The RUCKUS Edge platform utilizes AI-enabled cloud-based orchestration, together with an edge appliance as a local service delivery point, to enable customers to deploy scalable, low-latency networking, security, and productivity services as well as purpose-driven industry specific vertical services.

RUCKUS Edge is fully integrated with the RUCKUS One platform, retaining advantages of AI-driven assurance and cloud-based management. At launch, the solution will offer a zero-touch, virtual LAN service called SD-LAN, available in the RUCKUS One service catalog that customers can deploy onto the RUCKUS Edge appliance with a single click.

“RUCKUS Edge is a significant product enhancement that enables lower latency and enhanced service resiliency for businesses seeking to manage their networks using cloud-management services,” said Chris DePuy, founder and technology analyst, 650 Group. “Additionally, by extending the company’s RUCKUS One service catalog to its Edge system, the company can enable the deployment of a diverse array of services from both RUCKUS and third-party offerings. We see the company’s service catalog approach will enable a means of incrementally offering AI services to improve network operations.”

Key Features and Benefits of RUCKUS Edge

• Simplified Deployment and Management: Centralized cloud-managed platform automates tasks through web interface and mobile app to reduce operational complexity.
• Scalability and Flexibility: RUCKUS Edge can scale to address the needs of a broad range of organizations from small to large. Multiple edge appliances can be clustered to load balance and distribute workloads across multiple devices.
• Improved Security and Privacy: VXLAN based SD-LAN service enables isolated virtual network segments that can span across the campus, to provide different user groups with easy to deploy, secure and custom access to network resources.
• Reduced Latency and Faster Data Transmission: The RUCKUS Edge appliance improves performance by processing traffic closer to the user.
• Seamless Roaming Within the Site: The solution enables seamless Wi-Fi® roaming across campuses and properties without interrupting user connections, preserving connected devices’ IP addresses while users roam from one Wi-Fi AP to the next.
• Pay-as-You-Go Model: Flexible, subscription-based pricing allows organizations to pay only for what they use, reducing total cost of ownership.
• High Availability and Reliability: Redundant, clustered edge appliances can be deployed for critical sites to boost network resilience and minimize downtime.
• AI-Driven Assurance and Insights: RUCKUS One leverages AI to deliver network assurance and enable IT to detect and resolve incidents before they impact services and users.
• Converged Management Across IT and IoT/OT Networks: Hybrid cloud platform allows management of both wired and wireless LAN environments, as well as IoT networks, for seamless network integration and minimal operational silos.

“We’re taking a bold step forward by extending the capabilities of our AI-Driven network assurance and business intelligence platform, RUCKUS One, to the edge of the network,” stated Bart Giordano, SVP and president, Networking Intelligent Cellular and Security Solutions, CommScope. “The RUCKUS Edge platform enables RUCKUS Networks and its trusted technology partners to deliver a variety of networking, security, and productivity services at the edge of the network to enhance security, privacy, performance and user experience.”

Proven in Campus Network Deployments

“Deploying RUCKUS Edge has been a game-changer for Wewoka Public Schools,” said Stephen Howard, IT director, Wewoka Public Schools. “The simplified network configuration through overlay networks has significantly reduced resources required from our lean IT staff—minimizing the complexity of VLAN provisioning across switches and APs. Centralized, AI driven cloud-based management has streamlined our operations, making deployment and oversight much more efficient. Additionally, the automated guest internet access is seamless and secure, ensuring that our network remains protected while providing a smooth experience for visitors. RUCKUS Edge has truly transformed our approach to network management and security.”

“With the transformative shift to cloud, managing our campus networks with the combination of RUCKUS One and RUCKUS Edge has given us incredible visibility, scale and roaming capabilities,” said Jason Guntharp, associate director of Telecommunications and Information Services, Itawamba Community College. “With over 5,000 students and staff moving across our campuses daily, seamless Wi-Fi roaming has become crucial; RUCKUS Edge delivers a seamless experience throughout our campuses. Additionally, the ability to create custom virtual networks for student residents has empowered us to provide a personalized connectivity experience. RUCKUS has made it remarkably easy for our IT team to configure and manage our network efficiently.”

