NEW REPORT BY INDEPENDENT RESEARCH FIRM RANKS ARUBA WIRELESS NETWORKS HIGHEST AMONG NEXT GENERATION WI-FI SUPPLIERS

Definitive Report Examines Enterprise Wi-Fi Challenges, Gives Advice to Corporate IT Decision Makers

SAN JOSE, CA - October 6, 2003 - A new Wi-Fi report, entitled "Picking An Enterprise Wi-Fi Platform," published by Forrester Research Inc., has ranked Aruba Wireless Networks a Leader among enterprise wireless LAN (WLAN) switch/router vendors using Forrester's Wave(TM) methodology.

The exhaustive report examines and weighs a wide variety of business and technical criteria among the new crop of Wi-Fi equipment suppliers, giving Aruba the best score of 4.3 in the Current Offering dimension. Top marks were awarded to Aruba in the areas of security, scalability, remote management and service and support.

Forrester's new Wi-Fi report is the first to provide corporate IT staff with insightful and objective commentary on today's enterprise wireless landscape. The report details the differences in WLAN startup products and suggests what to look for in next generation Wi-Fi gear.

Forrester suggests that enterprises define a strategy to reduce the capital and operating costs of Wi- Fi deployments. According to the report, companies with an immediate need for enterprise-scale Wi- Fi should look to today's crop of WLAN startups. The report adds that buyers should look for WLAN products that speed installation, eliminate management headaches, deliver ironclad security and bolster network scale.

In the report, Forrester stated that Aruba lead the pack of competitors noting that Aruba improves scale, minimizes performance bottlenecks and takes security a step further with per-user stateful firewalls, automated shutdown of rogue APs, and denial of services (DoS) protection.

Not surprisingly, security ranked highest as Wi-Fi's greatest challenge, garnering 73 percent of the vote among 40 network architects at $1 billion-plus firms. Twenty-eight percent of the respondents noted that WLANs are currently being deployed "enterprise-wide."

Forrester specifically suggests enterprises look for enterprise Wi-Fi platforms that provide:

automated site surveys and radio frequency (RF) validation dynamic power and channel assignment quality and class of service (QoS/CoS), 802.11e support and seamless subnet roaming hardware-based acceleration, 2 to 3 Gbps throughput per switch, VPN termination and increased support for ACLs WPA- and AES-capable access points, rogue AP detection and isolation, integration with existing security mechanisms like AAA or VPN.

Source: Aruba Wireless Networks http://www.arubanetworks.com