Pre-Order Your Xirrus Rapid Deployment Kit

It has come to my attention that during Interop Las Vegas, Xirrus was allowing people to pre-order their Rapid Deployment Wi-Fi Kit. The kit was made specifically designed for disaster relief situations. Being in California, we all deal with those random fires where peoeple do need immediate assistance.

There are two versions of the kit:

Xirrus Rapid Deployment Kit 100
-Covers 100 concurrent users
-Price= $3,999

Xirrus Rapid Deployment Kit 200
-Covers 200 concurrent users
-Price= $5,999

Here is a video that Xirrus released during Interop about the Deployment Kit:

Moorpark Unified School District Deploys Xirrus Wi-Fi Arrays

Being an alumni of Moorpark (if that’s even possible, since I was there for a few months), and now having my younger family members attend Moorpark High School, makes me glad that they chose to deploy Xirrus Wi-Fi. I remember the days of sitting outside with my laptop and trying my best to grab a connection around campus. Nothing would happen so I would have to go into the computer lab and literally wait 15 minutes to use a computer. Once I got on the computer, the connection was horribly slow!

With the deployment of Xirrus Arrays, Moorpark is able to deliver mobility for student learning.

Here’s the press release taken from the Xirrus site:

Xirrus, Inc., the Wi-Fi “Power-Play” that delivers the most wireless coverage, bandwidth, and throughput in the industry announced today the deployment of their 802.11n Wi-Fi Arrays across Moorpark Unified School District in Moorpark, CA. Moorpark’s decision to deploy 802.11n wireless mobility district-wide empowers student learning and achievement by increasing mobility and collaboration. Xirrus was chosen by the Moorpark’s technology team because Xirrus Wi-Fi Arrays deliver far greater coverage, bandwidth, and user density over traditional access point systems and even Ethernet workgroup switches, saving the district money while making it possible to replace antiquated wired computer connections with wireless mobility.

Moorpark Unified School District, consisting of 7,200 students and 500 staff members, operates eleven schools; six elementary schools, two middle schools, one comprehensive high school, a continuation high school, and a middle college program with strong and innovative instructional programs. Seven out of eight eligible District schools have been named California Distinguished Schools, one a National Blue Ribbon School, two Title I Academic Achievement awarded schools, and Community High has Model Continuation High School status.

“Our department’s mission is to provide our students, staff, parents, and the community with the equipment, training, support in a robust, secure infrastructure that enables student learning and achievement, while preparing the staff and students to meet the ever-changing technology challenges of our global society,” said Julie Judd, Director of Information/Education Technology Services and Support at Moorpark. “I wanted an environment that would allow teachers and students to collaborate at any site regardless of their home base. We are beginning to deploy laptops for students and teachers and it was a goal that we weren’t limited to the classroom walls, as learning happens everywhere, so we elected to begin replacing our wired network classroom connections with wireless mobility. Finding the right solution that would deliver the necessary bandwidth, be easy to install and maintain, and not cost the district an arm and a leg was as easy as calling Xirrus.”

“Xirrus has exceptional products that merge Array antennas, like those found in cellular towers with that of Ethernet switching,” continued Julie. “Unlike the lackluster thin access points, which must be tied back to a closet controller to function, the Arrays encrypt and manage the network connectivity at the edge of the network making our user data much more secure. Further, placing the intelligence at the edge delivers greater efficiencies and cost savings as there is no requirement for expensive and often outdated Wi-Fi controller taking up valuable real-estate in IT closets. We have been very pleased with our decision to go with Xirrus – it doesn’t go down, is consistent, and requires very little, if any, maintenance. From their products to their personnel, Xirrus is a vendor who understands my needs and works to ensure those needs are met. I highly recommend inviting Xirrus in for a quick site survey and demo of their products – seeing is believing.”

“Moorpark is a great example of a district using technology to further enhance the quality of education for students and the collaboration between student and teacher,” said Charles Bettinelli, Regional Manager at Xirrus. “Schools can save time and money associated with wired connectivity like moves, adds, and changes by deploying our Arrays – one 802.11n Array can deliver a few Gigabits of Wi-Fi bandwidth and support a few hundred users off one cable drop. There is no need to deploy an access point every 20 feet like some vendors profess, which costs a lot of money and time while not solving the issue at hand—that Wi-Fi can and ought to be the primary connection for network users.”

