Why Choose Meru?
Meru customers belong to a diverse range of industries and geographic areas. They have an equally diverse range of reasons for choosing Meru: Universities that require very high bandwidth density for all-wireless dorms; Manufacturing companies that need smooth roaming for telephony users; Hospitals that demand rock-solid reliability for critical patient monitoring systems. And there are enterprises that need all of these and more.
The one thing these companies all have in common is that they derive real strategic value from the wireless LAN. For Meru customers, wireless access is not a second-class network to be used only when an Ethernet port is unavailable. Many of them are already All-Wireless Enterprises, treating wireless as the primary network access method used in mission-critical applications day after day.
To learn more about why you should choose Meru, read the articles below that apply to your case. And welcome to a world without wires!
Everyone has experienced the benefits of wireless in home networks or hotspots, but some enterprises are understandably reluctant to deploy it. With flaky performance and complex management requiring an understanding of the dark arts of RF, wireless can seem like a lot of pain for very little gain. Meru networks changes that, making wireless so good that wired edge networks aren't even needed anymore.
Most wireless networks still aren't good enough to rely on for primary connectivity. Performance isn't predictable, connections are dropped just when people need them most and support eats an ever-growing portion of the IT budget. This is because most networks are still built on the microcell architecture, an important step in wireless evolution but one whose limitations have become clear as wireless LANs scale. Meru is different, offering a next-generation approach to wireless LANs.
The move to 802.11n improves performance, but sometimes it introduces as many new as it solves. Coverage is harder to predict and plan for, making performance unpredictable and holes difficult to fill. Its appetite for radio spectrum is higher, leading to a greater risk of co-channel interference. And with many clients still using older 802.11a/b/g, the upgrade may go to waste. Meru has solved these problems and made 802.11n a mature technology.
VoIP is replacing circuit-switched telephony and wireless is replacing wires, but combining the two introduces new challenges. Voice is less tolerant of latency and jitter than other applications, with even a few microseconds' delay noticeable in conversation. Mobility introduces further complications, as voice users are much more likely than data users to be moving between different access points' coverage areas. As thousands of users in all industries can attest, Meru makes handoffs smooth and simple.
Video is one of the most demanding applications, needing both the high capacity and reliability associated with data and the low latency and jitter associated with voice. Running video over 802.11n links is particularly challenging, as packet loss rates of just a few percent can make a picture go blank and a soundtrack unintelligible. But with Meru's industry-leading 802.11n, a converged network can easily handle voice, video and data simultaneously.
I need to replace Wires with Wireless
Many laptops and mobile devices only have wireless connectivity as a means to connecting to the network, and many users avoid plugging in whenever possible. But most enterprise networks still build and maintain wired networks to use as a backup, as most wireless LANs simply aren't reliable enough to bet the business on. For wireless to produce true cost savings, it has to replace wires entirely. Meru has envisaged this kind of all-wireless world edge network since day one, and developed the technology to make that happen.
I need to reduce Network and Operational Expense
Most wireless LAN management systems are reactive, responding to user complaints and fixing problems after they occur. This is unacceptable in healthcare, finance and other industries that need the assurance of network and application availability. What's needed is a way to detect potential issues before they negatively impact real users, without having to send support staff out into the field to run time-consuming tests.
I need to compare WLAN Virtualization and Legacy Solutions
All wireless vendors talk about mobility, security and 802.11n. But deep down, most are based around the same basic hub-like microcell architecture. Clients contend for access to the same radio, then try to guess for themselves when they should connect or disconnect. Only Meru's is built on Wireless LAN Virtualization, a next-generation architecture that was created for a world where laptops outnumber desktops, mobile phones replace landlines and people rely on wireless as their main means of network access.