Aruba’s moves portend
wireless consolidation
Acquisition of Network Chemistry’s wireless overlay technology could
reverberate throughout the WLAN industry if other vendors follow suit
By Andrew Garcia
While aruba
Networks’ purchase of Network Chemistry’s wireless
intrusion prevention intellectual property in late
July does not necessarily
herald a surge of acquisitions among enterprise
wireless LAN vendors, the
wireless market is well-
Aruba plans to bake Network Chemistry’s wireless intrusion preven-
positioned for the larg- wireless overlay vendors tion and detection capabilities into its infrastructure components.
est infrastructure vendors to shore up shortcomings
to make their o wn plays in their native analysis and t h i r d - p a r t y t e c h n o l o g y i n t r u s i o n p r e v e n t i o n
if Aruba’s move quickly security offerings. while easing access point system] overlay for some
shows benefits. For instance, in 2006, and sensor management time and putting forth
However, Aruba’s acqui- I reviewed Trapeze Net- and keeping RF (radio fre- their solutions as suffi-
sition shouldcause signifi- works’ initial integration quency) information out cient for overall wireless
cant consternation among with AirDefense, but Air- of the data plane. Data security and protection of
smaller wirelessinfrastruc- Defense also has a partner- can coalesce on the back the wired network. This
ture vendors that rely on ship in place with Motor- end and be presented acquisition demonstrates
Network Chemistry’s tech- ola via its 2006 acquisition to the wireless manage- th at Ar ub a kne w t hat
nology for wireless secu- of Symbol Technologies. ment console to provide some piece of the secu-
rity, logging and analysis, Meanwhile, Version 5. 5 a more complete—and rity puzzle was missing,”
asthismove—andthepos- of wireless intrusion pre- integrated—view of per- said Lowe in Mountain
sibility of similar moves vention vendor AirTight formance, security and View, Calif.
down the road—could eas- Networks’ SpectraGuard access policies. ily accelerate consolidation Enterprise, due in Octo- In a statement, Air Tight Early jump
in the enterprise wireless ber, will forge a connec- Networks Public Relations aruba emphasized total
market. tion with Cisco Systems’ Director Della Lowe indi- wireless security years
Alliances grow WLAN controllers. cated that Aruba’s acquisi- earlier than other infra- These partnerships tionprovidesvalidationfor structure companies did,
for the last two years, have helped allay some the entire wireless overlay so it was no surprise that
vendors providing wire- of the concerns about industry. Aruba was the first WLAN
less infrastructure equip- the detection and intru- “A r u b a a n d o t h e r infrastructure vendor to
ment such as controllers, sion prevention capabili- WLAN and network in- make the leap to purchase
access points and manage- ties provided natively by frastructure players have an overlay company’s tech-
ment software have been infrastructure vendors been downgrading the nology.
aligning themselves with by integrating advanced need for WIPS [wireless [CON TINUED ON PAGE 30]