The End of Interop 09

This event has been one hell of a ride, you can say. To take part in this event was such an honor. I met a lot of great people, hung out and enjoyed my tech talk with companies.

One of my most memorable moments was meeting Father Robert of the Jesuits. Kind of nerdy to say, but I watch his “gadget” videos and finally got to meet the man behind the screen. He is a very humble man and kind hearted as well..also very very down to earth. Here’s a video from Interop:

I literally almost felt like a little kid at Disneyland because of this event. I guess you can attribute that feeling to receiving from toys and shirts from almost every booth. Also the Xirrus boxing ring was a show for all to watch. In result, I feel dead and tired because the event has ended, just like how you feel when you come home from a long day at Disneyland.

I hope you readers understand that I am extremely drained and tired, so I will continue my normal blogging next week! Promise to do twice as much to make up for the lost days.

Boxing at Interop..Courtesy of Xirrus

As stated in my previous post, I’m busy but LOVING IT! Interop 2009 is amazing. This is the third and final day of Interop and I’m sad, but glad that it is over. I’m glad to be coming home, but sad to be leaving.

If anyone has stopped by the Xirrus booth, then you all know what I’m talking about. Day 1 and day 2 of Interop, Xirrus had 4 bouts each day. It seemed to me there were two lightweight bouts, one heavyweight, and one women’s bout.

None of these matches are set up, so it can go either way. I actually made sure to come to the booth everytime they had a match. During two of the bouts for day 2, it ended with a little bit of blood splatter on the boxing mat!

If you want to view all of the fights so far, just search “Xirrus” on youtube, or go to their InteropTV page.

Here’s my favorite fight of the day. These girls go at it hard just like the men!

Interop 2009 Las Vegas: Web 2.0 At Its Best

I would like to apologize that for the next few days, my posts will be more geared towards Interop (if I do get a chance to post that is). I am taking part as an attendee at Interop 2009 in the place that never sleeps, Las Vegas.

Coming to Interop, I realized that Web 2.0 has taken a brand new toll on companies and individuals today. Almost everybody has been twittering and facebooking about their experience with what they are doing at Interop. Some exhibitors even have a Web 2.0 section in their booth, such as Xirrus. Xirrus has one section in their amazing boxing ring booth that is just for Web 2.0. They encourage you to blog, facebook, twitter, flickr, and feed what is going on at Interop.

There are laptops everywhere and blackberries with twitter enabled. Can’t wait to fill you guys in on what’s happening next at Interop. I got here kind of late so I missed out on one of the boxing matches, but Xirrus employees have captured it on video. They said it would be on their youtube channel very soon, so keep a lookout for that!

Xirrus Introduces Rapid Deployment Wi-Fi Kit for Disaster Response and Temporary Events

Self-contained Kit Enables Fast, Simple Roll Out of Robust Wireless Networks

Xirrus, Inc., the Wi-Fi “Power-Play” that delivers the most wireless coverage, bandwidth, and throughput in the industry, announced today a portable, pre-packaged kit designed for the rapid and simple deployment of Wi-Fi networks in temporary applications. Unlike other Wi-Fi networking solutions which require many different components, the Xirrus Wi-Fi Array integrates everything needed to deploy a large coverage, high density Wi-Fi network supporting up to hundreds of clients into a single device. This makes the Wi-Fi Array the ideal fit for portable applications such as disaster response command posts; high-density events such as conferences and expositions; and short-term events such as festivals, markets, and fairs.

The pre-packaged, self-contained Wi-Fi deployment kit includes:

• Xirrus Wi-Fi Array: Includes 4 or 8 access points, antennas, Wi-Fi controller, switch, firewall, RADIUS server, DHCP server, and management in one device
• Mounting Tripod
• Data and Power Cables
• Ruggedized carrying cases

“We designed the Xirrus Rapid Deployment Wi-Fi Kit for deployment simplicity. The Wi-Fi Array, around which the kit is based, integrates all the elements needed to deploy a Wi-Fi network into a single device,” said Bruce Miller, Vice President of Product Marketing at Xirrus. “The kit comes with all the necessary mounting hardware and cabling and is pre-configured to work out of the box. A Wi-Fi network for hundreds of users can literally be set up in less than 10 minutes. With a range well over 1,000 feet line-of-site outdoors and 200-500 feet indoors depending on environment, the Array is the only solution of its kind for setting up a pervasive wireless network with such simplicity.”

