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Net-Ctrl

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  1. Net-Ctrl
    It’s that time of year again. Time for every media outlet, analyst firm, technology pundit and prognosticator to make predictions about the year ahead.
     
    Ruckus don’t want to be left out of the prediction parade, so they asked several Ruckus technology experts to share their perspective for the wireless industry in 2016 and beyond. I thought this may be of interest and wanted to share it with the EduGeek community:
     
    What’s your number one prediction for the wireless industry in 2016?
     
    Greg Beach (Vice President of Product Management): We’ll see an insurgence of MU-MIMO capable clients and resulting capacity benefits in high client density environments.
     
    Sundar Sankaran (Chief Wireless Architect): New business models will evolve to monetize “free” Wi-Fi.
     
    Dave Wright (Advanced Technologist): I’ll give you two for the price of one. First, I predict that web-scale content companies (social media, search, hosted services, etc.) will launch some very-large-scale Public Access Wi-Fi projects in developing markets. Second, I expect we’ll see an acquisition or merger between a Tier 1 MSO and a Tier 1 MNO.
     
    How will the “wireless experience” change in the next 2-3 years?
     
    Greg: The end-user experience related to accessing Wi-Fi hotspots and BYOD-enabled enterprise networks will be easier and more secure through the use of Hotspot 2.0 and certificate-based device onboarding solutions.
     
    Sundar: Whole home coverage will become a reality, and people will “show off” their home network at dinner parties using a smartphone app.
     
    Dave: Hotspot 2.0 will become the de facto standard for public access and hospitality Wi-Fi. Now that we have Hotspot 2.0 support in all major mobile and laptop operating systems, Hotspot 2.0 deployments will accelerate by service providers and hotel brands. Carrier Wi-Fi calling will be one driver for this.
     
    Where do you expect to see the most technology innovation in the next 2-3 years?
     
    Greg: The biggest innovation will be Wi-Fi + cellular cross-pollination and convergence (802.11ax, LAA, LWA). Other possibilities include:
     

    Mainstream use of analytics to drive user experience, business process optimization and monetization;
    Cloud interconnections and service chaining of networking services to seamlessly tie together best-of-breed technologies;
    Secure, manageable and scalable IoT platforms that leverage multiple sensor types and wireless protocols to provide business intelligence for enterprises and cities; and
    Continued virtualization of networking services to enable service providers to more efficiently scale and more quickly roll out new services.

     
    Sundar: We’ll see Wi-Fi spectral efficiency and network capacity improvements through multi-user techniques such as MU-MIMO and OFDMA, along with clever scheduling schemes that steer Wi-Fi away from CSMA/CA.
     
    Dave: Many of the traditional distinctions in the wireless industry will be “blurred” due to technology, regulatory and business advances. Blurring will happen between: licensed and unlicensed; service provider and enterprise; and, public versus private. Specific advances that will affect these include: unlicensed LTE, 802.11ax, Wi-Fi calling, enterprise IMS and WebRTC, CBRS, private LTE and Hotspot 2.0.
     
    That’s it for now. Ruckus will share more insights, ideas and perspective on these trends via the Ruckus Room over the next year. And we can predict with confidence that we’ll be back next December with a new slate of predictions.
     
    To read the original article from Ruckus Wireless click here.
  2. Net-Ctrl
    Download the Full Report
     
    Ruckus Wireless ZoneFlex™ Smart Wi-Fi technology outperformed Aerohive, Aruba, Cisco, Cisco/Meraki, HP, Ubiquiti and Xirrus in an exhaustive head-to-head enterprise performance and capacity testing of 802.11ac and 802.11n indoor access points (APs) conducted recently by the Croatian Academic and Research Network (CARNet).
     
    CARNet is a widely respected public institution established in 1991 and based in Croatia, CARNet operates under the Ministry of Science, Education and Sport.
     
