Alcatel-Lucent has unveiled major enhancements of its enterprise solutions portfolio with the launch of its Unified Access approach for both wired and wireless networks.
“Alcatel-Lucent was one of the first partners in the history of our company,” said Dominic Orr, CEO and President of Aruba Networks. “Aruba has long embraced a vision of the open intelligent campus, and I’m delighted that we have a like-minded partner in Alcatel-Lucent. Their Unified Access strategy combines the best of both of our technologies, and delivers a unified platform to customers that solves today’s IT challenges.”
The rapid proliferation of mobile devices and use of multimedia services among employees has led to new challenges for enterprises and IT managers. Multiple operating systems, adoption of cloud, and dynamic network demand is overwhelming the capabilities of separate stand-alone IT tools and systems. In addition, many enterprise networks have not kept pace with the need to deliver secure and dynamic services to user communities.
“Alcatel-Lucent is known for its ability to deliver deeply integrated solutions to solve real customer needs,” said Michel Emelianoff, President, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise. “We knew that the current wave of BYOD and mobility would bring new challenges that needed a holistic solution. Unified Access is our answer to these challenges. We have architected Unified Access to not only solve these challenges but simplify adoption.”
Alcatel-Lucent’s Unified Access is the first converged wired and wireless solution to address networking challenges, management complexity and offer a consistent user experience. It comprises a rich set of secure BYOD (“bring your own device”) services that enables employees and customers to use corporate or personal, wired or wireless devices on the enterprise network, while the enhancements also help simplify IT operations, improving security and protecting the business’ investments.
As a result, Unified Access enhances Alcatel-Lucent’s Converged Campus Network solution, delivering the power of policy integration, network services, BYOD support and cross-platform security to enterprise networks.
“Unified Access is promising to bring wired and wireless networks together from a management and security perspective. Alcatel-Lucent is taking the next steps to focus on the user experience with the integration of services that enable employees to access a consistent experience across all devices. By offering Unified Access over the entire enterprise portfolio, customers can decide how aggressive they want to be – as they need and can afford to – in building their Unified Access strategy,” said Zeus Kerravala, Principal at ZK Research.
Unified Access can be implemented via software upgrades without replacing existing equipment, providing a gradual approach to evolving the network and maximizing investment. IT managers can also easily define appropriate security and quality of service (QoS) policies enabling the network to dynamically adjust to the communication context, taking into consideration priorities and bandwidth criteria for user, device, application, location and time of day.
To drive adoption of Unified Access, Alcatel-Lucent is working with long-time technology partner Aruba Networks to offer a full suite of BYOD services as part of the unified and open-campus network solutions. With a common strategy towards open standards and emerging technologies, such as software defined networking (SDN), the resulting integrated wired and wireless solutions provide a best-of-breed approach eliminating vendor lock-in and reducing total cost of ownership.
Key Facts
- Unified Access capabilities are offered across Alcatel-Lucent’s entire enterprise networking portfolio, requiring only a software upgrade to deploy while preserving existing equipment. Unified Access network services and BYOD services are available today.
- Aruba’s ClearPass Access Management System allows enterprises to securely provision and manage mobile devices on enterprise networks, and is integrated with Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitches, OmniAccess routers and OmniVista NMS for a seamless, consistent user experience.
- Aruba’s AirGroup services under ClearPass Policy Manager, supported on both the wired and wireless LAN, enable end users and IT administrators to self-register Apple devices. In the higher education environment, students in dorms can plug in printers, Apple TVs, and other consumer devices, register them and set access limits for select friends use instead of the whole campus, all without IT involvement.
- Management enhancements ease the burden of IT by automating operations for BYOD services such as device configuration and guest registration, and provide common troubleshooting and monitoring tools across the wired and wireless networks.
- New security features such as automatic configuration of 802.1x security and certificates increase LAN security to be on par with the wireless experience. Devices like laptops, tablets, printers and cameras are automatically registered, keeping the network secure without overloading IT departments with manual tasks.
- Extensive Professional Services offerings, leveraging Alcatel-Lucent’s broad knowledge of wired and wireless LAN networking, support channel partners and their customers in evolving their network to support unified access and BYOD services.
