Trapeze launches unique wireless solutions that rival wired LAN's performance and reliability

With the innovative products, Trapeze is poised to consolidate its industry-leading position as provider of the most advanced, enterprise-class wireless LAN technology.

Phase two of Smart Mobile includes the high-capacity MX-2800 Controller, which is the industry's first and only 28Gbps controller; the Advanced Mobility System Software (MSS), upgraded and enhanced to deliver the industry's highest wireless reliability and availability; and the MP-432, the industry's highest performance enterprise-class access point for high-bandwidth 802.11n networks. It is expected that the second phase of the Smart Mobile technology will be available in regional markets in the first quarter of 2008.

“With the new generation of Smart Mobile technology, Trapeze Networks has made wireless LAN a more attractive, cost-efficient platform for enterprise network infrastructure. For the first time, it is now possible for enterprise-wide deployment of wireless networks that would equal or even exceed wired networks in terms of scalability, performance, security, reliability and cost efficiency,'

said Feras Zeidan, Regional Manager MEA, Trapeze Networks.

'We have raised the bar of excellence yet again, and will continue to do so as we fulfil our promise of being a visionary leader in the development of wireless network technology,” added Zeidan.

The MX-2800, the highest-capacity controller developed by any WLAN vendor to date, provides 28Gbps of throughput via two 10-Gigabit and eight 1-Gigabit ports. It supports 512 active access points and an industry-leading 12,000 active client devices, including laptops, Wi-Fi phones and active RFID tags.

Moreover, the MX-2800 employs dedicated high-performance hardware to perform both wireless and wired data processing in chips expressly designed for these functions, as opposed to processing the data in software running on a general-purpose processor. With this approach, the MX-2800 is the only wireless LAN switch to provide true line-rate throughput for wireless and wired data.

The Advanced MSS delivers the industry's only pooled redundancy, hitless failover, and zero down time in-service upgrades. Compatible with all Trapeze MC controllers, the MSS enhancements enable all switches in the network to act collectively as a single virtual switch, allowing every switch to automatically serve as back-up for any other switch in the network. In conventional approach, each switch is a discrete resource and redundancy is limited to a specific number of back-up switches, which sit idle until needed resulting in inefficient resource utilization and higher costs.

The MSS also enables network managers to easily upgrade switches without network downtime. This is done by automatic remapping of affected access points to other available switches, and automatically mapping them to their original switch once the upgrade is completed. Scalability is also optimized as increasing capacity is as easy as adding new switches, a feature which also results in substantial cost impact in terms of configuration and network management time savings.

The dual-radio MP-432 utilizes state-of-the-art 802.11n features, such as true 3x3 multiple input/multiple output (MIMO), frame aggregation, and 40 MHz channels. It is able to simultaneously operate in both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands at 300 Mbps per band, for a total data rate of 600 Mbps. The MP-432 employs sophisticated optimization techniques developed by Trapeze to dramatically reduce overhead and deliver the highest possible performance for any 802.11n access point in the industry.

Additionally, owing to Smart Mobile's intelligent switching architecture, MP-432 access points can operate with existing Trapeze MX switches, enabling customers to deploy 802.11n without upgrading their switching infrastructure. The MP-432 also supports the emerging high-power 802.3at Power over Ethernet (PoE) standard, and is the only enterprise-class 802.11n access point that runs with existing 802.3af PoE, allowing customers to get immediate 802.11n performance benefits without having to upgrade their existing power sources.

'Trapeze has helped the Wi-Fi technology to evolve, developing it into a critical part of network infrastructures, and not just a luxury or convenient alternative. With the new range of Smart Mobile technology, Trapeze ushers in a new frontier in wireless networking where high performance, cost efficiency and seamless scalability are the new norms,' concluded Zeidan.