Aerohive interview: AC-free collaborative control architecture to cope with WLAN challenges (1)

The popularity of Wireless terminals and wireless applications has greatly promoted the development of wireless networks. In this mobile Internet era, wireless has become the dominant force for terminal access. According to statistics, 50% of Internet traffic will be transmitted over the Wi-Fi network. For enterprises, BYOD and mobile office have become the trend of the times, and the demand for WLAN is growing rapidly. This also puts forward higher requirements on the wireless network architecture and performance of enterprises: how to provide a wider, more stable and reliable wireless connection? How to effectively manage inbound devices in a unified manner?

The traditional enterprise wireless network architecture and solution adopt the AC + AP method. The AP is only responsible for data forwarding, and all control and management are completed on the AC side, AC is the core of the entire enterprise WLAN. However, with the explosive growth of wireless devices and application traffic, the pressure on the AC rapidly expands. On the one hand, once the AC fails, the entire network will be congested or even "paralyzed ". On the other hand, AC accounts for a large proportion of the total network cost. To solve the single point of failure caused by AC, enterprises have to pay for redundancy.

AC seems to be the performance bottleneck of the entire wireless network. If we abandon the AC and rely solely on the AP, can the enterprise's wireless network still operate normally? Can enterprises expand linearly without changing the original network architecture? Aerohive, which focuses on enterprise-level wireless network solutions, tells us that the solution for throwing away the AC is absolutely feasible, and this distributed collaborative control architecture is bringing a new revolution to the enterprise WLAN market.

Collaborative control without AC

Unlike the AC + AP architecture of traditional wireless networks, Aerohive completely abandons the AC and uses distributed smart AP to provide users with flexible control management and data forwarding functions. Each AP cooperates with each other, collaborative control of all terminals within their own scope, replacing the centralized control of AC to eliminate single point of failure (spof) problems.

In an interview with reporters, Bill Hoppin, vice president of Aerohive, repeatedly stressed that his AP is not a traditional "Fat AP", but a "smart AP ". Generally, "fat AP" can only manage itself and cannot interact with neighboring APs. "smart AP" not only provides complete data forwarding and control functions, it can also communicate with neighboring aps in real time to share their respective control information. That is to say, all APs form a smart network.

When one AP has a large load, the system automatically uses the corresponding load balancing mechanism to ensure user experience. When the terminal accesses the network, the AP will communicate with the peripheral AP in time to inform the terminal of the network connection and moving status. When the terminal moves to another AP range, the AP can automatically adjust the channel, provides functions such as Seamless Roaming and security based on L2/L3 to ensure user experience. If an AP fails, the neighboring AP automatically increases the power to optimize signal coverage.

Centralized cloud Management

Is the architecture simple and management complicated?

Bill says that the smart AP retains the centralized network management system, which can be used for monitoring and managing the entire network, creating policies, updating configurations, and centrally managing and deploying all smart APs. To simplify network management, Aerohive has launched a centralized SaaS-based cloud management platform-Hive Manager.

Hive Manager can provide services based on Public and Private clouds. Customers can choose to rent the online services of Aerohive on the Amazon public cloud, you can also deploy this management system on your own data center VMware Server. In either way, enterprises can use the cloud to simplify applications and achieve simple deployment and management.

After the first configuration, the configuration information will be retained on the AP, and the AP will also pass its working status to the neighboring AP in time for information interaction. It is particularly worth mentioning that the cloud platform also provides cloud security services provided by enterprises such as Websense and Baracuda, supporting layer-4 and layer-7 Application Security.

New architecture brings about changes to enterprise WLAN

What does abandoning AC mean?

First, the AC-free architecture means the cost is greatly reduced. Without AC, the overall cost of the Aerohive wireless solution is reduced by nearly 50%.

Bill stressed that Aerohive's AP only uses a CPU with higher performance than other AP products, and there is no difference in antenna technology and access quantity, all of its advantages come from the network architecture and the communication protocols running on its SOC chip.

Second, it means flexible scalability and easy deployment, eliminating traffic bottlenecks and the management complexity brought about by the AC architecture. Because distributed forwarding does not require bypassing the AC, it does not lead to U-type turns, and the forwarding path is short and efficient. The number of APS can be expanded at will, which is easy to maintain.

Third, it means high stability, solves the problem of single point of failure, and improves the reliability and security of customers' key tasks.

Bill said that the AC-free architecture is not only suitable for high-density deployment, but also provides the performance, stability, and manageability required for deploying WLAN in large application environments. It also greatly reduces deployment costs and simplifies deployment and maintenance, high scalability brings great innovation to wireless networks of enterprises.