    To maintain testing integrity, no vendor was allowed to pay for, subsidise or influence the Wi-Fi testing by CARNet.
     
    Using industry standard test tools, access points in the tests were stressed in progressive testing scenarios that included 12, 23, 36 and 60 clients, using an increasing number of clients for each test that measured aggregate Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) throughput.
     
    Nineteen different Wi-Fi access points from the world’s leading suppliers including Ruckus Wireless, Aerohive, Aruba, Cisco (including Cisco/Meraki), HP, Ubiquiti, and Xirrus were tested at the CARNet headquarters in Zagreb.
     
    Suppliers were allowed to bring in their choice of APs without limitation in what model and how many as long as they could be tested in a single day. Each company was also permitted to send an engineer to the test site. Aerohive, Cisco, HP and Ruckus Wireless each sent a representative to CARNet for the tests.
     
    The Ruckus ZoneFlex R700 dual-band 3×3:3 802.11ac and ZoneFlex R500 dual-band 2×2:2 802.11ac indoor APs with Ruckus-patented BeamFlex™ adaptive antenna technology outperformed all competitive 11ac APs in the tests.
     
    CARNet also accepted and included 802.11n access points from all invited vendors, including Ruckus, Ubiquiti, Xirrus and others. Test results of these products showed that the performance of the Ruckus ZoneFlex 7982 and ZoneFlex 7372 802.11n indoor access points not only outperformed the 802.11n models tested from Ubiquiti and Xirrus, they also beat other vendors’ 802.11ac Wave 1 access points, including those from Aerohive, Aruba, Cisco (including Cisco/Meraki) and HP, in various test scenarios.
     
    The results of the CARNet testing conclusively showed that Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi APs consistently delivered the highest levels of performance in all five different real-world test scenarios created by CARNet.
     
    Download the Full Report
  3. Net-Ctrl
    The below is an extract from a forthcoming publication from MOBOTIX. I thought it could be relevant to some EduGeek members and wanted to share it with you all.
     
    The security of schools, colleges and universities and the safety of staff and students is one of the most important aspects of educational life. However, it is nearly impossible to deliver the necessary proactive approach within a limited budget.
     
    This short guide provides an overview of the key issues facing educational organisations as well as a look at how innovative technology can help reduce cost, improve security and provide flexibility for progressive adoption of CCTV.
     
    Protecting property, staff and students
     
    Schools, colleges and universities share a number of common security issues. Balancing the requirements of accessibility with control and monitoring is challenging. Academic institutions primary desire is to spend resources on education and avoid administrative costs. As such, there is a requirement to gain as much value from CAPEX and to also simplify processes around security and facility management.
     
    Education has benefited from ICT and although most campuses now have extensive data connectivity, the demand on these networks is growing and the additional burden of CCTV poses the potential for forcing expensive upgrades. In addition, campuses tend to have minimal facilities management teams which are often rolled into the ICT function. This means that CCTV needs to be simple and extremely reliable.
     
    Finally, campuses are typically not setup for a centralised security control room. The common practice of distributed sites, schools and departments means that a single security desk is impractical. Accessibility to CCTV, for example to validate a visitor prior to entry, needs to be flexible enough to meet campus environments that are quickly evolving. This means the ability to integrate with intercom, door entry, barriers and card readers at a local level is often a vital requirement.
     
    What are the common security problems faced by academic institutions that MOBOTIX can help solve?
     
    We need to cover wider areas like recreation rooms, cafeterias or lecture halls but don’t want to use dozens of cameras.

    MOBOTIX is the industry pioneer in high resolution hemispheric video which allows fewer cameras covering a wider area. The use of these fish-eye lenses and digital processing also solves the problems associated with legacy Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) cameras through the use of a high resolution lens that captures an entire 360 degree scene which can be viewed, zoomed and studied in real time. However, this digital PTZ does not disrupt the on-going recording of the location. This allows a single hemispheric camera to cover large areas or even an entire room from a single ceiling vantage point without any break in coverage. MOBOTIX cameras are all over 3 megapixels in quality which means a single unit can provide enough detail to identify individuals with certainty.
     
