Aruba

The explosion of smartphones and tablets is transforming the way we communicate, work and manage our personal lives. We stay connected everywhere, and collaborate on the go at every opportunity we get. We need the ability to access business applications at the highest speeds and quality possible – regardless of where we are or which device we are using.

The combination of mobile devices and cloud based applications is changing the way small and midsize businesses (SMBs) operate and how their employees engage with customers and interact with business processes. Forbes reported that SMBs who adopt mobile technologies are seeing double the revenue growth – and are creating up to eight times as many jobs as their less mobile-ready peers1. Empowering your employees to interact seamlessly with customers and partners can help build a competitive advantage and also greatly improve productivity. In the US alone, SMBs are saving more than $67 billion USD a year using mobile applications, tablets and smart phones in day-to-day activities2.

THE NETWORK AS A BUSINESS ENABLER

SMBs are embracing new technologies such as mobility, cloud and unified communications to help them compete cost-effectively in this new mobile work environment. For them, the network is evolving from an IT resource to a strategic business enabler. To support employee productivity—whether working from home, in meeting rooms, or at client offices – SMBs need a simple and reliable network infrastructure that can be supported by limited IT resources.

A recent study shows that 67% of the SMBs are using tablets for business purposes, and 93% are using smartphones3 that are often owned and managed by the employee but used for business purposes. Given their sheer number, properly securing access for these BYOD devices and onboarding them to the network without significantly increasing IT operations costs need to be an integral part of the conversation when preparing the foundation for your mobile-first business apps.

Mobile device use surpasses projected growth

• 67% of small to midsized businesses view mobile solutions and services as critical to the business.4
• 7 in 10 businesses get user complaints about poor Wi-Fi, but 6 in 10 SMB customers don’t have on-staff networking expertise.5
• 78% of U.S. small businesses will have fully adopted cloud computing by 2020 – more than doubling the current 37%.5

MOBILE-FIRST NETWORK AS THE FOUNDATION

It’s clear in this new business environment, the mode of choice for employees is mobile. Your business must have an affordable, high-performance and secure Wi-Fi infrastructure that can support this growing number of mobile devices and cloud-based applications. It also needs to deliver the quality experience that users expect along with the level of security controls that your business processes will demand.

Mobile Unified Communication (UC) solutions such as Office 365 now extends enterprise-grade voice, conferencing, collaboration to mobile devices and are more widely available. A strong network infrastructure allows you to prioritize and optimize business critical applications, so you can respond faster to customers and make smart decisions quickly. You need an integrated solution that can handle issues like network reliability, security and intelligent application management:

Screaming fast connections

While wireless is the primary means by which employees will access the network, you need an end-to-end integrated wireless and wired infrastructure that is easy to deploy, offers built-in security and high connection speeds, along with the tools to collect and analyze network performance data.

Security

With the arrival of digital workplaces comes added security threats. You will need integrated and automated security controls to help protect your business data from malware and unauthorized users. Wireless intrusion detection and prevention can safeguard your infrastructure from wireless threats, rogue access points and clients.

Network and application visibility

With the increasing number of devices connecting to the network, you may need more insight into users, devices, and applications running on the network as well as insuring that the network is running smoothly. You need a flexible and easy-to-use network management solution that can grow with your business – from free built-in network management to a flexible wired and wireless Cloud based management solution that offers built-in analytics for actionable network and business insights.

Room to Grow

Your business is constantly evolving, and so should your network. You need a solution that can grow as you grow. It should provide you the flexibility to build out your network to suit your business needs. Whether you start with a controller-less Wi-Fi solution, and then add a controller to scale – or use built-in management interfaces, then add cloud-based or software-based options later – your network should evolve with your business and allow you to protect your existing investments.

SOLUTIONS

Wireless Network

Aruba Instant 802.11ac access points feature fast set-up, enterprise grade security, a built-in management dashboard, and gigabit Wi-Fi speeds – all in one affordable package. Aruba Instant offers:

• Simplicity with fast set-up that does not require network expertise, and a free built-in management interface.
• Tested 36% faster in performance than competing solutions when connecting lots of mobile devices all at once.⁶
• Security with built-in firewall and smart application handling for granular visibility and control.
• Reliability with no single point of failover and network survivability to the last access point.
• Provides investment protection and scales as your business grows, even when adding a controller later, using the same Instant APs.