case study: aerohive

© 2011 OpSource, Inc. All rights reserved.

“Migrating our network management system (NMS) to the cloud allowed Aerohive to better address the Mid-sized enterprise requirements by eliminating CapEx and complexity associated with enterprise Wi-Fi management. OpSource’s Cloud Hosting has provided the high level of security, and performance that you would expect from a cloud hosting leader.”

Aerohive’s Revolutionary Wireless LAN ArchitectureAerohive Networks provides distributed Wi-Fi and routing solutions for enterprises and medium-sized companies. Aerohive’s award-winning cooperative control Wi-Fi architecture eliminates costly controllers and single points of failure. This gives its customers mission-critical reliability with granular security and policy enforcement in addition to the ability to start small and expand without limitations.

Founded in 2006, Aerohive set out to revolutionize the Wi-Fi industry by centralizing network management system (NMS) functions while pushing control and data forwarding to the wireless LAN access points at the edge of the network. When the company pioneered this controller-less architecture in 2007, it went against the “conventional wisdom” at the time; now, the industry has followed its lead.

Aerohive’s cooperative control wireless LAN architecture provides important business benefits, including:•Linear pricing and lower cost, for both branch and

campus deployments•Scalability and performance to support the move to 802.11n

and beyond

Case Study Highlights

•Aerohive revolutionizes WLAN architecture by extending intelligence to the edge and eliminating the need for a WLAN controller while still providing centralized policy based management.

•Challenge: Address the needs of the Mid-sized enterprise to deploy enterprise class Wi-Fi management without the initialCapEx associated with enterprise class Wi-Fi management and provide the ability to start small and grow.

•Solution: Aerohive launched HiveManager Online, a cloud-based NMS for WLAN Access Points (APs) delivered as SaaS offering.

•OpSource was selected as the cloud hosting provider for its security, performance, price, reputation, ease-of-use and scalability.

Aerohive Networks Takes Wi-Fi Management to the Cloud

Case Study

Stephen Philip VP of Corporate and Product Marketing


•High availability and mesh redundancy for mission-critical applications

•Lower complexity for easier deployment, maintenance and management

•More effective security and policy enforcement

Aerohive serves a variety of industries, including:•Healthcare to deliver

foundational infrastructure for Electronic Medical Records and patient care and ambulatory applications in distributed clinics, skill nursing facilities acute care hospitals

•Education to support cost-effective school district and campus deployments designed to support the proliferation of mobile devices and 1:1 laptop programs

•Logistics to support complex distribution and workflow systems such as voice picking and inventory management

•Enterprise Wi-Fi infrastructure, as organizations replace Ethernet as the primary access layer and support the explosion of mobile internet devices in the enterprise

Customers rely on Aerohive to help them improve productivity, increase mobility and reduce cost.

Challenge: Addressing the Needs of the Mid-MarketThe broad adoption of the smartphones, netbooks and the iPad has ushered in a generation of mobility. End users expect immediate access to their

corporate information and the public Internet from any device, in any place and at any time. As more and more businesses have adopted Wi-Fi for branch offices, campus deployments and retail venues, Aerohive’s innovative architecture and cost-effective value proposition have been a winning solution. Companies liked the economics associated with eliminating the controller, while still being able to manage the system as a whole, from a policy-based centralized network management solution.

Small and mid-sized businesses were still challenged by the requirement to host and manage the centralized Wireless NMS. SMEs didn’t have the CapEx, expertise or desire to host their own WNMS. The Mid-sized enterprise represented a significant opportunity for Aerohive, and it had to figure out a way to help these businesses overcome these obstacles.

To address this challenge, Aerohive decided to move the HiveManager NMS into the cloud as a multi-tenant, on-demand,software-as-a-service (SaaS) application. This would eliminate the hassle of managing the servers required to host the NMS. Customers could simply log into Aerohive’s HiveManager Online, the cloud-based version of HiveManager NMS, and manage the wireless LAN access points.The HiveManager application was highly suitable for migration

AEROHIVE NETWORKS TAKES WI-FI MANAGEMENT TO THE CLOUD


Online based on the number of managed WLAN access points.

