Ruckus Wireless Introduces Experience Management Features with the New SmartZone OS Release

Ruckus Wireless, recently acquired  by Brocade, today announced the availability of version 3.5 of the SmartZone Operating System (OS). The new release powers the industry’s highest-capacity controller portfolio, including the SmartZone 300 (SZ300) high-scale control and management appliance, which is also being announced today. With over 30 new features and enhancements, SmartZone OS 3.5 enables IT departments to improve end-user experience and better align security and policy posture with a diverse user device constituency. New capabilities also allow enterprises and managed service providers to easily and securely implement complex network architectures and multi-tier business models.

The SmartZone portfolio includes high-capacity appliances designed for service provider and large enterprise deployments—SZ300 and virtual SmartZone High-Scale (vSZ-H)—and enterprise-class appliances—SmartZone 100 (SZ100) and virtual SmartZone Essentials (vSZ-E)—designed for mid-sized enterprise networks. The virtual Data Plane (vSZ-D) works in conjunction with virtual control and management appliances, enabling a high-throughput distributed data plane. Since their introduction in 2015, SmartZone controllers have been deployed by more than 2,000 enterprise and service provider organizations that are collectively managing more than 600,000 APs.

“Cloud-managed wireless services revenue is growing at 26 percent, far faster than the enterprise WLAN equipment market,” said Rohit Mehra, vice president, network infrastructure, IDC. “WLAN vendors that can build products that enable those service providers to grow their own businesses profitably stand to outperform the market. With its SmartZone portfolio and its latest enhancements, Ruckus is clearly vying to be a dominant vendor in this segment. At the same time, the company is investing in universally critical functionality related to end-user experience management, security and analytics.”

“With Ruckus’ latest version of its SmartZone control and management software, browsing across the user interface is straightforward and simple, with the ability to access configuration and monitoring on a single page,” said Yves Premel-Cabic, head of engineering, WiFirst. “Ruckus now goes far beyond its competitors, with call-flow diagnostics for client association issues and crystal clear technical data. By combining it with the Ruckus SmartCell Insight platform, we will now be able to enjoy state-of-the-art analytics. vSZ 3.5 is now the best carrier-grade Wi-Fi management solution, and WiFirst’s engineers and technicians can’t wait to upgrade to this major release.”