By George Kyriakis, VP of Channel Partners, PointClickCare

Healthcare providers today are looking for ways to enrich the lives of their residents, mitigate risk, and improve financial and operational health. PointClickCare, which makes cloud-based software for senior care, has teamed up with Aerohive to help these providers achieve these goals.

How exactly are Wi-Fi and cloud software helping senior care providers?

As the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHR) across the senior care continuum has become more prevalent, so has the dependency on these solutions for operational success. With a cloud-based solution, a crucial component of this dependency is a reliable, secure, and fast Wi-Fi infrastructure. When a system is slow or down for any amount of time, as you can imagine, there is the potential for serious implications not to mention impacting productivity. 

Experience has taught us that many senior care organizations need assistance in building this infrastructure. And so, we have teamed with Aerohive to ensure that PointClickCare users can have access to a reliable Wi-Fi network solution.

For example, a nurse or a caregiver in a skilled nursing facility can bring up PointClickCare's Cloud EHR platform on a mobile device like an iPad or any tablet with priority and application optimization when connected to Aerohive's Wi-Fi network. This not only ensures the caregiver gets bedside access to all medical records for quality care, but also ensures secure, reliable access to the EHR platform to order medication, schedule procedures and update nutrition plans to improve the delivery of senior care.

The Aerohive Simpli-Fi Point of Care Solution is pre-configured to securely deliver access into PointClickCare with high performance when and where it is needed. Providers can have one integrated solution to serve all of their wireless needs while staying connected to PointClickCare.  

Attending ALFA 2014? Enter to win!

We’d like to invite you to learn more about how PointClickCare can support your diverse needs. 

If you are an Assisted Living Professional, visit us at booth #1111 at ALFA 2014. We’ll be right across from Aerohive. Together our companies have teamed with some other partners to bring you the “Extreme ALFA Giveaway.” Stop by and complete a ballot for your chance to win (we’ll be giving away more than $2,000 in prizes, so why not!). We also have a great complimentary research report, entitled Assisted Living by the Numbers that you may find interesting. 

For Skilled Nursing Professionals, we offer monthly webinars where you’ll learn more about the company and you'll get a chance to see a demo of our fully integrated EHR. Register for our next session on May 21 at 2 pm ET. 

If you have any questions about PointClickCare and Aerohive, feel free to email me directly at george.k@pointclickcare.com

Thanks, 
George Kyriakis, VP of Channel Partners

What happens when a small business grows and suddenly is processing over 500 orders per month in a 45,000 square foot warehouse? Well, its Wi-Fi has to scale, too. Sporting goods manufacturer Kali Protectives is an athlete-owned company in Northern California and makes some of the most innovative head and body protection gear for snow, motocross and cycling sports. 

It quickly had to get an enterprise-class wireless solution in place in order to manage its supply chain and inventory operations with wireless devices. Now with Aerohive AP121s, warehouse employees are able to use scan guns to pick products and scan tickets, creating a seamless and paperless process with complete mobility.

And, if the business grows as expected, the Wi-Fi is up to the task. For full details, read the case study here.

Adidas, Samsung, Google, Intel, Levi’s and Gucci. These are just a sample of well-known companies that are taking advantage of using pop-up retail stores to launch new products, reach more customers and sell more products. Many regional and local retail companies also are using pop-up stores as a low-cost, high-return method of increasing sales.   

Simply defined, a pop-up store is where a company creates a temporary retail outlet at a location for a short period of time like a few weeks or few months.   

So why pop-up stores? With the rise of e-commerce and greater competition, retailers are rethinking their marketing strategy and need alternative ways to quickly drive their brand, build customer relationships, and ultimately, increase sales. Plus, the high cost of long-term leases coupled with an abundance of supply over demand in the real estate market has created a sweet spot for short-term renting.

As a result, pop-up stores have become one of the hottest and disruptive trends in the retail space. 

While the trend of pop-up stores continue to rise in popularity, employees at these stores will need a simple, fast way to access corporate network resources. The small amount of employees at these stores won’t have any onsite IT staff and will lack technical knowledge to install or configure any remote access solution. They literally need a solution that can be plugged in and ready to be used. 

