When we talk about upgrading wireless infrastructure to the latest Wi-Fi 6E standard, it is instinctive to focus on client computing devices and smart phones. That’s because organizations want to optimize the user wireless experience for their employees and customers, and understandably so. However, for a growing number of enterprises, there’s another critical component to their wireless environment: IoT (Internet of things!). Organizations are integrating a growing fleet of IoT devices to take advantage of cutting-edge technologies. In 2022 alone, the to 14.4 billion active devices. If you’re only looking at optimizing the wireless experience for users, do not ignore IoT’s half of the equation!

Wi-Fi 6E Offers IoT Exclusivity

A primary benefit of Wi-Fi 6E is the exclusive access it provides to the newly approved 6 GHz bandwidth frequency. It has four times the bandwidth capacity of 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz and supplies 1,200 MHz of extra spectrum. In all, this nearly doubles the amount of delivered throughput to clients that support the new wireless standard. It’s not just the increased bandwidth that Wi-Fi 6E provides, however. It is the ability to separate your most critical user and IoT workloads so they don’t have to compete with noisy legacy wireless devices.

Imagine for a moment all the IoT enabled technology solutions that are parachuting into the healthcare industry. Already, the average hospital utilizes 10 to 15 medical devices for each patient. That constitutes as many as 350,000 devices per hospital and we have barely witnessed the tip of the iceberg. Eventually, longtime surgeons will use augmented reality to rehearse complex surgeries and systems will monitor critically ill patients. These are clearly the types of systems you will want operating within one exclusive frequency.

Of course, it works both ways too. Many legacy and current IoT devices don’t require a great deal of bandwidth to function. This makes them ideal candidates to remain within the 2.4 GHz band, completely separated from Wi-Fi 6E enabled user devices and critical sensory devices. All of this is no problem for Juniper Wi-Fi 6E access points such as the and routers. These tri-band access points support 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz so they can handle the newest wireless stations on the market, while ensuring backwards compatibility with older devices that still serve their purpose.

The Need for Battery Life Extension

According to an EU funded study, 78 million batteries that power IoT devices will be dumped every day throughout the world by 2025 if nothing is done to improve a battery’s lifespan. Many IoT devices rely on batteries. Not only is a diminished battery life bad for the environment, but it also proves expensive to constantly replace them. The Wi-Fi 6E standard is helping aid this issue with its Target Wake Time (TWT) feature that reduces power consumption by empowering access points and wireless stations to negotiate their wake-up times to receive and send data. This not only saves power and promotes extended battery life, but it also reduces network congestion and prevents scheduled overlap in highly concentrated station environments.

Juniper IoT Assurance

While there are multiple companies today that provide Wi-Fi 6E solutions, only Juniper offers Mist IoT Assurance. Juniper Mist IoT Assurance is a cloud-based service that makes it easy for IoT devices to connect using a Multiple Pre-Shared Key (MPSK) mechanism in a secure fashion. Managing and securing the connection process for IoT devices has always proved challenging since the bulk of these devices are headless, meaning that they lack a GUI interface and operate without a keyboard or mouse. This hinders the ability to onboard, segment and manage IoT device credentials at scale. Juniper is changing all of that.

Unlike traditional solutions, its onboarding process doesn’t rely on MAC addresses. This makes it ideal for devices that utilize client MAC randomization. With its automatic PSK expiration that works in conjunction with automatic key rotation, organizations can now keep PSKs regularly rotated without the risk of service disruption regardless of deployment scale. Juniper IoT Assurance is 100% API programmable so you can easily integrate it with your preferred mobile device management solution to further streamline the provisioning processes for your fleet of IoT devices. Other features include location management and the ability to assign traffic policies based on PSK identity.

Soon, Juniper is expected to include built-in tools that will give customers the ability to create custom self-provisioning PSK portals that automatically generates PSKs according to user identity. Automatic client device provisioning will also be further simplified with QR codes or automatic Wi-Fi connection URLs without the need to install anything.

And Let’s Not Forget Marvis

Like other Juniper Mist solutions, your IT team can use natural language queries to communicate with Marvis. Marvis is a virtual network assistant that can perform help desk functionality at your verbal command. Marvis is always there working for you to determine the root cause of plaguing problems and perform automated remediation to solve them. It’s one more example of how Juniper is simplifying the management process of highly scaled IoT environments.

