Meru Networks today announced its new Meru Education-Grade (MEG) wireless platform. This platform, comprised of Meru’s Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) provisioning and guest management software, and Meru’s unique virtualized wireless LAN solutions, has been designed to help campus IT departments support academic goals to deliver learning-essential applications that work over a robust Wi-Fi network, despite the crush of BYOD.
“According to Gartner, Wi-Fi enabled devices will grow from less than 1 billion units in 2010 to more than 3 billion in 2015*. A large number of these devices end up on university campuses. This growth is having a major impact on higher education IT professionals who are tasked with ensuring that wireless devices brought onto campus are on?boarded predictably and securely, regardless of the capacity crunch these devices place on the university’s Wi-Fi networks,” said Sarosh Vesuna, VP & general manager of the education business unit for Meru Networks. “The Meru Education-Grade wireless platform is designed to mitigate the impact of BYOD while enabling ‘uninterrupted learning’ for the entire university population.”
Users on campus expect to connect reliably to Wi-Fi 24x7x365 – no excuses. Users also expect to roam seamlessly and enjoy application integrity even during peak usage. To respond to this challenge, campuses rely on their Wi-Fi network to support high capacity roll-outs, in a manner that is simple to deploy, maintain and manage. Unfortunately, many universities still suffer from cumbersome on-boarding, extended login times for students, dropped connections, and poor roaming, all of which can lead to repeated channel planning and site surveys to address their ever-growing capacity needs. These unmet expectations can create interrupted learning for students when technology gets in the way or fails to support the innovative goals for technology integration on campus.
In order to meet user expectations and provide suitable solutions, Meru introduces the Meru Education-Grade wireless platform based on Meru’s unique single channel architecture.
The MEG wireless platform is designed to enable universities and colleges to deliver “Uninterrupted Learning” in three simple steps:
• On-board – quickly on-board students, with automated secure BYOD client provisioning and flexible guest management, using Meru’s Smart Connect and Guest Connect, which are part of Meru’s Identity Manager software suite.
• Connect – reliably connect mobile devices on campus, whether roaming the quad or stationary in a densely packed lecture hall, using Meru’s broad portfolio of Wi-Fi access points, wireless controllers and network management software, including:
◦ The new AP332 802.11n near-Gigabit access point for lecture halls, classrooms, libraries and other densely deployed areas;
◦ The new MC6000 wireless controller with up to 200Gbps capacity – the highest in the industry today – for large campus data centers or centrally managing distributed campus environments.
• Learn – enable enriched learning by deploying flipped classrooms, blended learning environments and other 21st century teaching and learning techniques which run on mobile devices. Solutions supported by the MEG wireless platform now include:
◦ Digital Classroom Management with Stoneware’s LanSchool;
◦ Unified Communications & Collaboration with Microsoft Lync™;
◦ Bonjour services for Apple-centric learning environments;
◦ Federated Access for university guests using eduroam.
“We can make better use of our Wi-Fi network now, using it as a utility rather than a mere form of access. Meru’s wireless platform enables our transformation to 21st century learning with flipped and hybrid classrooms, computer-based instruction, and unified communications and collaboration,” said Peter Harvin, chief information officer for Anderson University.
For more information about Meru’s MEG wireless platform, please visit http://www.merunetworks.com/industries/education.html
