Cisco Releases 7.4 of its Unified Wireless Network Software

By Daniel Brecht, Contributing Writer

Cisco Systems (News - Alert) Inc., is taking BYOD and mobile device management (MDM) seriously. In fact, this week the company released version 7.4 of its Cisco Unified Wireless Network (CUWN) software. This is an update which includes improvements of security, performance, quality and delivery of services through mobile applications, in addition to presenting over 40 features that are relevant to wireless infrastructures and offering visibility into Wi-Fi networks  to proactively monitor, analyze traffic through Cisco’s wireless LAN controller (WLC) Web interface.

The 7.4 release works much like vBroker Series products from the network packet broker vendor VSS Monitoring in the way it takes a similar innovative systems-based approach to network packets by being able to perform “stateful packet inspection.” For instance, 7.4 uses Cisco's Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) techniques, which enhances the quality of service prioritization of unicast and multicast traffic to a client on a wireless LAN via some Cisco controller system.

Also like Cisco Systems, VSS Monitoring (News - Alert) has been concentrating on network connectivity, WAN acceleration tools and network intelligence. In fact, it recently won the 2012 telephony product of the year award for its vBroker Series. They provide passive network monitoring and offer wireless security capabilities, which are characteristics of the Cisco Unified Wireless Network software release 7.4.

CUWN 7.4 provides real-time location analytics; produces network metrics to be analyzed to discover use of the network that is context-aware and offers now better performance of the 802.11n standard than before to deliver enhanced deployment and operational services for mobile users.

This release also allows visibility to a range of Web applications (like Netflix and YouTube (News - Alert), for example) through packet inspection, it’s able to identify and classify traffic as well as prioritize packets belonging to a specific application. Additionally, the WSSI module is now available also on Aironet 3600 access points, which can intercept threats and interferences through spectrum monitoring analysis.

There is also a new series of Cisco access points, the Aironet 1600 that promise better performance and reliability, use of tools and know-how provided by ThinkSmart Technologies, acquired in September of 2012, allows Cisco to deliver innovation in mobility services engine (MSE).

Through Mobile Concierge SDK, which is a developer's kit, one can create applications and services for the MSE easily. And it’s possible to enable delivery of applications on mobile devices with CUWN 7.4’s expanded mobile connectivity. 

Like many other vendors, Cisco has been investing heavily on wireless technologies, which is growing due to the rise of the use of clouds and mobile services and devices.

(source: http://network-packet-broker.tmcnet.com/topics/network-packet-broker/articles/321648-cisco-releases-74-its-unified-wireless-network-software.htm)