Conclusion

Wireless isn’t just about servicing user devices. Today, you need a wireless solution that provides equal functionality for IoT devices as well. Similarly, if you’re contemplating upgrading your wireless infrastructure to Wi-Fi 6, you’re missing out on the full set of capabilities available today with Wi-Fi 6E. Juniper and Wi-Fi 6E together is the complete solution to maximize your wireless enterprise.

Next Steps: Download our new white paper, to discover what critical capabilities your wireless network infrastructure is currently missing. This is information that every network administrator should read!

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Wi-Fi 6E offers a lot of exciting features that can transform your wireless network environment. In fact, it is the only protocol that supports 6 GHz, so new clients don’t have to compete with legacy devices and experience interference from items such like security cameras, microwaves, etc. With four times the capacity of the traditional 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, Wi-Fi 6E accommodates high-volume workloads and easily handles bandwidth-consuming streaming technologies. The new standard is governed by WPA3, which offers far greater security than WPA2, as the latter continues having its share of known weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

Skip Ahead To The Latest Wireless Network Standard

If your enterprise is still reliant on Wi-Fi 5, otherwise known as 802.11ac, it is time to upgrade from a technology that was first introduced nine years ago in 2013. While Wi-Fi 6 is certainly an upgrade from Wi-Fi 5, it doesn’t support 6 GHz and lacks the performance ability of Wi-Fi 6E. While few client machines support this newest standard, Juniper Networks has the infrastructure products required to make way for the stream of devices that that soon will. Juniper and Juniper are tri-band access points that support 2.4 GHZ, 5 GHz and the new 6 GHz frequencies. This gives them the ability to serve all clients, regardless of which frequency they need.

Simplifying Wireless Network Deployment

While there are substantial reasons to upgrade your current wireless network infrastructure, performing an extensive upgrade is never fun. Fortunately, outside of climbing onto a ladder and installing the access points to your office ceiling, Juniper has greatly simplified the deployment process. That includes the required maintenance, troubleshooting and optimization processes as well. Supporting Juniper’s Wi-Fi 6E devices is just as innovative as the technology it delivers – just plug the Juniper access point into your network and it will automatically connect to the Juniper Mist cloud. Once connected, it downloads its assigned configuration and joins the appropriate network. After that, it is ready to service wireless clients. No wireless controllers, no remoting into access points – you have a functioning wireless network in as much time as it takes to mount and connect the access points.

The ease of hands-free operation doesn’t stop after deployment. Firmware is automatically retrieved and installed to ensure that your access points are up to date with the latest bug fixes and security updates along with the newest features that bring added value to your infrastructure. The result is a wireless network that is stable, secure and predictable, allowing your internal IT team to focus on more important things than maintaining access points.

Juniper Mist Wi-Fi Assurance

While Wi-Fi 6E gives you exclusive access to the 6 GHz band, Juniper access points give you, well, access to something that no other wireless vendor can – At a high level, Juniper Wi-Fi Assurance is a cloud service designed to maximize the Wi-Fi experience while minimizing IT support costs as it incorporates machine learning driven by Juniper Mist AI. This provided level of assurance is made possible by the automation of traditional manual troubleshooting and maintenance tasks. Even more, Mist gives network administrators complete visibility into all aspects of their wireless network.

In addition to observability, it builds real network intelligence about your network as it scours your environment for anomalies. If an anomaly is detected, Mist identifies it and captures packets to analyze and generates event correlation to other events to identify problems and remediate them before they significantly impact your network. Additional features that Mist provides include:

• • Customizable Wi-Fi service levels allow for the ability to set, monitor, and enforce service-level expectations for key Wi-Fi performance metrics.
  • The Proactive Analytics and Correlation Engine gives you the ability to identify the root causes of plaguing problems with a few clicks of the mouse and to fix them permanently.
  • Analyze and extract network insights from up to 30 days of data across your wireless ecosphere.
  • A highly scalable guest access solution that provides external captive portal integration that supports multiple languages, customizable branding, and social login capability.

Meet Marvis

There’s one more critical piece that Juniper Wi-Fi 6E devices and the Mist platform each provide: a virtual network assistant (VNA). Marvis, who we have mentioned before in our blog, utilizes both natural language processing (NLP) and natural language understanding (NLU) to serve as the conversational interface for your Juniper systems. Marvis doesn’t just understand words and phrases, it can also understand user intent. Marvis can perform prescriptive actions upon command, but more importantly, it never stops learning about your environment to optimize the user experience of your wireless users. Marvis essentially becomes your help desk, solving problems without creating tickets for them.

