Archive for February, 2011

Introducing 3 new products

Amidst all the excitement around the release of our  MX series cloud managed  routers, we’ve been hard at work building new wireless technologies. Today, we are very excited to announce three new additions to our wireless product portfolio that provide greater capacity, increased security and broader reach for enterprise wireless LANs:

  • The Meraki MR24 ultra-high performance wireless access point, the first enterprise class AP to feature 3-stream,
    3×3 MIMO technology.
  • Meraki NAC, the  industry’s first network access control solution built in to a wireless LAN
  • Meraki Teleworker VPN, which provides secure remote access to the corporate network for wired and wireless clients like VoIP phones and iPads

Meraki MR24

The Meraki MR24 is the first enterprise class AP to feature 3-stream, 3×3 MIMO. This technology allows both of the MR24’s radios to use 3 data streams at once, for a total of 6 streams.

Independent testing of the MR24 by engineers at the Tolly Group saw speeds of over 240 Mbit/s – almost 2.5x the maximum speed of Fast Ethernet! Even at a range of 150 feet, testers recorded nearly 200 Mbit/s throughput.

We’re extremely excited to add this ultra-high performance access point to our wireless LAN family. We hope that it will be a valuable tool to our customers as they meet growing wireless capacity requirements.

The MR24 is available for immediate order at a list price of $1199.

Meraki NAC

Meraki NAC prevents clients without antivirus protection from accessing your network, reducing the threat of viruses and worms in increasingly open enterprise environments. Like our Traffic Shaper, Meraki NAC is a solution that previously would require the integration of a 3rd party NAC – with hardware, client software, VLAN configuration, AD integration etc.

Our NAC is the first NAC solution to be built directly into a wireless LAN. Configuration is done with just two clicks. Meraki NAC adds additional protection on top of existing features like our stateful policy firewall and guest isolation. Meraki NAC is included with our Enterprise Cloud Controller license, and will be rolled out to existing customers at no cost starting today. Enjoy!

Meraki Teleworker VPN

Meraki Teleworker VPN allows users to securely access their corporate network, including file servers, VoIP phone systems, and internal applications, from any Internet-connected Meraki AP. This AP establishes a secure tunnel back to headquarters – using our Cloud Controller to handle complexities like NAT traversal, key negotiation, etc. Teleworker VPN lets you extend the full office experience to remote workers: plug in a VoIP phone and get a dial tone or wirelessly access your private cloud from an iPad. Our teleworker solution enforces security policies like 802.1x, traffic shaping, and our new NAC, right at the edge, so your corporate network is well protected. Teleworker VPN is available on all Meraki enterprise APs at no additional charge (no VPN license!). Rollout to existing customers begins today. Learn more about our VPN solution, including both our new Teleworker VPN and site to site VPN with our MX routers.

We’re very excited about all of these new products. We’ll be following up with detailed posts about each of them in the coming weeks. In the mean time if you have any feedback let us know!

Introducing 3 new products

Amidst all the excitement around the release of our  MX series cloud managed  routers, we’ve been hard at work building new wireless technologies. Today, we are very excited to announce three new additions to our wireless product portfolio that provide greater capacity, increased security and broader reach for enterprise wireless LANs:

  • The Meraki MR24 ultra-high performance wireless access point, the first enterprise class AP to feature 3-stream,
    3×3 MIMO technology.
  • Meraki NAC, the  industry’s first network access control solution built in to a wireless LAN
  • Meraki Teleworker VPN, which provides secure remote access to the corporate network for wired and wireless clients like VoIP phones and iPads

Meraki MR24

The Meraki MR24 is the first enterprise class AP to feature 3-stream, 3×3 MIMO. This technology allows both of the MR24’s radios to use 3 data streams at once, for a total of 6 streams.

Independent testing of the MR24 by engineers at the Tolly Group saw speeds of over 240 Mbit/s – almost 2.5x the maximum speed of Fast Ethernet! Even at a range of 150 feet, testers recorded nearly 200 Mbit/s throughput.

We’re extremely excited to add this ultra-high performance access point to our wireless LAN family. We hope that it will be a valuable tool to our customers as they meet growing wireless capacity requirements.