Aerohive has the perfect solution to extend secure, PCI compliant access for pop-up stores. Aerohive’s Branch on Demand solution is a cloud-enabled networking solution that helps retailers with pop-up stores get fast, fully secure remote access as well as enterprise-class Wi-Fi for employees using tablets to take customer orders, for example. Pop-up stores can also be enabled to provide guest Wi-Fi access to customers coming in with their smartphones.

The heart of the Branch on Demand solution is the BR branch router platforms.  Based on Aerohive’s HiveOS operating system, the BR routers require no intervention from the remote staff to set up. Just plug in the branch router and it will automatically find Aerohive’s HiveManager cloud management system to push its configuration and security policies. The VPN connection is instantly set up as well. That’s it, and the pop-up store’s access is up in minutes. No need to pre-configure the router, have employees read any instructions, or train any users. And at headquarters, IT can centrally manage, easily configure, and troubleshoot one or many pop-up stores’ branch routers through HiveManager Online.

Aerohive understands how quickly retailers want to set up pop-up stores and can help them meet this goal with Branch on Demand’s instant, secure remote access and Wi-Fi capabilities.

Sheehy Auto Group has 21 locations in the greater Capital Beltway, near Washington, D.C. and is in the top 40 dealership groups in the U.S. While the company always prided itself in offering the best services and programs for its customers, it recognized it needed to bring a robust Wi-Fi solution across its locations in order to leverage wireless devices and provide better guest experience.

The company turned to Aerohive for a flexible and secure network, crucial for an auto dealership that functions much like a financial provider. Sheehy uses a wide variety of Aerohive APs, and now offers a better waiting room experience, enables sales teams to roam car lots with mobile devices, and reduces wait times in service departments. 

As for the wireless network, it's a smooth road ahead. For more details, read the full case study here.

With the World Cup fast approaching, there’s much speculation about which team will triumph in Brazil. Spain has dominated the international stage for many years now but times are changing with an aging team of stars, and people are searching for the next generation to place their bets on. 

In theory it’s a simple game. Get the ball from one end of the pitch to the other, then place the ball in the opponent's net. However, with many different routes to choose from for the delivery, there must be planning and strategy pre-game, then speed, accuracy and agility in-play. 

Having a winning team also requires strong communication and co-operation. Having a superstar on your team is great, but what if they disappear through injury? You can’t pin all of the hopes of success on one player, otherwise you could quickly face disappointment if they become unavailable. 

With the latest generation of stars developing new control, skills and techniques, using enhanced boots, and utilizing improved training regimes, today’s players are faster, stronger and sharper than ever. 

Making the Gigabit Wi-Fi play

Much like the beautiful game, technology has to evolve and move on, we can’t get caught up in what worked well in the past, we must look forward for the latest and greatest methods and moving data from one end of a network to another. 

When Wi-Fi was first introduced to the enterprise market, there was very little demand placed on the access points (APs), each only having to support a small number of devices. However as organizations began to see the value in mobile technology, and with more devices shipping with Wi-Fi as a standard feature, the network had to start making some smart decisions. We needed control. 

At the time, chip sets were pretty expensive, making it financially prohibitive to increase the intelligence of the access points, so the industry created the wireless LAN controller, the Messi, a central box in the network that would become the superstar of your Wi-Fi. 

The wireless LAN controller took charge of all the important co-ordination decisions of the access points, whilst they were left to the simple task of moving the data to and from the user’s device. 

Which superstar is on your bedroom wall today?

The wireless LAN controller has dominated the architectural landscape of enterprise Wi-Fi for many years.  However, we are now seeing a surge in mobile devices requiring always-on connectivity and this is pushing the aging star to its limits. Time to make way for the new generation. 

Are they still reliable?

As mentioned above, relying on a single entity for any task can be risky. And just like an injury-prone superstar, a WLAN controller introduces a potential single point of failure. In domestic football (a.k.a. soccer in North America!) it’s easy enough to cover your team by splurging on one or two more big buys, but obviously this will hurt your bottom line. The same can be seen in wireless LAN design by adding another controller into your infrastructure, or maybe two, which will increase your reliability, but reduce your budget for important systems. 

Is the pressure too much?

It’s a lot to ask from one person, and with increased pressure comes potential choking. With so many devices connecting, laptops, tablets, smartphones, wearables etc., controllers feel the strain too. They have a limited capacity for connected access points and user’s devices, and eventually you have to accept retirement. 