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that Wi-Fi 6E is going to take wireless enterprises to the next level, and our team is prepared to help you do so. Learn how Juniper Networks’ Wi-Fi 6E product solutions can transform your wireless environment today.

Next Steps: Download our new white paper, to discover what critical capabilities your wireless network infrastructure is currently missing. This is information that every network administrator should read!

The post Make Your Wireless Network Upgrade Easy With Wi-Fi 6E appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Learn why making a wireless network upgrade to Wi-Fi 6E may not be as complex as you might think. Read more.

The latest protocol for improving your wireless network performance is beginning to make itself available to new devices here in 2022, and its name is Wi-Fi 6E. Chances are, your network management team may be unacquainted with this new innovative standard as very few client devices currently support it. This unfamiliarity won’t be for long, however. Wi-Fi 6E has too many advantages over its predecessors to be ignored. It is destined to empower a whole new generation of wireless and IoT devices to experience faster speed, lower latency, high capacity, and greater security. It might be the biggest wireless network event that you haven’t heard of.

A New IEEE Wireless Naming Convention

If you are new to Wi-Fi 6E, there’s a good chance you are not accustomed to the new wireless naming convention, compliments of the world’s largest technical professional organization for the advancement of technology – For instance, many organizations are on 802.11ac protocol. So, how does that relate to Wi-Fi 6E? To alleviate the burden of remembering all those different letters such as a, b, g, n, ac, and ax, IEEE formally implemented a new naming system that is much easier to recognize, hence the Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6, and Wi-Fi 6E naming conventions. This new practice makes it easy to discern the order in which they were released:

Make Major Wireless Network Performance Gains With Wi-Fi 6E

The days of handicapping wireless computing experiences is over with Wi-Fi 6E. While users at one time accepted inferior speed and performance as the cost of using wireless versus the steadfast operation of an ethernet-connected desktop, those reduced expectations belong to a forgone era. Modern users expect uninterrupted performance, and that is regardless of how they are connected to the network. Wi-Fi 6E is designed to meet these lofty expectations.

In our handy chart above, you will notice that Wi-Fi 6E is the only wireless standard that supports the 6 GHz frequency band, which gives its supported devices their own exclusive area to operate. This means that new wireless devices don’t have to compete with older and slower legacy devices. If it’s easier, you can think of Wi-Fi 6E as the private express lane on a congested interstate. These express lanes are often optional toll lanes that run alongside highly congested traffic corridors to provide an optimal commuting experience for those willing to pay with an electronic pass. Wi-Fi 6E has an express lane, too, and its version of an electronic pass is that the wireless network devices and wireless infrastructure are to each support this newest standard. By separating from the slower moving traffic, new devices that support Wi-Fi 6E protocol can attain their own exclusive connections.

Improve Your Wireless Network Performance With More Bandwidth

For many enterprises that still rely on older Wi-Fi 5 technology, it is empowering to see why Wi-Fi 6E is better suited to support today’s congested wireless networks. For one, Wi-Fi- 6E’s 6 GHz band has four times the capacity of the traditional 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, so it can best accommodate high-volume workloads such as teleconferencing and streaming technologies. The 6 GHz express lane supports seven super wide 160 MHz channels. That’s 12 more than 5 GHz, which is why Wi-Fi 6E can easily serve augmented reality gaming experiences. In the end, Wi-Fi 6e enables multi-gigabit low latency connection for the modern world. And in those rare occasions when you need a little more physical reach to connect your Wi-Fi 6E device, it can always use the 2.4 GHz band to do so. This means greater resiliency for your wireless environment.

Juniper Networks Support For Wi-Fi 6E

While few client devices currently support this new exclusive standard, there’s no doubt that Wi-Fi 6E is the future. With the speed at which innovation is released and adapted today, it’s imperative to ensure that all aspects of your enterprise are future-proof. That includes your wireless infrastructure. Juniper Networks is embracing this exciting new standard that undoubtedly resets the bar for wireless speed and performance. The network company just recently introduced two tri-band access points to the marketplace: and These routers both support secure client-to-cloud automation by connecting to the Juniper Mist network upon startup to download assigned configurations and firmware updates. This dramatically speeds up deployment time, creating an optimal experience for the managing operator as well.

