Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC (News - Alert)), recently awarded Aruba Networks’ Remote Access Point (RAP) as the "2008 Product of the Year," which was presented by Unified Communications magazine.

 

According to TMC, its Unified Communications (News - Alert) magazine’s product of the year award is awarded to those companies whose products excel in technological innovation and application refinement.

 

Aruba Networks’ (News - Alert) RAP technology is a remote networking software solution, which is designed to connect branch offices, temporary workers and tele-workers to the corporate network. Featuring plug-and-play simplicity, the RAP offers voice, telephony, video, as well as data applications - all with the security of a VPN (virtual private network) and reduced expense of client software, said the company.

 

The RAP software can literally be mailed to the user and turned on. It can be loaded into any standard Aruba access point - either wired or wireless. When inserted with a USB broadband cellular modem, the user can be ready to connect Wi-Fi devices and/or wired Ethernet devices to the enterprise network. With this technology all network resources can be instantly delivered to the user wherever they work or roam.

 

Aruba said that the firewall policies enforced on the corporate campus - by an Aruba Mobility Controller are automatically distributed to every RAP. This provides uniform enforcement regardless of where or how the user accesses the network. If multiple users connect via Wi-Fi or wired Ethernet to a single RAP, each will be managed separately consistent with policies established at the corporate office, said the company.

 

Keerti Melkote (News - Alert), Aruba's co-founder and CTO, said, “The software automatically seeks out the primary or back-up data center, establishes a secure encrypted tunnel, and uses an integrated firewall to implement access policies defined by the IT staff. All security policies are managed from the data center, and there are no user-adjustable hardware or software knobs for the user to configure. Voice-over-IP (VoIP) extension calls, streaming video and corporate data all become instantly available, replicating the corporate office at a remote location. The provides better user experience, lower IT overhead, and reduced life-cycle costs compared with traditional VPN solutions."

 

According to Aruba, its RAP software offers identical user experience to all as if directly accessing the enterprise network – whether connected via wireless or wired. Generally, call centers would be in need of wired access points, where teleworkers are provided with wired IP desk phones or terminals. Apart from offering greater mobility, the wireless access points in RAP enable instant branches or provide rapid access for temporary workers.

 

"Aruba has demonstrated to the editors of Unified Communications that its products have gone the extra mile to improve both the customer experience and the ROI for the companies that use them," said Rich Tehrani, TMC president and group editor-in-chief of Unified Communications. "The company has proven its commitment to quality and excellence while addressing real needs in the marketplace. Unified Communications is pleased to honor Aruba's accomplishment by granting a 2008 Product of the Year Award to the Remote Access Point (News - Alert)."

 

Aruba Networks is a provider of wireless LANs and secure mobility solutions.