Can’t we just have a team of Ronaldo’s who are fast, coordinated, reliable and inexpensive?

YES! A manager can only do so much from the sidelines. He can prepare his team and provide instructions, but once they step on the pitch, its up to the players to deliver. Aerohive realized that as consumer devices such as tablets and smartphones infiltrated organizations, a single superstar wasn’t enough. We created a special training facility for our access points rising through the academies, promoting speed, awareness, intelligence and teamwork. With groundbreaking methods, we taught our access points to share the load, find the fastest route to data delivery, and adapt to game changing disruptions. 

Who should we back this year? Gigabit Wi-Fi!

2014 is the year of Gigabit Wi-Fi, and it truly exposes the need to put your controller back on the bench. With so much data flowing through your network, and increased reliance on wireless connectivity, the idea of a washed-up has-been who you’ve overpaid over the odds for sitting comfortably in your network creating bottlenecks, scalability limitations and single points of failure is simply not an option. 

For a fast, scalable, reliable solution, with a robust, omni-present manager, I think controller-less Wi-Fi has to be odds-on-favorite.

What happens when a school district realizes in order to upgrade its existing Cisco network it will have to start back at square one, replacing all existing equipment, including every access point, switch and controller? Well, in the case of the Muskogee Public School District, one of the largest districts in Oklahoma, it explored other options.

It traded controllers for a solution from Aerohive and got a much more cost-effective and higher performing Wi-Fi network. Now, the District can move forward with plans for its 1:1 initiatives without excessive cost and simplified network management.

To learn more about the deployment, read the full case study here.

As companies look to extend corporate capabilities to remote offices and teleworkers, the added infrastructure and complexity can greatly increase costs and burden on IT administrators. The Aerohive Branch on Demand solution makes it easy to deploy full security and service of your corporate network to employees anywhere, while reducing operational costs and time to deployment.

View this two minute video on how Branch on Demand can get branch offices and teleworkers connected easily. 

The World Cup is a fantastic global event that simultaneously sparks great rivalry and togetherness, and while we embrace the magnificent atmosphere that is created in the office, at school, etc., organizations must consider the impact that user behavior can have on the network during this time. 

Nobody wants to miss a game, but as global events go, kickoffs can’t accommodate everyone’s personal time, meaning that sadly for some of us, the games will take place during working hours. Many organizations recognize that fighting lowered productivity during a game is futile, knowing that at least one eye will always be on the latest updates aside our email. 

Whether organizations promote time out during an important game as an opportunity for team building, or blanket ban the words football or soccer, they cannot escape increased network traffic due to streaming and score updates. In either case there are some important infrastructure elements to consider. 

First is the fact that you may start to see more devices popping up in your network, most likely tablets and smartphones. Does your organization allow for BYOD? If yes, how do you currently get those devices connected to the network, is it a manual or automatic process? How much IT time and resource does this take? Have you ensured that these personally owned devices have limited network access to avoid potential security threats?

Whatever the reason for allowing consumer devices onto your network (Corporate-issued or BYOD), ensure that you implement appropriate security measures and policies to protect the network from malicious activity. Allowing a wider variety of devices onto your network can also consume IT resources, as these devices must be provisioned for secure access. With this in mind, investigate the network on-boarding capabilities of your wireless LAN vendor to make device connectivity both secure (through role-based access) and simple (through device on-boarding methods).

Next you want to consider how these additional devices can reduce Wi-Fi network performance once connected. Smartphones and tablets don’t have wired network connections and therefore rely on Wi-Fi, however the more devices that connect to a wireless access point, the less bandwidth there is to go around. During game time you may find people congregating in certain areas, which could mean that staff using their corporate devices to work from may suffer as a result of the contention. 

Enterprise wireless LAN solutions should offer the ability for bandwidth management of access points. If your network is seeing a rise in mobile devices connecting to your Wi-Fi, take a look at load balancing (distributing client devices across different access points to maximize bandwidth); band steering (distributing client devices across different radios within a single access point to ensure that one of the radios is not over utilized); dynamic airtime scheduling (prioritizing faster client devices over slower ones); user and device profiling (Identify who and what are attempting to send data then prioritize or restrict them according to your defined network policy), all of these capabilities will guarantee that your corporate network can run smoothly. 