The MR24 is available for immediate order at a list price of $1199.

Meraki NAC

Meraki NAC prevents clients without antivirus protection from accessing your network, reducing the threat of viruses and worms in increasingly open enterprise environments. Like our Traffic Shaper, Meraki NAC is a solution that previously would require the integration of a 3rd party NAC – with hardware, client software, VLAN configuration, AD integration etc.

Our NAC is the first NAC solution to be built directly into a wireless LAN. Configuration is done with just two clicks. Meraki NAC adds additional protection on top of existing features like our stateful policy firewall and guest isolation. Meraki NAC is included with our Enterprise Cloud Controller license, and will be rolled out to existing customers at no cost starting today. Enjoy!

Meraki Teleworker VPN

Meraki Teleworker VPN allows users to securely access their corporate network, including file servers, VoIP phone systems, and internal applications, from any Internet-connected Meraki AP. This AP establishes a secure tunnel back to headquarters – using our Cloud Controller to handle complexities like NAT traversal, key negotiation, etc. Teleworker VPN lets you extend the full office experience to remote workers: plug in a VoIP phone and get a dial tone or wirelessly access your private cloud from an iPad. Our teleworker solution enforces security policies like 802.1x, traffic shaping, and our new NAC, right at the edge, so your corporate network is well protected. Teleworker VPN is available on all Meraki enterprise APs at no additional charge (no VPN license!). Rollout to existing customers begins today. Learn more about our VPN solution, including both our new Teleworker VPN and site to site VPN with our MX routers.

We’re very excited about all of these new products. We’ll be following up with detailed posts about each of them in the coming weeks. In the mean time if you have any feedback let us know!

Introducing 3 new products

Amidst all the excitement around the release of our  MX series cloud managed  routers, we’ve been hard at work building new wireless technologies. Today, we are very excited to announce three new additions to our wireless product portfolio that provide greater capacity, increased security and broader reach for enterprise wireless LANs:

  • The Meraki MR24 ultra-high performance wireless access point, the first enterprise class AP to feature 3-stream,
    3×3 MIMO technology.
  • Meraki NAC, the  industry’s first network access control solution built in to a wireless LAN
  • Meraki Teleworker VPN, which provides secure remote access to the corporate network for wired and wireless clients like VoIP phones and iPads

Meraki MR24

The Meraki MR24 is the first enterprise class AP to feature 3-stream, 3×3 MIMO. This technology allows both of the MR24’s radios to use 3 data streams at once, for a total of 6 streams.

Independent testing of the MR24 by engineers at the Tolly Group saw speeds of over 240 Mbit/s – almost 2.5x the maximum speed of Fast Ethernet! Even at a range of 150 feet, testers recorded nearly 200 Mbit/s throughput.

We’re extremely excited to add this ultra-high performance access point to our wireless LAN family. We hope that it will be a valuable tool to our customers as they meet growing wireless capacity requirements.

The MR24 is available for immediate order at a list price of $1199.

Meraki NAC

Meraki NAC prevents clients without antivirus protection from accessing your network, reducing the threat of viruses and worms in increasingly open enterprise environments. Like our Traffic Shaper, Meraki NAC is a solution that previously would require the integration of a 3rd party NAC – with hardware, client software, VLAN configuration, AD integration etc.

Our NAC is the first NAC solution to be built directly into a wireless LAN. Configuration is done with just two clicks. Meraki NAC adds additional protection on top of existing features like our stateful policy firewall and guest isolation. Meraki NAC is included with our Enterprise Cloud Controller license, and will be rolled out to existing customers at no cost starting today. Enjoy!

Meraki Teleworker VPN

Meraki Teleworker VPN allows users to securely access their corporate network, including file servers, VoIP phone systems, and internal applications, from any Internet-connected Meraki AP. This AP establishes a secure tunnel back to headquarters – using our Cloud Controller to handle complexities like NAT traversal, key negotiation, etc. Teleworker VPN lets you extend the full office experience to remote workers: plug in a VoIP phone and get a dial tone or wirelessly access your private cloud from an iPad. Our teleworker solution enforces security policies like 802.1x, traffic shaping, and our new NAC, right at the edge, so your corporate network is well protected. Teleworker VPN is available on all Meraki enterprise APs at no additional charge (no VPN license!). Rollout to existing customers begins today. Learn more about our VPN solution, including both our new Teleworker VPN and site to site VPN with our MX routers.

