Ruckus Wireless has announced that several Ruckus ZoneFlex access points (APs) – including the new Ruckus ZoneFlex R500 (2×2:2), ZoneFlex R600 (3×3:3), ZoneFlex T300 Series, Ruckus ZoneDirector 3000, ZoneDirector 5000, the ZoneDirector 1200 Smart Wireless LAN (WLAN) controllers, and the Ruckus SmartCell Gateway (SCG) 200 – have all been qualified under the Microsoft Lync Server WiFi qualification programme.
Microsoft Lync certification is designed to ensure an exceptional user experience for small and mid-size businesses (SMBs), and large enterprises that utilise Microsoft Lync and Office 365 by enabling a seamless, fully integrated unified communications (UC) solution. The Microsoft Lync certification of Ruckus WiFi products reflects unique technical advances in handling delay-sensitive voice and video traffic over WiFi.
Unlike competitive alternatives, Ruckus Smart WiFi access points integrate patented SmartCast technology. SmartCast combines sophisticated scheduling and queuing mechanisms with advanced heuristic algorithms that automatically identify and characterise traffic based on its unique behaviour to help ensure peak performance.
With a Ruckus Smart WiFi system, all traffic is queued/de-queued by specialised schedulers, optimised for the corresponding traffic type, the delay/jitter tolerance and bandwidth requirements of the traffic, and the changing characteristics of each station on the wireless LAN.
This automatic type of service (TOS) tagging also eliminates complex QoS configurations, with automatic management of lower-speed 802.11 devices to assure bandwidth availability for prioritised video and voice over WiFi applications. When combined with Ruckus BeamFlex adaptive antenna array technology that directs each packet over the fastest signal path that yields the highest data rates, multimedia WiFi performance is effectively perfected.
This is particularly important with emerging applications such as WiFi calling that now provide the ability to place a cellular voice call over a WiFi network, terminating the call with the carrier network.
Many WiFi calling solutions utilise the 3GPP IR-92 standard for VoLTE (voice over LTE). This standard has an option that allows the entire LTE stack to be tunnelled over WiFi using Internet Protocol Security (IPsec).
As a result, the payload is encrypted thereby preventing conventional WiFi access points from differentiating traffic types. Conversely, Ruckus SmartCast is able to prioritise WiFi calling traffic by acting on the TOS bits set by the smartphone in the IP header, using advanced heuristic algorithms that allow the system to detect voice traffic by looking at the size and frequency of packets in a flow, regardless of whether the flow is encrypted.
Microsoft Lync delivers a platform for unified communications on devices of all types, including mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops—one that is widely accepted in the enterprise environment.
In addition to communication processes such as instant messaging, voice and video calling, Lync is also capable of managing electronic file transfers, Web conferencing and sharing modalities. These services can be utilised not only within the internal organisation but with the external world as well.
“Ruckus continues to meet growing customer requirements for higher capacity, managed WiFi enabled UC solutions that support the explosion of smart devices connecting to enterprise networks,” says Amer Hassan, principal GPM, Microsoft Lync Partner Engineering.
“By qualifying Ruckus Smart WiFi with Microsoft Lync, Ruckus is delivering the type of infrastructure needed to help meet growing customer demands for increased unified communications capacity and mobility.”
“Microsoft Lync delivers a platform for Unified Communications which is widely accepted in the enterprise environment,” said Greg Beach, vice president of product management, Ruckus Wireless. “Utilising the many capabilities Lync provides with a Ruckus Smart WiFi network infrastructure, we believe enterprises can deliver a very high-quality user experience.”