So, imagine that you are watching the game and it starts to buffer on screen or the quality is so poor that you can’t even see the ball, tragedy. Quality of Service (QoS) is key to any wireless LAN supporting a range of users, devices and applications. Whether you are watching a crucial moment in a match or trying to hold a video web conference with colleagues in another location, voice and video quality across the network (both wired and wireless) must be prioritized. 

Traditionally, voice and video over wireless was a no-go zone due to legacy roaming, bandwidth and latency issues. Today, enterprise wireless LAN vendors have implemented technology advances that guarantee service levels for users, devices and applications. With access points supporting QoS, service level agreements, fast and secure roaming, and application visibility and control, voice and video over wireless is a viable alternative to legacy, costly communication services. 

Finally, are you planning for a live stream on some of the big screens to share the fun with the team? Apple TVs are an easy way to project media from your iPad or other mobile device, but as networks become more complex in design, you may find that although you don’t have security restrictions between users and devices on your network, your mobile device may still struggle to connect to the Apple TV.

Apple developed a brilliant protocol called Bonjour, which opened the door for one-click networking. Bonjour allows your device to scan for a service like printing or screen sharing, and then with a click of button, instantly send your data to a peripheral such as printer or Apple TV with zero configuration, simple. Unfortunately this great service only works for devices in a single VLAN, therefore anyone in a second VLAN is blind to the service. Apple acknowledged this limitation in the enterprise and utilized Aerohive’s access points to provide visibility of Bonjour services across VLANs. Make sure if you plan on streaming, printing or sharing across wireless or wired networks, that your network has Bonjour-aware services across network segments. 

It’s not just during the World Cup that you are going to see more devices on your network; the rise of mobile devices in the enterprise is still in its infancy. Start considering now how well prepared you are from a management, security and performance point of view, otherwise while everyone else provides support to their World Cup team, the only support you’ll be showing is to the angry people who can’t connect to the network.  

Cooperstown Central School District had Wi-Fi, but it was only in limited areas and set up through individual routers in classrooms, making management clunky and very time consuming to manage for the IT team. With a goal to have pervasive coverage and move toward 1:1 student to device ratios for its 900 students in Upstate New York, the District started looking for a new wireless solution.

With Aerohive, the District has complete visibility into its network and the IT team especially values HiveManager Online for simplified and centralized management of the new network. The District also chose Aerohive because it offered an easy migration plan for 802.11ac, with options for addressing capacity or installing a completely new network in the future.

For more details on the deployment, read the full case study here.

Summer Baseball, move over. We don't know which team will dominate WorldCup 2014, but for the next month we absolutely know which sport will be monopolizing the mindset here at the Hive.

Setting the tone for WorldCup 2014 Day 1 - Brazil vs Croatia - our sales team held a friendly cube-decorating competition ... and they took the challenge very seriously.

Team Croatria was my first stop in the WorldCup decorating tour. Croatia may have been the first team to succumb to WorldCup favorite and host-team, Brazil, but they have heart. At least their surrogate, Team Aerohive Croatia does!

What do you do when you can't find red-and-white checked tape? You make it yourself!

Great job Team Croatia! 

Then there was the Team of Eight Countries, which ranged from Mexico to Spain. Each cube was decorated to support a different country team, which was based on each of the eight member's country of origin or preference.

Of course the Aerohive BEE played a supporting role in the decor! Hard to believe, but that BEE tends to find itself in everything here at the Hive.

Team USA went a little more simple with the decor, but the patriotic force was still strong with this one. Matching USA t-shirts were worn by the entire team, and American flags were planted atop each cube. Go USA!

And what would WorldCup 2014 be without some arm-chair quarterbacking? The entire company was invited to watch the game on strategically located TVs as it was being streamed LIVE ... over the world's best Wi-Fi, of course ;)

Happy WorldCup! "Olé, Olé, Olé"

In March we partnered with independent research company Vision Critical, and its Springboard UK panel, to delve into the user experiences of enterprise wireless in the UK – and the results are in! 

While we found workers have a growing reliance on wireless access, many experience poor connectivity in their workplace resulting in a frustrated workforce, missed deadlines and disruption.