Availability and Demos

The RUCKUS Edge platform is available globally for RUCKUS One customers. At launch, the RUCKUS One catalog offers services developed by RUCKUS. The RUCKUS Edge and RUCKUS One platforms will be demonstrated at EDUCAUSE in San Antonio, TX, October 21-24, booth #8062. For more information on RUCKUS Edge Platform, visit the website here.

Ascension is a premier infrastructure development program management group serving customers across the U.S. with various planned network builds. Through a continuous pursuit of innovation, Ascension pushes the boundaries of what is possible while focusing on how integration enables seamless, end-to-end broadband system deployments. Aiming to empower the broadband sector to achieve new heights and deliver value to partners, customers, and communities, Ascension is committed to revolutionizing broadband infrastructure and offering innovative solutions that address critical challenges for broadband service providers.

Render delivers an automated and efficient construction management platform that is proven to drive better decisions and enable teams to build at least 15% faster. With the Render platform in place, Ascension and its customers will have access to real-time data and predictive analytics to enable accurate forecasting and efficient management of construction teams. Through Render Insights, Ascension’s customers can access real-time visualizations and intuitive dashboards enabled by Render’s automated pre-construction blueprinting and construction task workflow. Finally, Render’s integration infrastructure ensures that ‘best-of-breed’ construction data flows seamlessly and securely across engineering and operations systems, supporting smooth project transitions and compliance reporting.

“Ascension brings two critical capabilities to the table for network owners: proven delivery expertise and access to broadband-focused private capital,” said Sam Pratt, CEO at Render Networks. “Their strong position, large-scale ambitions, and depth of experience in network engineering and construction make them an ideal partner for Render, and together, we have a unique opportunity to maximize the speed, quality, and availability of connectivity for hundreds of communities across North America.”

“Here at Ascension, our goal isn’t just to help our customers build a network but to ensure that the operational network will perform and be sustainable over the long term. We are able to do this with the help of top execution partners, and we are excited to add Render Networks to our partner team,” said Jon Owen, VP of Systems, Standards & Architecture, Ascension. “Using Render’s platform will give us efficiency, automation, and access to key project and performance analytics with insights that will dramatically improve construction management and decision-making. These features will create a clear competitive differentiation in the market, and we look forward to sharing its innovation platform and systems widely.”

To learn more about Ascension and the seamless, end-to-end broadband system deployments, visit the website here.

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“HPE Aruba Networking Central is advancing AI Networking with new next-generation capabilities, built to enhance network automation with AI-powered insights,” said David Hughes, chief product officer, HPE Aruba Networking. “We are expanding our AI-powered insights for networking and security to cover products from a wide range of industry vendors, offering customers a huge advantage in their ability to control, predict, and manage their network, putting them in a strong position to execute their AI Networking strategies.”

Acquired by HPE in 2023, OpsRamp increases HPE Aruba Networking Central’s contextual network observability by adding insights from network devices such as wireless access points, switches, firewalls, and routers across a comprehensive range of vendors. This new option helps reduce heterogeneous network blind spots and accelerates common health monitoring and troubleshooting tasks.

HPE Aruba Networking Central’s Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) capabilities have also been expanded with the integration of HPE Aruba Networking User Experience Insight (UXI) monitoring natively into its interface. When combined with HPE Aruba Networking UXI sensors, this capability continuously monitors service level agreement (SLA) adherence from the user to the application from a single pane of glass.

To further streamline network configurations at scale, HPE Aruba Networking Central’s device management includes the addition of a common configuration model across HPE Aruba Networking wired, wireless, and gateway products, new hierarchical configurations capabilities, and 90 new APIs.