    We want to be able to act quickly when we see an issue captured by the CCTV. For example, asking students loitering in certain areas to move along to lessons or warn vandals that we can see their actions.
     
    MOBOTIX cameras are unusually innovative in that they include built-in bi-direction audio capability to allow both local announcements and centralised messages to be played to any speaker connected to individual cameras. Each camera can also be linked to entry phones to allow visitors to communicate with facilities or reception staff who can remotely open doors. In some instances, campuses can setup contact points to help students and staff raise the alarm in the event of health or safety issue. Bi-directional audio can be seamlessly linked to existing intercoms, fire alarms and other audio systems without requiring complex third party equipment.
     
    Our school has a limited budget for CCTV and wants to avoid the cost and complexity of building a dedicated CCTV control room – what are our alternatives?
     
    MOBOTIX includes MxControlCenter, a licence free video management software, for recording and managing an unlimited number of clients, cameras and storage devices. Campuses can setup cameras to record video continuously, on schedule, on alarm and/or on motion detection. The software offers multiple search functions for recorded events with support for mobile devices. The inclusion of such powerful software allows even the smallest schools to benefit from simple to manage CCTV security. The software can be deployed on any Windows PC and with the right settings; any MxControlCenter can link to any camera allowing campuses to setup flexible monitoring and access control processes even out of hours for night watch staff using handheld smart devices.
     
    We want to cover external areas such as playing fields, car parks and our external perimeter but extending traditional fixed network connectivity out to these sites is prohibitively expensive.
     
    MOBOTIX CCTV cameras are IP65 rated which means they will work in every type of weather condition, temperature and humidity. In addition, each camera uses only 5w of power and includes built in support for mobile connectivity and internal storage. The MOBOTIX cameras can also be used over a wireless network. This means that with just the addition of power, campuses can extend CCTV coverage to a location without a fixed network. Instead, CCTV accessibility is delivered via low cost 802.11n based wireless networks or even 3G/4G where applicable. In addition, cameras can record video using internal flash memory and just send very low bitrate preview images over Wi-Fi to monitoring stations. The internal storage means that over a weeks’ worth of high resolution images are stored internally for later viewing in the event of a network link outage.
     
    Our campus network is already pretty stressed; how can we upgrade to high resolution CCTV without an expensive network upgrade?
     
    MOBOTIX use of distributed technology, built in storage and a highly efficient MxPEG video encoder means that the amount of traffic across the network is dramatically reduced. For example, in video motion recording, recordings will be made only when movement occurs in certain areas. An intelligent distributed CCTV solution will send images only when it needs to record them to its storage device. In contrast a traditional ’dumb‘ centralised system will be constantly sending images to the central location so that the software can make the decision to store it or disregard it. This means that with non-MOBOTIX CCTV there is always a network overhead, even when there is no movement. Schools that instead choose MOBOTIX can use its distributed technology to avoid having to upgrade the underlying network and instead setup quality and frame rates based on network availability.
     
    Net-Ctrl and MOBOTIX
     
    Net-Ctrl will be demonstrating the MOBOTIX solution on stand C73 at BETT 2015 along with a range of other great solutions. Net-Ctrl has been a MOBOTIX partner for a number of years. We house our own internal sales, support and installation teams to help you through your project.
     
    Over the past few months we have been working on a number of projects with MOBOTIX that have also taken advantage of the Netgenium IP solutions and the Aperio wireless lock. These combined with the MOBOTIX IP-CCTV portfolio create a highly integrated secure and intelligent building system.
     
    We would be more than happy to discuss any potential projects you may have and discuss the options available to you. Net-Ctrl also has the facility to loan any of the above technology to schools to put them through their paces.
     
    For more information please feel free to PM me.
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