Surveying 2,000 Brits, a whopping 1 in 3 said they could not do their jobs without wireless access or connected devices, however over 60% of these wireless-workers believe they get better Wi-Fi at home than they do at work! 

Surely UK PLC is doing something wrong if the thousands of pounds spent on enterprise Wi-Fi isn’t providing the experience consumers get from ‘off the shelf’ home products?

Here’s a little more of what we found …

We also found missed deadlines, frustration and excuses were common for users.  Up to 40% of wireless-reliant workers polled have missed deadlines and opportunities at work due to poor connectivity, with some even having used it as an excuse when reporting back to bosses!  

8 out of 10 workers are ‘very’ or ‘extremely frustrated’ when unable to connect. Wireless access should be quick and simple to enable the user, not act as a hindrance. There’s a lot still to be done here in the work environment as our new mobile behaviors and consumption demands mean traditional enterprise Wi-Fi networks need to evolve.

Connectivity More Important than Power (and Tea!):

When asked to highlight scenarios that disrupt the working day and most impede productivity, the top three spots were all taken by IT challenges. 

Poor connectivity topped the list, with 40% ranking this as most disruptive to their productivity. The dreaded fire drill (…that’s packing up your things, leaving what you’re working on and walking out of the office for 15 minutes) only managed fifth spot!  

Top 6 Rankings for Productivity Disruption:

1. Experiencing consistently poor or unreliable (on/off) connectivity 
2. A temporary power cut
3. The wireless goes down for 15 minutes or more
4. Unforeseen last minute deadlines
5. A fire drill
6. Running out of tea/coffee biscuits

And yes - contrary to popular belief, Britain’s workforce doesn't run on caffeine and sweet snacks; only 3% said a tea shortage was most disruptive to their ability to do their job effectively.

The Wireless Blame Game – A Perception Gap:

Two thirds of the wireless workers polled automatically blame the infrastructure for poor connections, as opposed to the device or other users.

There seems to be a real perception gap on the cause of connection issues here. The network is getting all the blame for poor experiences, when in reality the mobile device and users themselves have a big part to play. 

Despite only 1 in 10 blaming the device, switching devices is the third most popular fix for users when faced with connectivity challenges! The full rankings were as follows:

The Desperate Device Shake: 

Go on – admit it. You know it won’t work, but you’ve shaken your device in the air when those bars are low! In our survey, a third of wireless workers resort to waving their device in the air in a bid to get better coverage.

Regionally, Londoners are the worst offenders at 41% while the younger the employee the more likely they are to abuse their device in connectivity despair; almost half of 18-34 year old respondents admitted to the habit.

There’s no doubt that wireless is fast becoming the primary access layer, but the user experiences from our survey would suggest that not all enterprises are ready for it! Clearly a new approach is needed that gives the performance and ease-of-use customers have at home, with the scale and security of the enterprise.

You can read more in our press release here. And I’ll be blogging again on some more of our findings from the research soon, so stay tuned!

Right, I’m off for a cup of tea to keep up my productivity!

Aerohive's Private Pre-Shared Key (PPSK) allows administrators to define unique pre-shared keys per user or device. This video put together by Aerohive's Rich Korb will explain what PPSK is and how to configure a PPSK SSID.

You might not guess that one of the most innovative school districts in the United States is found in a quiet Arizona community, but Vail School District has paved the way for most of the nation's schools who are looking to integrate technology into the classroom.

Vail School District is way ahead of the national curve for technology adoption. The District is now on its fourth generation of wireless infrastructure and first deployed Wi-Fi in 2001. Every school in the district has been a 1:1 student to device environment for over 10 years. Almost five years ago, the District installed Wi-Fi on school buses so students could work while in transit. The New York Times covered the technology innovations at the District and word got out all around the globe. There is no exception a small school district in Arizona has set a high standard. 

As the District added 15 schools in 12 years, it took a hard look at its existing Cisco network and knew it needed to move to a controller-less solution. The District chose Aerohive, reducing capital expenses and easily allowing the District to scale and grow.

For more details, please see the full case study here.

Join us for a webinar this Thursday: Gaining Control of Your ROI with Controller-less Wi-Fi

Aerohive engaged the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), an IT Market Research Firm, to undergo a detailed analysis of the economic value that controller-less Wi-Fi architectures provide. The study gathered data from Aerohive customer and other IT professional interviews, market research on Wi-Fi connectivity technology and trends, and public data on today’s current Wi-Fi industry.