“Deploying, upgrading and patching a global network is complex and time consuming,” said Keven McCammon, Global Head of Digital Infrastructure Services at Henkel Corporation. “With the latest version of HPE Aruba Networking Central, we look forward to increased automation that reduces our deployment windows across 400+ sites from weeks to hours.”

“Networks of today are increasingly complex with an influx of customer interactions, IoT devices, AI data, and security threats. IT teams are being asked to do more with less and need network automation solutions that assure service integrity and accelerate troubleshooting,” asserts Mark Leary, research director, network observability and automation for IDC. “With the integration of third-party monitoring in HPE Aruba Networking Central, customers can gain essential insights across their end-to-end network infrastructure and promote a more unified and streamlined approach to network management. Contextual network observability is essential in this hyper-connected digital era. It enables network teams to work smarter, heighten resource efficiency, and deliver more value with the resources they have.”

All of the aforementioned improvements will be further enhanced with three times more AI trained models added over the last six months that significantly reduce the time and effort to plan, deploy, manage, troubleshoot and optimize networks. Newly trained and tuned classification AI models are now derived from a data lake with telemetry from more than 4.6 million network-managed devices and more than 1.6 billion unique customer endpoints, marking an exponential growth in 2024.

Earlier this year, HPE Aruba Networking announced the expansion of its AIOps network management capabilities by integrating multiple generative AI (GenAI) Large Language Models (LLMs) within HPE Aruba Networking Central. In 2024, HPE also introduced new AI-powered security observability and monitoring features with HPE Aruba Networking Central to help address IoT security risks, in addition to the launch of behavioral analytics-based network detection and response (NDR) capabilities, also delivered by HPE Aruba Networking Central.

HPE Aruba Networking Central is a cloud-scale network management solution sold as a SaaS and also included as part of an HPE GreenLake for Networking (NaaS) subscription available through the HPE GreenLake platform. Our latest set of AI Networking capabilities will be available in public preview starting October 2024. Third-party monitoring, UXI integration and select device configuration capabilities will be added to the public preview prior to year-end 2024.

To learn more read the blog here, “Raising the Bar on Network Observability and AI with New HPE Aruba Networking Central.”

D-Wave’s hybrid-quantum technology was used to optimize base station tracking areas — which are small geographical regions — that collectively send paging signals and process extensive historical data on device movements between stations. This helps DOCOMO predict future movement patterns and determine the best combination of base stations to re-establish connections as devices move between tracking areas.

The solution’s efficiency was demonstrated in pilot tests for certain areas in Japan (Tokai, Chugoku, Kyushu regions) when compared to classical methods. While a general-purpose solver took 27 hours, D-Wave’s hybrid solver completed the same task in just 40 seconds. The test results showed that quantum optimization led to a 15% reduction in paging signals, allowing approximately 1.2 times more terminals to be connected during periods of high call volume. This expanded bandwidth for base station resources has the potential to greatly reduce congestion, which would help the company maintain quality network traffic flow even during heavy usage.

“We anticipate that our quantum optimization strategy will further refine network efficiency, allowing us to maintain high-quality service without additional infrastructure investments as network traffic increases,” said Takatoshi Okagawa, director of research and development strategy at NTT DOCOMO. “With D-Wave’s hybrid quantum technology, we aim to set a new standard in the telecommunications industry for operational performance.”

“Telcos are faced with a slew of increasing operational complexities — from 5G implementation to ever-shifting consumer demands — and need novel solutions to maintain a competitive edge,” said Dr. Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave. “DOCOMO’s successful pilot sends a clear signal — that today’s quantum technologies are capable of solving telcos’ complex optimization problems, with the potential to elevate customer satisfaction, maintain network performance and mitigate rising infrastructure costs.”

Following its successful pilot, DOCOMO plans to deploy the annealing quantum computing solution into production at branch offices across Japan. The company is also exploring opportunities to apply quantum optimization across its business units including finance, retail, traffic and logistics, and construction.

To learn additional details around the Quantum Optimization pilot, visit the website here.

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