NEC, Meru Networks tap SDN to target enterprise Wi-Fi

Software-defined networking solutions continue to push across the wireless telecommunications space, with the latest push targeting wireless local area networks. NEC’s American operations announced an agreement with Meru Networks to work on integrating SDN-enabled wired and wireless enterprise access networking solutions.
The deal calls for the companies to collaborate on supporting the OpenFlow standard to allow for interoperability between NEC’s ProgammableFlow Networking Suite and Meru’s 802.11ac Wi-Fi product. That work is expected to help enterprise customers deal with the growing “bring-your-own-device” phenomenon in the workplace that is putting increased pressure on information technology departments.
“Open-standards-based SDN support simplifies network management and provisioning by enabling greater automation and accelerating the deployment of new applications and services,” the companies noted in their announcement. “It also enables application-specific service level agreements and development of third-party applications for network traffic monitoring, location-based services and enhanced security.”
Both companies recently garnered recognition for their respective solutions from the Open Networking Foundation, which is a non-profit organization working on the adoption of open SDN. The certificate signals that the technology “accurately implements a particular version of OpenFlow.” The ONF earlier this year announced a partnership with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to further the development of network function virtualization specifications. The organizations noted that the agreement would focus on how SDN can enable forwarding-plane support for some network function virtualization use cases.
A recent report from Infonetics Research, based on conversations with telecom operators representing 51% of worldwide telecom capital expenditures, found that 29% of those surveyed are currently deploying SDN and 52% plan to evaluate SDN deployments by the end of the year. The survey also found that 97% of those questioned plan to deploy SDN at some point, with 93% saying they plan on deploying NFV.
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