We’re very excited about all of these new products. We’ll be following up with detailed posts about each of them in the coming weeks. In the mean time if you have any feedback let us know!

Introducing 3 new products

Amidst all the excitement around the release of our  MX series cloud managed  routers, we’ve been hard at work building new wireless technologies. Today, we are very excited to announce three new additions to our wireless product portfolio that provide greater capacity, increased security and broader reach for enterprise wireless LANs:

  • The Meraki MR24 ultra-high performance wireless access point, the first enterprise class AP to feature 3-stream,
    3×3 MIMO technology.
  • Meraki NAC, the  industry’s first network access control solution built in to a wireless LAN
  • Meraki Teleworker VPN, which provides secure remote access to the corporate network for wired and wireless clients like VoIP phones and iPads

Meraki MR24

The Meraki MR24 is the first enterprise class AP to feature 3-stream, 3×3 MIMO. This technology allows both of the MR24’s radios to use 3 data streams at once, for a total of 6 streams.

Independent testing of the MR24 by engineers at the Tolly Group saw speeds of over 240 Mbit/s – almost 2.5x the maximum speed of Fast Ethernet! Even at a range of 150 feet, testers recorded nearly 200 Mbit/s throughput.

We’re extremely excited to add this ultra-high performance access point to our wireless LAN family. We hope that it will be a valuable tool to our customers as they meet growing wireless capacity requirements.

The MR24 is available for immediate order at a list price of $1199.

Meraki NAC

Meraki NAC prevents clients without antivirus protection from accessing your network, reducing the threat of viruses and worms in increasingly open enterprise environments. Like our Traffic Shaper, Meraki NAC is a solution that previously would require the integration of a 3rd party NAC – with hardware, client software, VLAN configuration, AD integration etc.

Our NAC is the first NAC solution to be built directly into a wireless LAN. Configuration is done with just two clicks. Meraki NAC adds additional protection on top of existing features like our stateful policy firewall and guest isolation. Meraki NAC is included with our Enterprise Cloud Controller license, and will be rolled out to existing customers at no cost starting today. Enjoy!

Meraki Teleworker VPN

Meraki Teleworker VPN allows users to securely access their corporate network, including file servers, VoIP phone systems, and internal applications, from any Internet-connected Meraki AP. This AP establishes a secure tunnel back to headquarters – using our Cloud Controller to handle complexities like NAT traversal, key negotiation, etc. Teleworker VPN lets you extend the full office experience to remote workers: plug in a VoIP phone and get a dial tone or wirelessly access your private cloud from an iPad. Our teleworker solution enforces security policies like 802.1x, traffic shaping, and our new NAC, right at the edge, so your corporate network is well protected. Teleworker VPN is available on all Meraki enterprise APs at no additional charge (no VPN license!). Rollout to existing customers begins today. Learn more about our VPN solution, including both our new Teleworker VPN and site to site VPN with our MX routers.

We’re very excited about all of these new products. We’ll be following up with detailed posts about each of them in the coming weeks. In the mean time if you have any feedback let us know!

Introducing 3 new products

Amidst all the excitement around the release of our  MX series cloud managed  routers, we’ve been hard at work building new wireless technologies. Today, we are very excited to announce three new additions to our wireless product portfolio that provide greater capacity, increased security and broader reach for enterprise wireless LANs:

  • The Meraki MR24 ultra-high performance wireless access point, the first enterprise class AP to feature 3-stream,
    3×3 MIMO technology.
  • Meraki NAC, the  industry’s first network access control solution built in to a wireless LAN
  • Meraki Teleworker VPN, which provides secure remote access to the corporate network for wired and wireless clients like VoIP phones and iPads

Meraki MR24

The Meraki MR24 is the first enterprise class AP to feature 3-stream, 3×3 MIMO. This technology allows both of the MR24’s radios to use 3 data streams at once, for a total of 6 streams.