“Adding the Xirrus Wi-Fi Array to our Disaster Recovery solution has allowed us to become more flexible and provide access to an even greater amount of clients – it covers a large area while providing stable and reliable network services to our clients,” said Jake Cordova, Information Services Department, County of San Bernardino. “To provide immediate assistance to those who have been affected by a disaster, it is crucial to establish this capability quickly with the least amount of devices and power possible.”

Xirrus Rapid Deployment Wi-Fi Kits can be ordered online at the Xirrus Store at http://www.store.xirrus.com.

Xirrus Rapid Deployment Kit 100

• 100 concurrent users
• Price: $3,999

Xirrus Rapid Deployment Kit 200

• 200 concurrent users
• Price: $5,999

UK’s Best Hospital of 2007 Improves Medical Services with Xirrus Wi-Fi Arrays

Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic and District Hospital Chooses Xirrus to Increase Wi-Fi Services for Doctors, Nurses, and Patients

Xirrus, Inc., the Wi-Fi “Power-Play” that delivers the most wireless coverage, bandwidth, and throughput in the industry announced today that the world-renowned Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic and District Hospital NHS Trust (RJAH Hospital) located in Shropshire, England has selected Xirrus’ Wi-Fi Arrays to be deployed Hospital-wide. Xirrus was selected over other Wi-Fi vendors to replace RJAH Hospital’s legacy controller-based Wi-Fi network because only the Xirrus Wi-Fi Array’s distributed architecture is capable of providing the coverage, bandwidth, and RF control to support all the medical personnel and applications. The Xirrus high performance Wi-Fi network will provide patient information, prescription services, e-Mail, web browsing, and guest access today with the capability of supporting VoWi-Fi, RFID tracking, and Wireless CCTV in the near future.

RJAH Hospital is an NHS Hospital specializing in bone and joint disorders along with spinal disorders and metabolic disorders affecting muscular development. With a worldwide reputation for innovation and research, RJAH Hospital was voted Best Hospital by patients in the 2007 National Healthcare Commission Survey (United Kingdom) and had the highest score of all NHS Hospitals for Overall Rate of Care Received in the 2007 National Inpatient Survey (United Kingdom).

“At RJAH, we work hard to ensure our patients receive the absolute best care possible,” said Richard Jones, IT Systems Support Engineer at RJAH. “With all the medical advances pertaining to wireless applications and services, we found our existing 802.11b/g centralized controller architecture had several problems related to interference, coverage, and user capacity. We did not have control over the RF management and shaping – we wanted a visual representation of the area each Access Point was covering and what was going on within that RF environment.”

“We selected Xirrus Wi-Fi Arrays, along with their Management System, to give us the desired RF control and to drastically increase the amount of wireless bandwidth distributed among our staff,” continued Richard. “Unlike other vendors, Xirrus designed their products to include multiple radios with directional antennas, thereby increasing the RF range and shaping capabilities, making it far easier and more cost efficient to deploy, manage, and maintain a wireless network. With the Xirrus Wi-Fi Arrays, we will have the performance needed to roll out patient information and prescription drug services in order to operate more efficiently and improve medical services and patient care.”

“RJAH Hospital has been adding and tweaking their existing Wi-Fi network for some time, but with very little improvement to the overall service,” said Chris Allen, Regional Manager (UK) at Xirrus. “To cover the areas required, the Hospital would have needed to install countless more access points, cable runs, and workgroup switches. Deploying a Xirrus Wi-Fi network has given them access to an amount of Wi-Fi bandwidth previously unobtainable; allowing support for more users on both 802.11a and b/g, along with complete control of the users within the Wi-Fi network.”

“We are constantly coming across organizations with Wi-Fi networks that were deployed a few years ago as an overlay to the wired network—supported a small number of clients accessing online information wirelessly,” said David Kynaston, European Business Development Manager at Wireless LAN Source. “However, these same networks are brought to their knees today with the significant rise of both Wi-Fi applications and devices—from prescription drug services at the bedside to streaming video in patient rooms. Only Xirrus planned for the success of Wi-Fi by designing a system that operates like a cellular network with sectored directional antennas for greater coverage and built like a workgroup switch with distributed intelligence for greater throughout and security.”

