ADTRAN is rolling out its ProCloud managed services in phases, and the first phase will be music to the ears of those struggling to manage and secure Wi-Fi.
ProCloud Wi-Fi Services takes the tricky work of on-premises Wi-Fi and turns it all into a managed and hosted service. The service leverages ADTRAN’s Bluesocket virtual WLAN
(vWLAN) technology.
Wi-Fi is almost everywhere, and where it’s not you’ll notice quick. Within the enterprise, there are precious few wireless dead zones, and customers, visitors and of course workers all expect a reliable, secure and hopefully fast Wi-Fi connection.
ProCloud aims to make Wi-Fi “always-on,” secure for employees as well as visitors, and managed by a dedicated, outsourced team of Wi-Fi experts.
ProCloud gives “ADTRAN partners the ability to offer an affordable, fully-managed, business-class Wi-Fi service that provides 24x7 monitoring and resolution of technical issues, including hardware upgrades and moves/adds/changes. ADTRAN ProCloud is staffed by ADTRAN-certified engineers that are responsible for all aspects of the service, and provides a guarantee of 99.99 percent infrastructure uptime,” the company said.
And because it is all based on Bluesocket vWLAN gears, customers can easily move their Wi-Fi management back in-house anytime they please.
There are two forms of the solution MSPs can work with. One is a private label program where the MSP imposes its own brand, but uses ADTRAN infrastructure. The other is reselling a turnkey managed service that has 99.99 percent uptime guarantees, 24x7 alerts and proactive monitoring, and fast hardware replacement.
“With the addition of ProCloud, partners can deliver best-in-class managed network services, and utilize our powerful ProStart and ProCare programs to ensure the network is installed and maintained for their customers’ specific organizational requirements. As a result, businesses spend less time and attention trouble shooting their IT challenges and remain focused on achieving core business goals,” said Todd Lattanzi, director of product management for ADTRAN’s Enterprise Networks Division, in a statement.
ADTRAN’s Todd Lattanzi
Wireless-as-a-Service Heating Up
Thanks to the efforts of MSPs, wireless is no longer a “roll your own” Wild West style market, but one with disciplined and varied offerings which can all fall under the general heading Wireless-as-a-Service (WaaS).
While WaaS services vary greatly, the unifying notion is that a provider does the heavy lifting of developing and managing a service so IT doesn’t have to. Not only does the service work right out of the box, it should be better than a home grown service since the provider’s business requires it to be an expert in the areas it covers.
Some WaaS offerings include consulting. For instance, a provider could help a hospital find out what mobile devices are best for doctors, nurses, administrators and support staff. The provider can then set up a network that can support these devices, offering needed performance and determining the range of the Wi-Fi so all personnel are served.
A good WaaS should also provide predictable costs, and help the shop develop a plan for future expansion, such as might be needed if the company adopts a liberal bring your own device (BYOD) policy and now has to support a mix of smart phones and tablets.
Edited by
Jamie Epstein