Future-Proof Wireless Network Performance With Wi-Fi 6E

If you are contemplating upgrading your wireless infrastructure to the former Wi-Fi 6E standard that is already three years old, get in the express lane and pass ahead to the next generation of wireless, Wi-Fi 6E. This new standard will not only power the overabundance of end user computing devices that continue to be introduced to your network, but also the plethora of IoT devices that are being implemented to support your key business services. It’s a new world and one that requires a new wireless standard. Contact WEI to learn more about how Wi-Fi 6E can help revolutionize your business.

Next Steps: Download our new white paper, to discover what critical capabilities your wireless network infrastructure is currently missing. This is information that every network administrator should have!

The post Wi-Fi 6E: New Boundaries For Wireless Network Performance appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

An article in the New York Times dated March 18, 2020 says it best, “Tech can make remote work miserable.” As companies across the country send their employees home to work remotely in an effort to keep them safe and abide by government orders, millions of employees new to the idea of working from home are realizing the tech headaches involved in it. An astonishing 50+ percent of the U.S. is now working from home according to the latest estimates. That’s roughly 85 million people. While the involved numbers should be a surprise, the fact that many of these users have poor or inadequate wireless at home to utilize for work shouldn’t be.

Questionable Wireless is Nothing New

For road warriors and on the road work veterans, the importance of high-performance wireless connectivity has been a known requirement. In a conducted back in 2012 by Hotels.com, the #1 most valued hotel amenity was WiFi. Now think about how the demand for fast dependable WiFi has changed in just 8 years. Many hotel and other complimentary WiFi services are supported by consumer-grade WiFi routers. While non enterprise grade wireless devices are certainly ample for checking one’s email, supporting large file transmissions and online video streaming is an entirely different matter. Even hotel conference rooms can’t always accommodate today’s essential video web conferences. We operate today in a highly dynamic mobile world, which means that high performance wireless dependability is essential for senior executives and other mission critical personnel that are operating in a remote model today.

Aruba Delivers Expected Environments for the Unexpected

The recent current events have shown us the true scale that disruption can occur for businesses today. Businesses cannot afford to shut down in the case of imminent events whether it be natural disasters, man-made events or even pandemics. The ability for company personnel to operate from remote and temporary workspaces has been proven essential. But as so many internal IT departments have discovered first-hand, you cannot manage what you don’t know about. The word “unmanaged” is another word for vulnerable. Wireless networks that are unmanaged are not just prone to slow performance, but security threats such as hackers and malware. Today’s current events have made it clear that companies need a solution that turns unknown and unmanaged remote wireless into known, managed and fully secure wireless. That is what Aruba has done.

Introducing Aruba Remote APs (Aruba RAP)

Aruba’s Remote Access Points product line wasn’t just unveiled yesterday. Companies have been utilizing Aruba RAP solutions prior to the challenges we face in 2020. That is because Aruba understands the needs of the modern workforce of today, and that of tomorrow. Aruba designed their RAP series of products with the aim to not just give network access to remote workers, but to bring the network to remote locations. This means that no matter where an Aruba RAP is located, it serves as an extension to your network.

Total Manageability

Aruba Remote Access Points makes the use of standalone access points in temporary work environments a thing of the past. Aruba’s RAP series can be fully managed by your company’s wireless controller through a secure IPSec tunnel through the web. This includes zero-touch provisioning as well so your workers do not need the direct assistance of an IT professional for setup. For greater flexibility and near limitless scalability you can manage RAPs through Aruba Central, allowing you to manage at any location, from any location. Your employees can easily connect their approved devices to the corporate WiFi network over persistent VPN for secure access from anywhere. With Aruba RAPs, anywhere means anywhere; home, a hotel, customer location, anywhere.

Not Just Wireless, but a Complete Network

Employees depend on more than just wireless. Their location, however temporary, needs to be a virtual office today, which is what Aruba RAP is all about. The Aruba RAP product suite offers local gigabit ethernet ports, including one PoE port. This allows an employee to connect a local printer or power a VoIP phone. The coming RAP 500H series even supports IoT environments.

Security and Speed

Aruba RAPs offer wireless performance up to 1.5 Gbs of maximum wireless throughput, but speed is of little benefit if it isn’t secured. Aruba integrates NSA approved and military grade level security into their product architectures. This is why the U.S. Army relies on Aruba for command post network communications when moving or jumping base locations. Integrated Aruba RAP ethernet ports also support DOT1x for additional security. When remote workers are out of their remote workspaces, they can still connect to the corporate network through their phones or remote devices using Aruba’s virtual intranet access (VIA) client.