Wireless LAN Source
Wireless LAN Source Ltd was founded in 2003 and is a specialist provider of wireless networking equipment and antennas. Since its inception, Wireless LAN Source has experienced year on year growth of 100% and has established itself as the leading provider of solutions and hardware in the wireless networking arena. For more information, please visit wlansource.co.uk.

Inside Interop Blog Gives Detail on Xirrus Arrays

I thought this was an awesome blog that Brian Chee posted about Xirrus. Funny thing was I posted something about Xirrus yesterday for being the Wi-Fi provider at Interop. I would like to share what Brian blogged about:

Back in the day, a network engineer commented that “…we sure had to run a lot of wire for wireless…” The gist being that we needed to put in a whole heck of a lot of wireless access points to support the loads found at a technology trade show. Now this is NOT to say that the InteropNET venue is by any means “normal”, because it isn’t. From the NOC we can typically see hundreds of access points with people stomping all over each other with their AP’s cranked up to full volume in a feeble attempt to drown out their neighbor. We also have one heck of a lot of territory to cover since our guests will find a quiet spot just about everywhere in the convention center. So our challenges for wireless are: (1) the need for LOTS of coverage, and (2) the need for intelligent coverage so that we don’t add to the “shouting match” between the hundreds of access points in the exhibit hall.

Our partners at Xirrus are back with their flying saucer WiFi arrays, hovering over the exhibit hall, and on tripods throughout the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. However, these flying saucers actually have up to sixteen radios in each saucer, with sectional antennas and patented signal guides to more intelligently direct the signal to where it’s needed instead of just blasting in a 360 degree circle. The end result for the InteropNET is a whole lot less wire run to support wireless and instead of a hundred or so access points, we’re talking about a dozen now.

These “sector” antennas are mounted along the rim of the saucer, each one covering a piece of the “pie” so to speak. With each radio being individually controllable, the Xirrus folks can “shape” the radio energy to better cover odd shaped areas. One of their favorite examples are schools and how they tend to have a high density of users in long narrow buildings.

These anonymous “heat maps” are actual measurements from various Xirrus customer schools….the funny thing is that warehouses also have heat maps that look like these but for a different reason. Your typical warehouse has long rows of metal shelves with stuff on them and the signal from traditional access points will bounce around like billiard balls causing all kinds of multipath interference. The Xirrus solution of shaping the RF energy patterns, greatly reduces multipathing allowing more throughput with less energy.

To get a better glimpse of the technology and Xirrus’ role in the InteropNET, I shot a little video of John Merrill at hotstage where he shows off the guts of an array.

Xirrus Will Be Wi-Fi Provider At Interop 2009

Wi-Fi company Xirrus will be the Wi-Fi provider at this year’s Interop in Las Vegas, NV. Xirrus has been the official Wi-Fi provider for Interop for the past few years, so this time it won’t be anything different. However, Xirrus will deliver the 802.11n network that we have been waiting for so long. With Interop coming up in three weeks, I’m looking forward to attending this event and to trying out the “n” network! Check out the press release of the news:

Xirrus, Inc., the Wi-Fi “Power-Play” that delivers the most wireless coverage, bandwidth, and throughput in the industry announced today that they have been selected to be the official wireless provider for Interop Las Vegas (May 17-21, 2009) and New York (November 16-20, 2009). Xirrus will deliver the 802.11n network for Interop attendees and exhibitors throughout the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas and the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York. This is the fourth time Xirrus has been chosen as the InteropNet wireless provider due to the power and simplicity of our Wi-Fi Array platform.

“Over the past two decades, Interop has advanced the growth and evolution of the IT industry—this year is no different,” said Lenny Heymann, General Manager of Interop. “Thanks to Xirrus, we can continue to use the latest standards like 802.11n -based network—a network that will deliver vast amounts of bandwidth to thousands of concurrent users.”

The Xirrus Wi-Fi Array integrates 4, 8, 12, 16, or 24 802.11abg+n radios with an onboard Gigabit Switch, Wi-Fi Controller, Wi-Fi Firewall, dedicated Wi-Fi Threat Sensor, and Spectrum Analyzer into a single device. Xirrus’ solution delivers 4X the performance and coverage along with 75% less devices, cabling, switch ports, and installation time compared to traditional access points because unlike access points the Xirrus Wi-Fi Array utilizes segmented directional antennas to better utilize and manage the RF energy of the device.