Independent testing of the MR24 by engineers at the Tolly Group saw speeds of over 240 Mbit/s – almost 2.5x the maximum speed of Fast Ethernet! Even at a range of 150 feet, testers recorded nearly 200 Mbit/s throughput.

We’re extremely excited to add this ultra-high performance access point to our wireless LAN family. We hope that it will be a valuable tool to our customers as they meet growing wireless capacity requirements.

The MR24 is available for immediate order at a list price of $1199.

Meraki NAC

Meraki NAC prevents clients without antivirus protection from accessing your network, reducing the threat of viruses and worms in increasingly open enterprise environments. Like our Traffic Shaper, Meraki NAC is a solution that previously would require the integration of a 3rd party NAC – with hardware, client software, VLAN configuration, AD integration etc.

Our NAC is the first NAC solution to be built directly into a wireless LAN. Configuration is done with just two clicks. Meraki NAC adds additional protection on top of existing features like our stateful policy firewall and guest isolation. Meraki NAC is included with our Enterprise Cloud Controller license, and will be rolled out to existing customers at no cost starting today. Enjoy!

Meraki Teleworker VPN

Meraki Teleworker VPN allows users to securely access their corporate network, including file servers, VoIP phone systems, and internal applications, from any Internet-connected Meraki AP. This AP establishes a secure tunnel back to headquarters – using our Cloud Controller to handle complexities like NAT traversal, key negotiation, etc. Teleworker VPN lets you extend the full office experience to remote workers: plug in a VoIP phone and get a dial tone or wirelessly access your private cloud from an iPad. Our teleworker solution enforces security policies like 802.1x, traffic shaping, and our new NAC, right at the edge, so your corporate network is well protected. Teleworker VPN is available on all Meraki enterprise APs at no additional charge (no VPN license!). Rollout to existing customers begins today. Learn more about our VPN solution, including both our new Teleworker VPN and site to site VPN with our MX routers.

We’re very excited about all of these new products. We’ll be following up with detailed posts about each of them in the coming weeks. In the mean time if you have any feedback let us know!

Introducing 3 new products

Amidst all the excitement around the release of our  MX series cloud managed  routers, we’ve been hard at work building new wireless technologies. Today, we are very excited to announce three new additions to our wireless product portfolio that provide greater capacity, increased security and broader reach for enterprise wireless LANs:

  • The Meraki MR24 ultra-high performance wireless access point, the first enterprise class AP to feature 3-stream,
    3×3 MIMO technology.
  • Meraki NAC, the  industry’s first network access control solution built in to a wireless LAN
  • Meraki Teleworker VPN, which provides secure remote access to the corporate network for wired and wireless clients like VoIP phones and iPads

Meraki MR24

The Meraki MR24 is the first enterprise class AP to feature 3-stream, 3×3 MIMO. This technology allows both of the MR24’s radios to use 3 data streams at once, for a total of 6 streams.

Independent testing of the MR24 by engineers at the Tolly Group saw speeds of over 240 Mbit/s – almost 2.5x the maximum speed of Fast Ethernet! Even at a range of 150 feet, testers recorded nearly 200 Mbit/s throughput.

We’re extremely excited to add this ultra-high performance access point to our wireless LAN family. We hope that it will be a valuable tool to our customers as they meet growing wireless capacity requirements.

The MR24 is available for immediate order at a list price of $1199.

Meraki NAC

Meraki NAC prevents clients without antivirus protection from accessing your network, reducing the threat of viruses and worms in increasingly open enterprise environments. Like our Traffic Shaper, Meraki NAC is a solution that previously would require the integration of a 3rd party NAC – with hardware, client software, VLAN configuration, AD integration etc.

Our NAC is the first NAC solution to be built directly into a wireless LAN. Configuration is done with just two clicks. Meraki NAC adds additional protection on top of existing features like our stateful policy firewall and guest isolation. Meraki NAC is included with our Enterprise Cloud Controller license, and will be rolled out to existing customers at no cost starting today. Enjoy!