Impact: Opened a New Market and Drove RevenuesBy creating a cloud-based Network Management System to manage WLAN access points, Aerohive was able to better address the needs of mid-sized businesses, a new market segment for the company. This helped Aerohive to provide more options for customers, improve customer retention and drive revenues.

In fact, Aerohive’s push into the cloud was so successful that the company acquired Pareto Networks, a cloud-based network VPN and routing company. This acquisition will allow Aerohive to address the needs for more complex routing and networking solutions by merging routing, VPN and wireless functionality onto a single platform.

OpSource’s Enterprise-Class CloudIn order move its network management system (NMS) into the cloud, Aerohive needed a low latency cloud hosting platform with high security. At the same time, it wanted a cloud infrastructure pricing model that could scale cost-effectively with its business. Based on the success of the offering, Aerohive looked to augment and scale the solution. After evaluating several vendors Aerohive selected OpSource’s Cloud Hosting platform.

“OpSource was consistently at

the top of the cloud comparison

reports with the fastest cloud.

We chose OpSource because it

provided both low latency and

high security at a great value,

implementation on the OpSource

cloud was easy. OpSource’s

team was helpful when we were

getting started. Once we got it

up and running, we didn’t need

much assistance.”

Lin Jiang Vice President of Technical Operations

to the cloud due to it being multi-tenant and supporting a virtualized management database–something that had previously been developed for the Managed Services market. It turned out that the cloud-based, multi-tenant NMS paired well with the intelligent AP architecture, delivering a highly survivable solution even during WAN outages.

The Mid-Market customers could now benefit from a system that extended intelligence to the edge, centralized management and reduced the overall cost and complexity by moving the WNMS to the cloud. Building a Cloud SaaS Go-to-Market StrategyIn launching HiveManager Online, Aerohive needed to re-think the way it went to market to address smaller customers. It built out a larger inside sales group to scale the organization to handle smaller customers. To maintain its channel neutrality, Aerohive looked to inside sales to work in unison with reseller partners to fulfill everything through the channel. Aerohive is likely one of the very few companies that is successfully leveraging the cloud, an inside sales model and a strong reseller organization. Now Aerohive can provide solutions for customers that want to either manage their systems on-site or leverage the cloud. Customers can either license on-premises NMS software or subscribe to HiveManager



About Aerohive Networks

Aerohive Networks reduces the cost and complexity of today’s networks with cloud-enabled, distributed Wi-Fi and routing solutions for enterprises and medium sized companies including branch offices and teleworkers. Aerohive’s award-winning cooperative control Wi-Fi architecture, public or private cloud-enabled network management, routing and VPN solutions eliminate costly controllers and single points of failure. This gives its customers mission critical reliability with granular security and policy enforcement and the ability to start small and expand without limitations.

About OpSource

OpSource provides cloud and managed hosting solutions that enable businesses of all sizes to accelerate growth and scale operations while controlling costs and reducing IT infrastructure support risks. More than four hundred Software- as-a-Service ISVs, cloud platform providers, carriers and enterprises rely on OpSource’s expertise, experience and agility to operate high-availability, business-critical hosting environments.

Our industry-leading Application Operations service goes beyond traditional hosting by providing application management, change management, performance management and application optimization.

OpSource Cloud is the first cloud to bring together the flexibility, availability and community of the public cloud with the security, performance and control the enterprise demands. Founded in 2002, OpSource is SAS 70 Type II, PCI DSS Level 1 and European Safe Harbor certified and has operations in California, Virginia, UK, Ireland, and India.

Corporate Headquarters

5201 Great America Parkway, Suite 120, Santa Clara, CA 95054, 1-800-664-9973 (USA)

+44 118 320 0112 (UK), [email protected], www.opsource.net

A number of factors contributed to Aerohive’s selection of OpSource:•Security: Ability to configure

VLANs, firewalls, load balancing in the cloud

•Performance: Low latency and 100% availability and network SLAs

•Price: Best value as a cloud provider

•Reputation: OpSource’s strong references and market positioning

•Ease-of-Use: Setup new customers in minutes through user interface or API

•Scalability: Ability to start small and scale up to hundreds of servers quickly


case study: aerohive

Technology