Manage Your Remote Workspaces with Aruba RAP

While the challenges that have forced companies to adapt temporary workspaces may be temporary in themselves, the transition to remote work architectures is not a fleeting transition. The dependency on remote workers is being highly accelerated, and those companies that can adapt their network architectures for this new paradigm will possess competitive advantages over its competitors when the next disruption, whatever it is, comes about.

NEXT STEPS: Want to learn more about Aruba’s Remote Access Points? Contact us today to find out how this solution can work for your remote workforce.

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Wi-Fi has come a long way since it was first introduced. Originally, wireless connectivity was used for basic services such as checking email, but technology has changed and more devices now connect to wireless networks in order to perform their job tasks. With this evolution of the workplace, Wi-Fi has needed to adapt to support the growing number of devices and applications. How can of the modern workforce?

1. Supporting performance-intensive applications

Users need significant bandwidth for enterprise applications such as video conferencing, file sharing, and video streaming. With new advances in software, enterprises can prioritize traffic on the Wi-Fi network based on the business’ needs and available bandwidth. This is important as your enterprise will want to make sure that unnecessary users and apps are not monopolizing the bandwidth and preventing critical applications or user access.

With improved Wi-Fi, enterprises can now see user patterns and performance requirements, and are able to tailor their wireless networks to deliver the appropriate level of bandwidth to their most critical and data-intensive applications.

With improved reliability and control of Wi-Fi networks, employees are free from the wired network when using performance-intensive applications. This untethered freedom drives operational excellence and increases productivity as employees can do more than ever before, whenever needed, wherever they are.

2. Empowering a mobile first workforce

Wi-Fi is the “go to” network for employees no matter where they are, and they expect to have the same level of access information, applications, and resources as they would when plugged in. Through leveraging the advances brought by the latest Wi-Fi standards and protocols, enterprises can .

In addition, advances in wireless management tools bring better network visibility for the IT team. With this insight, your IT department can make informed decisions in real time, allowing them to create an adaptable network that can keep up with today’s dynamic business. With this enhanced vision, the Wi-Fi network is able to deliver the speed, quality, and reliability needed for a positive end-user experience.

As a result, enterprises can build an environment that fosters increased productivity for mobile workers with today’s Wi-Fi network.

3. Embracing IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT) is having a profound effect on the demands and expectations of wireless networks, and businesses are connecting more IoT devices to the network than ever before. As innovation produces more gadgets that can connect to networks, enterprises require a Wi-Fi solution that ensures everything is performing as needed. The role of the access point becomes crucial in order to deliver the scale and seamlessness these devices require.

Enterprises must have the right technology in place for IoT devices to communicate securely and efficiently. For example, a wireless sensor must be configured properly to ensure it can be identified and connected to the best access point to achieve optimal performance. A mobile device management (MDM) platform may be required to authenticate the sensor to maintain adequate security levels, and an access point controller may be responsible to prevent IoT congestion from interfering with business-critical application traffic.

4. Leveraging analytics

There’s more to Wi-Fi than offering flexibility for employees to work without the wires; it is also a means in which IT is able gather valuable data and information for your enterprise such as device types, user groups, and applications. They can then use this insight to create opportunities that will improve practices, tailor customer experiences, and capitalize on new trends. As Wi-Fi technology has improved over the years, so have the tools used to analyze data crossing the networks, making it easier to translate it into usable information.

5. Re-imagining security

While Wi-Fi can bring significant advantages, it doesn’t come without risk. With a network of wirelessly connected devices accessing business-critical information from various locations, there is a greater security risk for enterprises. The perimeter of your enterprise now extends beyond the office building and the traditional wired network. This network is part of the security solution as it authorizes access to the network and governs which users can access information and resources.

It might be time to upgrade your Wi-Fi solution

The time has come for Wi-Fi to elevate its value in the enterprise. As its role expands beyond basic connectivity and evolves to include critical implications for productivity, security and analytics, new requirements are placed on the Wi-Fi network. Fortunately, new technologies are emerging to help.

The emergence of robust access points, advanced management tools, intelligent analytical platforms, and network access control solutions is giving Wi-Fi a much needed boost as a business-critical platform.

If you’re looking to upgrade your Wi-Fi network to meet today’s mobile demands, or have recently embarked on an upgrade project but you’re still not getting the type of performance or scalability you expected, now is the time to reevaluate. Let the WEI team assist you in analyzing your wireless networking strategy to achieve optimal performance, and power your enterprise forward.

NEXT STEPS: Want to learn more about how Wi-Fi can support the modern enterprise? Read our tech brief, , to get started.

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