“Providing the 802.11n Wi-Fi network for this prestigious gathering of IT experts is an honor and demonstrates the strength of our Wi-Fi architecture in challenging environments such as Interop,” said Dirk Gates, Founder and CEO of Xirrus. “Distributed Wi-Fi architectures, like the Xirrus Wi-Fi Array, are overtaking centralized architectures the same way Ethernet overtook ATM in the 1990’s. The distributed intelligence and simplicity of our Wi-Fi Array allows us to quickly deploy a network with significantly fewer devices and provide exhibitors and attendees with the highest performance possible for voice, video, and data.”

Interop runs May 17 through 21, 2009 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Xirrus will showcase its 802.11n products at booth #1331. More information is available at http://www.interop.com.

Prestigious Edgbaston Cricket Ground Replaces Wired Switches with Wi-Fi

Xirrus Wi-Fi Array Have Been Installed Throughout the Cricket Ground to Improve Media Connectivity During County and International Matches

 

Xirrus, Inc., the Wi-Fi “Power-Play” that delivers the most wireless coverage, bandwidth, and throughput in the industry announced today the deployment of their Wi-Fi Arrays at the prestigious Edgbaston Cricket Ground in the United Kingdom. The Wi-Fi Arrays were installed to replace wired workgroup switches in order to supply large amounts of bandwidth to the many journalists covering the cricket matches. Xirrus was selected because only their Wi-Fi Arrays are powerful enough to wirelessly deliver the same quality of service as a workgroup switch.

Established as a Test Cricket venue for over 100 years, and designed to meet the highest specifications, the Edgbaston Cricket Ground has a long and proud history as the finest indoor cricket facility in the United Kingdom. Situated at Edgbaston, the home of Warwickshire County Cricket, the centre boasts a range of facilities to meet cricket, community and corporate needs. It is the only International Test stadium within the West Midlands and in an average year, major matches staged at the ground attract up to 200,000 spectators.

“To better serve the media personnel covering cricket matches at Edgbaston, we chose to install a Wi-Fi network, allowing these major media companies to connect their PCs, MACs, and PDAs to the Internet to send large image files take with 30MP SLR cameras down to their London offices as well as for the BBC and Sky Sports commentators to keep up-to-date on team news and match reports,” said James McLaughlin, Commercial Director at Edgbaston. “We’ve had spotted coverage from traditional access points in the past, but with our new WAN link of dual 100MB fibers, we wanted a Wi-FI network that would compliment this speed and allow us to replace wired switches in the press boxes.”

“The traditional access points we tested could not supply enough bandwidth for 50 plus users seated in these small 80 feet by 20 feet press boxes,” continued James. “However, the Wi-Fi Array by Xirrus had no problem with the task—all our users connected immediately and stayed connected without any issues for the entire 5-day match. Thanks to the Xirrus solution, we had the coverage, user density, and bandwidth needed to permanently replace our temporary APs and the wired workgroup switches. Anyone looking for a simple, cost effective, and powerful solution must give Xirrus a call—there is nothing else like it on the market today.”

“Xirrus was selected because we provided a cost effective Wi-Fi network delivering the most bandwidth while using only a handful of devices to cover the entire cricket centre,” said Dave Kynaston, European Business Manager at Wireless LAN Source. “We are honored to have our products deployed at such legendary UK sporting facility.”

“Wireless LAN Source was tasked by Edgbaston to build a world-class Wi-Fi network that would give the press and staff access to wireless applications throughout the cricket grounds,” said Chris Allen, Regional Sales Manager (UK) at Xirrus. “Using our high performance Wi-Fi Arrays allows more users to connect with more bandwidth using fewer devices than traditional Wi-Fi products from other Vendors.”

Wireless LAN Source
Wireless LAN Source Ltd was founded in 2003 and is a specialist provider of wireless networking equipment and antennas. Since its inception, Wireless LAN Source has experienced year on year growth of 100% and has established itself as the leading provider of solutions and hardware in the wireless networking arena. For more information, please visit wlansource.co.uk.