Wireless Management

Meraki has upgraded its MR-series wireless access points, enhancing customers' visibility, control and management over their networks.

This update, delivered to Meraki wireless LANs via the cloud, simplifies large-network administration, adds Bonjour Gateway (News - Alert) functionality, and introduces a second-generation Traffic Shaper, offering richer analytics and control over application usage.

Kiren Sekar, VP of Marketing at Meraki, said, "Our Cloud Networking platform enables Meraki to adapt quickly to the new IT challenges and business opportunities that our customers face. Whether customers are expanding their networks to unprecedented scale, or adopting new devices and applications, we will continue to deliver new features to simplify management and operations."

Simplifying Large-Scale Distributed Networks

The company introduced a tag (News - Alert)-based configuration and management engine that makes administration for enterprises easier with dozens, hundreds or even thousands of sites. The company’s tagging engine was developed with several of its customers, including a Fortune 1000 retailer with multiple brands and store types currently using Meraki in 800 stores.

This retailer can now tag sites by brand, function or geographic region, and instantly apply access control policies, branded splash pages, and other settings to numerous sites.

Bonjour Gateway Simplifies Large-Scale iPad Deployments

In October, Meraki released a Bonjour Gateway feature to Meraki MX security appliances, selectively bridging Bonjour traffic across network boundaries. With this new update, Bonjour Gateway functionality is added to MR series wireless access points, enabling Bonjour Gateway services for wireless customers without MX appliances.

Bonjour, an Apple's zero-configuration service discovery protocol, enables applications like AirPlay (News - Alert) and AirPrint on local networks. As Apple devices proliferate, especially with the adoption of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, Bonjour can pose significant challenges to large-scale networks: administrators must frequently choose between an unmanageable flood of Bonjour devices on a large, flat network, or a segmented network that prevents desired Bonjour access.

Improved Traffic Shaper with Greater Visibility

The company’s new traffic shaping engine provides a powerful new tool to seize business opportunities. For example, a retail chain or hospitality group can use Meraki to understand customer behavior, identifying popular websites, applications and usage patterns, and target marketing and promotions accordingly.

Looking to grow your channel opportunities? Then be sure to attend Channel Vision Expo (CVx), collocated with ITEXPO Miami 2013, Jan 29- Feb. 1 in Miami, Florida.  Stay in touch with everything happening at Channel Vision Expo. Follow us on Twitter.