Meru Makes Wireless LAN Security Pitch

meru_networks_WLAN security

Meru‘s Service Assurance Platform, which currently includes a set of proactive diagnostic, security and management tools, has been expanded to now include a spectrum manager, intrusion prevention and compliance management, and wired and wireless management. IT managers now have increased control over their company’s wireless network to manage and optimize the end-to-end performance of the entire WLAN infrastructure proactively, according to the company.

The wired and wireless network solution, for one, utilizes technology from SolarWinds in conjunction with Meru’s E(z)RF Network Manager to increase efficiency in the initial deployment and ongoing operation of the entire network. The solutions provide a granular view of both networks simultaneously, as well as centralized management and reporting for most of the network devices and elements on the enterprise network.

In the diagnostic realm, Meru’s spectrum analysis solution, Proactive Spectrum Manager (PSM), helps detect and avoid interference and “noisy” channels, enabling IT managers to reroute wireless network traffic before problems occur.

Meru is also offering two new security solutions, intrusion prevention and compliance managing, to its lineup. The wireless intrusion prevention system (WIPS) monitors the radio spectrum for the presence of unauthorized APs and provides protection against denial of service attacks, backdoor attacks, password cracking, physical layer attacks, spoofing and hacking tools.

The compliance manager enables companies to more securely handle credit card data and meet the standards of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard regulations. It continually checks the network’s security posture against best practices and policies, and provides historical and on-demand reporting of PCI & DSS 2.0 compliance.

Meru, which has an active channel program, understands the demands of a corporate wireless network. As more devices and applications run over wireless networks, proactive management is necessary to ensure that such traffic doesn’t bring down the network like a house of cards. And as more companies rely on their wireless networks as a secondary pipe in their IT infrastructure, effective management becomes a critical operation.

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