Join us for a webinar to hear from Bob Laliberte, Senior Analyst at ESG, who will present his research and findings on the recent Economic Value Validation report on Aerohive’s controller-less wireless architecture and cloud-based management solutions.

You will learn:

• The market drivers and user needs for ubiquitous wireless networking
• The architectural differences between controller-less and traditional controller-based networks
• The qualitative benefits and economic advantages of controller-less Wi-Fi and cloud-based network management
• How you can turn the performance, scale, and operational efficiencies of controller-less Wi-Fi into significant ROI for your organization

When: Thursday, June 26th10:00am PST / 1:00pm EST
How to register: Visit this registration page
Do attendees get a free AP?: Yes! All *qualified attendees will receive a FREE Aerohive 802.11ac Access Point with a HiveManager Online account, valid for 3 years with no obligations!

*See qualification rules here.

You’ve probably seen this little guy around... We’re about to make him a celebrity AGAIN in our latest contest. 

Drop by our booth at the ISTE 2014 conference June 29 - July 1, 2014 to pick up your Aerohive BEE for a chance to win one of two GoPro HERO3+ Black Edition cameras.

1. Drop by our booth at the ISTE 2014 conference between June 29 - July 1, 2014 to pick up your very own Aerohive BEE.
2. Upload a photo of the Aerohive BEE using the hashtag #SelfieBEE on Twitter and Instagram - Even better if you snap a pic of yourSELF with the BEE for a true #SelfieBEE! 
3. There will be people at the Aerohive booth 3148 in front of a photo mural of the Atlantaskyline ready to assist you by taking your #SelfieBEE photo. They can also assist you in entering the contest right there and then.
4. Hashtag #ISTE2014 and @Aerohive so everyone can see your fun #SelfieBEE photo!
5. Kick back and relax: The winners will be chosen at random and announced the week of July 21, 2014.
6. Spread the word and enter as many times as you'd like! 
7. You’ve entered the easiest contest ever!
8. Need an Aerohive BEE? Click here.

You only entered once? Enter as many times as you'd like from June 25 - July 19, 2014

Two winners will be chosen at random on July 20, 2014

Winners announced the week of July 21, 2014

As with all contests, some rules apply: 

• Bees will be sent to a business email address to be eligible. No personal email e.g. @yahoo, @gmail, etc. will be accepted.
• One BEE per person.
• While supplies last.
• You must follow the “what you need to do” steps above and use hashtags as indicated for your entry to be accepted.
• All entries will be modified – we're trying to have some but fun but please remember to keep it appropriate.

Camera specs:
4K, 12MP photos up to 30 frames per second, built-in Wi-Fi, SuperView™ and Auto Low Light modes. Waterproof to 131’/40m. 

Ever finished a five-day training course and thought, “I can’t remember 70% of that”? We’ve all been through that experience but don’t stress about it too much as it’s just nice to have some time out the office, right? 

However, your organization has just invested in a new product, and now it’s time to figure out how to operate it. Your boss is fully aware that you probably won’t learn a lot as you probably had no interest in the course in the first place. They also know that your absence is going to impact the rest of the team as resources are already stretched. Even the person who signs off the budget acknowledges that the money maybe could have been spent more wisely elsewhere, but it’s unavoidable. 

You return the following week and all is well again. But what about the moment when someone in your organization calls on your new expertise to help them with a problem they may be having, and you're left with two options:

1. Wing it and hope nobody notices with a risk that you could make things worse
2. Frantically dig out the 500-page manual and course notes to find the answer

Both options result in reduced productivity for the user, and stress for the IT team, but that’s the chaos in which we're all used to operating. 

When choosing a product or solution, we like to consider elements such as CapEx and support etc, but some key items are often neglected in the decision making process. Did you factor in the training for example? That’s an item that may be forgotten, however there are also some considerations which can be more difficult to quantify such as lost productivity due to a period of downtime through a non-redundant solution, or the time it takes someone to troubleshoot the problem of a more complex product that doesn’t have remote access for instance. 

