Allied Telesis AT UWC-60-APL / Network management device / 6 ports / GigE / 1U | AT-UWC-60-APL-50

Description

The Allied Telesis Unified Wireless Controller (UWC) Series has been designed specifically to meet the requirements of enterprise organizations.Wireless technology continues to advance as users look for ways to connect their ever-increasing array of devices. This evolution includes not only the increased bandwidth delivered by IEEE 802.11n, but also security and other functionality.Within an enterprise environment, the rapid adoption of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) has seen a significant increase in the number of devices that need to be supported.The benefits of mobility and BYOD include greater flexibility, performance, and staff satisfaction, but these need to be carefully balanced with organizations' concerns around security. As the number of devices increases, so too does the size of the wireless network along with the burden of management.Ensuring performance and staff satisfaction in a dynamic environment is particularly challenging and results in an increased Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) as a result of the Radio Frequency (RF) planning and management that is required.The Allied Telesis UWC Series has been designed specifically to meet the requirements of enterprise organizations and addresses key concerns about mobility, security, and TCO.The UWC Series controls a number of Allied Telesis TQ Series wireless access points and centralizes the provisioning, operation, administration, and maintenance for the entire enterprise wireless infrastructure. As a complete solution, this reduces the headaches involved with managing, upgrading, and troubleshooting, thereby improving the experience for users and IT staff.The Allied Telesis Unified Wireless solution delivers a rich feature set that includes seamless mobility, client location tracking, and extensive security safeguards.The UWC Series provides flexible deployment options and is available as a hardware appliance or a software-based solution.The AT-UWC-Install software-based solution may be installed on any industry-standard server or on a virtual machine as a Cloud-based application. This Software-as-a-Service (SAAS) model provides a number of advantages including a simpler set-up resulting in a more cost-effective deployment.

Special Features

• Simplified Plug and Play
• RF management and control
• Flexible data forwarding
• Wireless IPS
• Enterprise class security
• Guest access
• Seamless mobility
• Resilience
• Wireless controller grouping
• Graphic network visualization

Product features

• Simplified Plug and Play
  The Allied Telesis Unified Wireless Controller (UWC) detects, authenticates, and automatically configures the access points as they are installed. The discovery mechanism works at Layer 2 and Layer 3 and dramatically simplifies the task of deployment.
• RF management and control
  One of the biggest challenges with wireless solutions is the dynamic nature of the environment and the highly mobile nature of client devices. The UWC continuously monitors the RF coverage from access points and dynamically reconfigures the radios to minimize interference and improve performance. Load balancing is performed automatically to distribute clients among the available access points, which further improves the user experience. In addition, the automated management enables the UWC to alter the configuration of surrounding radios should an access point fail - ensuring no loss of coverage for client devices.
• Flexible data forwarding
  The UWC can be configured for either centralized or distributed data forwarding, enabling the solution to be tailored to meet the requirements of specific applications or environments. For environments with highly mobile clients, data traffic is encapsulated in tunnels to maintain the client's permanent IP address when the client is roaming through different subnets. When deployed for centralized data forwarding, the UWC is responsible for the forwarding of all traffic. This allows the application of strong security policies as all traffic must traverse the UWC, where it can be forwarded or filtered as required. In the distributed scenario, the access points are fully responsible for determining how and where to forward data - including the application of Quality of Service (QoS) or security policies. The choice of data forwarding scheme may be applied dynamically, based on WLAN/SSID: "Employee access should use centralized data forwarding to ensure that an organization's corporate security policies are being adhered to. "Guest access may be provided, using distributed data forwarding as the guest data traffic is isolated from the corporate network and it is not necessary to enforce any specific security policy.
• Wireless IPS
  An integrated Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) is included as part of the comprehensive security features of UWC. The wireless IPS monitors the airspace and protects the network from rogue or unauthorized access points and other rogue devices. Countermeasures are taken automatically to mitigate any intrusion attempts.
• Enterprise-class security
  A secure wireless network guarantees data confidentiality, integrity, mutual authentication and availability. In order to deliver the highest level of confidentiality and integrity, the UWC and controlled access points employs WPA2 (IEEE 802.11i). WPA2 is an advanced set of security features that satisfies the policy requirements for both large scale and residential networks. WPA2-Enterprise provides a centralized security model through the use of RADIUS for managing authentication and inter-operates with the IEEE 802.1x framework, supporting multiple EAP modes.
• Guest access
  Guests and contractors can connect directly to the Internet without compromising network security, because they are segregated within dedicated VLANs that have no access to corporate resources. Guest access is controlled through the use of a captive portal, which provides Web-authentication for unauthorized users. The captive portal can be customized per SSID, enabling different Web portal pages to be provided for each SSID.
• Seamless mobility
  One of the benefits of a wireless solution is the mobility and freedom it delivers. As clients become increasingly mobile, maintaining connectivity while roaming from one part of the network to another becomes challenging. Seamless roaming enables a client to move an established wireless network association from one access point to another, maintaining the wireless connection and delivering constant network connectivity. Fast roaming minimizes the time required to transition between the access points, so that mobile applications like handheld data scanners, smartphones and tablets don't lose information or connectivity. The UWC delivers fast roaming and seamless mobility at Layer 2 and Layer 3, so regardless of network topology, the UWC will deliver the best mobility experience possible.
• Resilience
  The UWC can be configured in a highly redundant topology to ensure that no single failure will result in an interruption to network coverage. If the UWC is unavailable for any reason, the associated access points will first try to connect to a redundant controller. If they are unable to locate a redundant controller, they will switch to stand-alone mode - maintaining services on a best-effort basis.
• Wireless controller grouping
  Multiple wireless controllers can be configured as a "peer group" or cluster. The resulting cluster becomes the single point for provisioning, firmware upgrade, maintenance, RF, and mobility operations.
• Graphic network visualization
  In addition to the benefits around provisioning and maintenance, the UWC provides a single user interface to monitor the performance of the wireless network. The dashboard provides an intuitive view of RF coverage, the position of wireless devices and their performance metrics - even when deployed in a multi-floor environment. The location tracking facility populates the map, giving immediate visibility of the wireless network and thereby simplifying the survey of unauthorized entities along with simplifying the task of troubleshooting.