Meraki Teleworker VPN

Meraki Teleworker VPN allows users to securely access their corporate network, including file servers, VoIP phone systems, and internal applications, from any Internet-connected Meraki AP. This AP establishes a secure tunnel back to headquarters – using our Cloud Controller to handle complexities like NAT traversal, key negotiation, etc. Teleworker VPN lets you extend the full office experience to remote workers: plug in a VoIP phone and get a dial tone or wirelessly access your private cloud from an iPad. Our teleworker solution enforces security policies like 802.1x, traffic shaping, and our new NAC, right at the edge, so your corporate network is well protected. Teleworker VPN is available on all Meraki enterprise APs at no additional charge (no VPN license!). Rollout to existing customers begins today. Learn more about our VPN solution, including both our new Teleworker VPN and site to site VPN with our MX routers.

We’re very excited about all of these new products. We’ll be following up with detailed posts about each of them in the coming weeks. In the mean time if you have any feedback let us know!

MIMO: Why Multiple Antennas Matter

Though quite the buzzword over the past several years, MIMO hasn’t been all hype. It can deliver real, tangible benefits to the end-user. The truth is, it’s not necessary for an IT manager to understand the intricate details of how MIMO works–since it should “just work” and make wireless networks faster and more reliable. However, an understanding of terminology and techniques used in MIMO will minimize confusion and lead to more informed decisions regarding MIMO products and, ultimately, the performance that should be expected from them.

MIMO: The More the Merrier?

MIMO stands for multiple-input multiple-output, where multiple refers to multiple antennas used simultaneously for transmission and multiple antennas used simultaneously for reception, all over a radio channel. And what is the channel? The channel can be generally summarized as the radio environment between the transmitter and receiver. It includes the antennas, and for this discussion we will simply focus on the number of transmit and receive antennas and not on their particular characteristics.

Therefore, “multiple-input” refers to multiple transmitter antennas, since they input a radio signal into the channel, and “multiple-output” refers to multiple receiver antennas, since they take output from the channel and into the receiver. What if there is only one receiver antenna? This is then “single-output,” and we can have a multiple-input single-output configuration. Commonly used terms such as 2×2 MIMO refer to a configuration with two transmitter antennas and two receiver antennas. This can be generalized by describing an NxM system, where N is the number of transmitter antennas, M is the number of receiver antennas, and N is not necessarily equal to M.

2×2 SM from white paper thumbnail

Figure 1: Two transmit (Tx1, Tx2) and two receive antennas (Rx1, Rx2) forming a 2×2 configuration

One might wonder why it is desirable to add more antennas at all. How many antennas should the transmitter and receiver have? Is it simply a case of “more is better”? Broadly speaking, adding more antennas on the transmitter or receiver can be used to improve link quality and reliability, throughput between the transmitter and receiver, or both.

Increase Your Diversity

One primary reason to use multiple antennas is to improve link quality and reliability. Diversity uses two or more antennas on the transmitter and/or the receiver. For example, a basic form of receiver diversity is done by placing two antennas at a certain distance from each other, and because of the difference in physical location, each receives a slightly different version of the signal sent by the transmitter. The receiver mathematically combines them to form a better estimate of the transmitted signal than if it had only one receive antenna. In figure 2, below, each receiver antenna, Rx1 and Rx2, has a slightly different version of the signal emitted by the transmitter antennas. This technique is also called spatial diversity because the receiver antennas are spatially separated from each other.

Receive diversity with a 1x2 configuration

Figure 2: Receive diversity with a 1×2 configuration

Conversely, a system can employ spatial diversity with more than one transmitter antenna by separating them at a certain distance that has desirable effects. The transmitter sends its signal over both antennas (in figure 1, Tx1 and Tx2) and therefore the signal has spatial diversity. In many cases, the transmitter won’t send exactly the same signal to each antenna, but rather will modify the signal so it is transmitted slightly differently from the second antenna. Examples of this are delay diversity and space-time block coding, in which both antennas transmit their own version of the signal as modified by a special mathematical matrix.