Nobody likes hidden costs, whether CapEx or operationally impactful, which is where Economic Value Validation (EVV) analysis tools can help, as they are designed to provide organizations with a comprehensive picture of the direct and indirect costs and benefits that should be considered when evaluating vendors' solutions. 

Wireless LAN vendors offer several options today, and it’s important to make sure that you choose the right solution for your needs, both technically and financially. EVV can help your organization understand the bigger picture when it comes to the savings and benefits of the various vendors' proposals today, and allow you to spend time and money when you want to, not where you have to.

Today brings an exciting new announcement from the Hive designed to help retailers build relevant relationships with customers by personalizing the in-store experience. We are focusing on building out our Personalized Engagement Platform to enable retail customers to rapidly deploy, test, and adopt the latest applications for loyalty and customer engagement.

Built on the powerful foundation of our cooperative control access points, routers, and switches, and our industry-leading Cloud Services Platform, our Retail Made Personal solution allows retailers to deploy the network they need today and easily add personalization applications and technology without investing millions of dollars into infrastructure without knowing which services will be effective for them.

Existing customers will also enjoy access to a suite of new products and features, including: 

• A new Branch on Demand platform with integrated LTE
• Social media login to allow users to opt-in by connecting to the Wi-Fi with their social media credentials
• Advanced PCI 3.0 reporting to ensure the security of payment card transactions over the wireless network
• Content and application distribution via VPP and Google Play Store for our Client Management application

Check out this video to learn about Aerohive's Social Login functionality, which enables retailers to gain insight into valuable demographics about shoppers when they opt-in to connect to the secure guest Wi-Fi.

Aerohive announced today that we have been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the “Visionaries” quadrant of the 2014 Magic Quadrant for Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure. Vendors were evaluated based on their ability to execute and completeness of vision.

News Facts

• According to the report, “A vendor in the Visionaries quadrant demonstrates an ability to increase features in its offering to provide a unique and differentiated approach to the market. A Visionary will have innovated in one or more of the key areas of access layer technologies within the enterprise (e.g., convergence, security, management or operational efficiency).”

• According to Gartner, “The access layer market consists of vendors that supply wired and wireless LAN (WLAN) hardware and software components that provide the first connectivity to the infrastructure access layer, from the edge of the enterprise network to the end users or connected devices.”

• According to Gartner, “With limited growth in IT resources, administrators require one network management application, one access security solution, one guest access application or one policy enforcement solution with the flexibility to be deployed in a public cloud, private cloud or on-premises. This integration reduces the costs associated with the upfront capital expense of multiple network service applications — each dedicated to either the wired infrastructure or the wireless or cloud components.”

• Gartner summarizes, “The march in the enterprise toward access layer vendors, instead of wired- or wireless-only vendors, continued. In our research, we found that enterprises also want choices of architecture deployment options, whether for on-premises, private cloud or public cloud deployment capabilities. Additionally, controller-based or controllerless WLAN is a vendor implementation option, not an enterprise requirement, and enterprises with defined usage scenarios should look for pricing based on market- equivalent functionality that meets their usage needs.”

• To download a copy of the report and see Gartner’s perspective, go here. 

• To find out more about how Aerohive’s solutions support today’s mobile-first enterprises, please visit here.

Comments:

“We’re honored to be recognized as a Visionary for the third year running in Gartner’s annual Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure Magic Quadrant,” said David Flynn, chief executive officer, Aerohive Networks. “As mobility changes everything in the enterprise landscape, a mobile-centric access layer is becoming more critical for day-to-day business needs in every industry. We consider this recognition a testament to our commitment to deliver solutions that enable enterprises to leverage the power of mobility to increase productivity, engage customers and grow their business.” 

Disclaimer:

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Historical Williamsburg is home to less than 15,000 people, yet the city attracts millions of visitors each year to the vibrant, international destination. The City administrative buildings and facilities were spread across eight different locations and the existing Cisco network was becoming more and more cumbersome to manage. City Council members and other staff were issued iPads as their primary device, exposing the limitations of the existing network.

The City of Williamsburg chose Aerohive for a controller-less solution for comprehensive Wi-Fi, even deploying outdoor access points at water treatment plants to remotely monitor data.

To learn more about how the City of Williamsburg met the demands of ‘Wi-Fi everywhere’, check out the full case study here.