The Avaya survey showed that companies wait almost a month (27 days) – most of the time on a maintenance window - before they can make a significant improvement to a business system. At an average of 10 changes a year, businesses can wait up to nine months for improvements that can help their company grow, increase employee and sales productivity and improve business analysis. Bottom line, network complexity increases wait time; wait time affects margins and decreases the ability of IT to provide the company with a competitive edge.
To help end this network waiting game, Avaya has dramatically simplified network infrastructures with Fabric Connect technology driving the Automated Campus, which now extends to the wireless edge with the introduction of a new series of Wireless LAN solutions.
Avaya's networking portfolio can eliminate the need for maintenance windows required by the majority of traditional networks underlying businesses today. Avaya Fabric Connect automatically configures the distribution and core switches, so IT personnel need only configure edge devices. Avaya’s Fabric Connect now extends to the new Wireless LAN 9100 series for zero-touch provisioning of access points and edge-only provisioning of services. IT departments save hours if not days and reduce the potential for errors that cause outages that impact business agility, revenues, and IT professionals' careers.
Supporting the next generation Wi-Fi standard (802.11ac), the Wireless LAN 9100 Series can further reduce end user waiting time by offering faster gigabit Wi-Fi throughput. The WLAN 9100 Application Control feature recognises over 1,000 of the most popular business and personal applications and allows administrators to create granular policies to block, restrict and/or prioritise specific applications so that business-critical applications come first.
Avaya has deployed Fabric Connect in many of its largest customers – including the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. It was also the backbone for InteropNet, where last year the Avaya Fabric Connect network required only 1/10 the resources of previous years.
"Previously we needed six weeks for network changes; today we can implement them in days." commented Albert Knoll, Network Operations Manager, Fujitsu Technology Solutions on their recent, flawless implementation of Avaya Fabric Connect
Simon Culmer, (pictured) Managing Director, Avaya UK added "We find that IT departments go to impressive measures to mitigate risk. The ‘maintenance window’ model of the 80’s is methodical and precise. We have no issue with the process, but what we have done is remove the reason for the model."
"With many wireless infrastructure solutions, the actual applications that users are running over the network are invisible to IT. However this information is critical to profiling and managing network usage. Avaya WLAN 9100 allows IT administrators to apply application-specific policies to manage network performance and security. The end result is a high quality user experience." continued Alan Hase, Vice President, Unified Access and Identity Solutions.