| Type | Public (NASDAQ: [1]) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer networking |
| Founded | Sunnyvale, California, USA (2002) |
| Headquarters | Sunnyvale, CA |
| Key people |
Dominic Orr, President and CEO Keerti Melkote, Founder & CTO |
| Revenue | US$267M (FY 2010)[1] |
| Operating income | US$-32.6M (FY 2010)[1] |
| Net income | US$-34.0M (FY 2010)[1] |
| Total assets | US$251M (FY 2010)[2] |
| Total equity | US$151M (FY 2010)[2] |
| Employees | 571 (2008) |
| Website | http://www.arubanetworks.com |
Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARUN) is a networking vendor selling enterprise wireless LAN and edge access networking equipment.[3] The company has over 500 employees and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA. Aruba's core products are access points (APs), mobility controllers, and network management software through their Airwave Management Platform product.
According to the Dell'Oro Report published in Q408, Aruba ranked #2 in market share in the wireless LAN market.
In May 2009, the company introduced the Virtual Branch Network (VBN) family of products targeting branch offices and remote locations.
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Aruba was founded in 2002 by Keerti Melkote and Pankaj Manglik. The company was venture backed by Sequoia Capital and Matrix Partners. In 2005, it entered into an agreement to provide OEM equipment to Alcatel-Lucent.[4]
Aruba went public in March 2007. It acquired the wireless security business of Network Chemistry later that year. In 2008 it purchased AirWave Wireless, a vendor of wireless network management software.[5]
Aruba offers Wi-Fi-branded products such as access points, wireless controllers and software. Aruba sells products under their own brandname and as OEM products from other vendors, such as the Dell PowerConnect W-series products.[6]
Wireless access points from Aruba are targeted at the corporate market and support the IEEE 802.11n standard. Some AP's can use external antennas both for improved indoor-coverage as outdoor usage. One model AP is weather-proof to be used with up to 4 external antennas. All Aruba access points offer ARM: Adaptive Radio Management, integrated security features, integrated spectrum analysis and supports mesh-features for campus-wide deployment.
Aruba offers 4 models mesh-routers. These mesh-routers are access-points with integrated OSI layer 3 routing. Most models are to be used with external antennas and designed for outdoor use and optimized to be used for wireless security cameras[7]
For small branches or working from home Aruba offers RAPs: Remote Access Points that communicate with Aruba's Mobility Controller. There are several RAPs: small single-radio AP's, a wired-only device and multi-user wired/wireless models.
The S3500 Mobility Access switch is a 24 ot 48 port Power over Ethernet (PoE) switch for use with the Access Points. Management can be done via a dedicated out of band 10/100/1000 Mbit/s Ethernet port.
Mobility controllers are used for a central organization-wide management of all access-points and users. For smaller environments APs with built-in controllers are available for up to 512 users. For larger organisations Aruba offers the 3000 series for 4 Gbps total bandwidth or 6000 series for up to 20 Gbps bandwidth and in both cases with a maxumum of 8192 users. The controllers offer access authentication, managed encryption, radio-spectrum analysis and firewall-features.
Some Aruba access-points can use external antennas. A wide range of indoor and outdoor antennas are available, supporting different frequency-ranges, directional and omni-directional[8]
Aruba has software-products for use with their hardware. Aruba's own operating system runs on all Aruba access-points and mobility controllers.
The Aruba OS runs on the Mobility Controllers. As additional components RFProtect + WIP[9] and a Policy Enforcement Firewall[10] are available.
Unknown devices, that cannot authenticate to the network, can be given temporary access via Amigpod. It offers a self-service guest-registration web portal giving a visitor credentials to connect to the network. Via the software authorized (non-IT) staff can then allow this visitor to get access to the network or only to internet or parts of the LAN.[11]
AirWave networkmanager is a generic network-management tool to manage switches, access-points and end-users.[12] The software is also capable to follow users: where they are (mapping), their data-usage, RF-management etc.
Aruba offers other applications such as a outdoor RF planner[13] and mesh-config for configuration of the mesh routers.
On 10 May 2010, Aruba Networks confirmed it would acquire wireless mesh startup Azalea Networks. for $27 million in stock and up to $13.5 million in cash over the next two years. The acquisition will give Aruba another avenue for channel partners deploying advanced wireless mesh networks.[14]