Both transmit and receive diversity can increase the reliability of the link between the transmitter and the receiver. This is important especially for channel conditions that are noisy, have fading, or are otherwise challenging. It can also have the secondary effect of increasing the usable range between the transmitter and receiver by requiring less repetition of data due to loss or damage during the delivery process across the channel.

Increasing reliability is definitely desirable in today’s crowded and often interference-prone networks, and using multiple antennas for diversity helps us get there. But it’s the quest for increasing bandwidth that seems to never stop, so how do we increase the throughput between the transmitter and receiver? For this we turn to spatial multiplexing.

Get Spatial

Spatial multiplexing is a multiple antenna technique that increases the data rate as compared to single antenna techniques. Theoretically, spatial multiplexing can increase the capacity of the system as pairs of transmitter and receiver antennas are added to the system. The source data (usually data requested by the user) is split into two or more independent data streams that are transmitted over multiple antennas, called spatial streams. A common configuration is the previously mentioned 2×2 MIMO system. In this case the throughput is theoretically doubled compared to the single antenna configuration. There are some assumptions about the channel correlation conditions and necessary signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) required to approach this increase in throughput, but these topics are best left for another day.

In the NxM configuration the maximum number of spatial streams is limited by the lesser of either N or M. If there are three transmitter antennas but only two receiver antennas, there will be a maximum of two spatial streams supported by the system. The IEEE 802.11n standard allows for two spatial streams in 2×2, 3×2 and 2×3 configurations. Since these all support two streams, they have equivalent capacity, but the 2×3 and 3×2 configurations have higher diversity. For an even higher increase in capacity, the 802.11n standard also defines 3×3 and 4×4 configurations, with three and four spatial streams, respectively.

Meraki MIMO

Meraki makes several wireless access points with MIMO, such as the Meraki MR16 Cloud Controlled Access Point, with dual-band, dual-radio 802.11n including 2×2 MIMO. More information on Meraki’s wireless access points is here: http://meraki.com/products_services/enterprise.

Meraki Cloud Controlled Access Point

Figure 3: Meraki Cloud Controlled Access Point

Multiple antennas in 802.11n can use diversity to increase the reliability of a connection. Throughput can also be increased through MIMO spatial multiplexing. There are many other aspects to consider about MIMO, such as channel conditions and quality, channel knowledge, feedback systems, antenna design, algorithm design and considerations, and others. In addition to multiple antenna techniques, there are other methods to increase throughput. For example, 802.11n allows for wider channel bandwidth configurations than previous versions of 802.11. To learn more about 802.11n, see Meraki’s 802.11n white paper. Other white papers and material can be found at Meraki’s collateral library.

Hello, World!

Back in the summer of 2001 I turned on my first Wi-Fi device – an 802.11b PCMCIA that I received as a gift. The promise of getting 11 Mbps was incredible, and I couldn’t wait to roam freely with my laptop and connect from anywhere, as long as I lugged around my 7.5 pound laptop and found a hotspot, of course.
Today, nearly ten years later, this seems almost like talking about a long-forgotten technology. We expect our Wi-Fi to be fast, integrated, and available nearly everywhere. And so last year while attending an event in San Francisco, Startup Weekend (http://startupweekend.org/), I came across Meraki. It was mostly by accident, as I watched someone investigate the Wi-Fi network to make sure everyone had a strong, reliable connection. Navigating around the Meraki dashboard seemed a breeze, and even more compelling was the ability to quickly drill into certain clients and access points and assess their performance and connection. Later I learned more about the analytics and tools available, and things like the mapping tools and interference analysis  (shown below) appealed to my data loving and engineering brain cells.
Interference scan's instantaneous and cumulative graphs

Interference scan

I’m Pablo and I’m thrilled to join Meraki as solution architect. My background is in electrical engineering, specifically in wireless, networking, HF and RF, and test and measurement. Most recently I was with Agilent Technologies, where I focused on signal analysis and signal generation test tools. At Meraki, I’ll be focused on technical needs of our customers and how our products address those needs. I’ll be posting material on this blog and I look forward to engaging with all of you.