients. Thirdly, Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ac) and legacy clients can co-exist just like Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) and Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n). Last, but certainly not least, both Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) and non-Wi-Fi 6 clients benefit from Wi-Fi 6 technologies.

For example, Wi-Fi 6 clients are more efficient, thereby freeing up more spectrum for Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) devices. This is perhaps analogous to a carpool lane, in which the first two lanes are for Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) devices. More specifically, let’s say 50% of the devices are Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) and 50% are Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax). We put all the Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) devices in the carpool lane, allowing them to operate more efficiently. Concurrently, the remaining Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) clients benefit because we took half the cars from all the lanes – which frees up contention for the Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) devices.

This provides higher throughput and performance for
networks, with beacon intervals occurring every 100 milliseconds. So, how does
this work? Well, the AP ‘says’ that it will use …