Xirrus a Wi-Fi technology company based in Thousand Oaks, California, US, that designs and sells wireless networking equipment based on the IEEE standards 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n and 802.11ac. It was build 10 years ago (since 2005) on the premise that “wireless would replace wired as the primary choice for network access” with the goal to build the fastest (and also the most secure) Wi-Fi on the planet.

Great objectives, great responsibilities, and interesting market target: but Wi-Fi is growing (5.2 B wifi devices are already connected, and predictions say 20+ B by 2020!) and the related enterprise market also!

The current state of the Wi-Fi market is really interesting, with a continuous grow:

During the last IT Press Tour #17 I’ve got the opportunity to learn more about this company (new for me) and their solutions. The unique approach of Xirrus is that they have some secret sauce to maximize the WiFi experience and demonstrated experience in this field.

Shane Buckley, CEO  at Xirrus, has presented the market opportunity and some future WiFi directions and grow, where also Gartner confirms the trends with at least 4x times today’s access point density in the near future.

Xirrus provides enterprise Wi-Fi networks specifically designed for the real-time demands of an all-wireless world with solutions that can scale from 2 to 16 radios and can scale to double and quadruple the number of users, without performance impact or the need for additional wiring and access points.

Enterprise products, but easy to configure and manage: zero touch for deployment and configuration. Not new in this market (see for example Cisco Meraki, but in this case only with a cloud based managent.)

There is no central controller needed for the Xirrus devices, Xirrus integrates the controller function and application-level visibility control into each AP/ High-Density APs to distribute the intelligence. Distributed intelligence eliminates the single point of failure and potential performance bottlenecks of a controller. But can be exist a central management that can be (public) cloud based or also on-prem. Xirrus’ cloud managed Wi-Fi solutions are scalable, future proof, easy to use and provide application control, suitable for small, medium, or large-scale Wi-Fi networks.

But why you need scalable Wi-Fi networks? Not only for the users, but also for the grow of the devices connected with more and more due to the Internet of Things (IoT) trend:

And which kind of services will be more valuable on Wi-Fi networks? Users need good experience and to do this you need good application and service control. Xirrus provide predictable application performance and is able to prioritize critical Apps. Application Control makes it easy to:

• Control data traffic at the network edge
• Identify and enforce policy against 1,300+ applications
• Obtain granular control with Deep Packet Inspection (DPI)
• Complement application firewalls for comprehensive control

Again, a simple solution (that seems simple to the customers), but really valuable to use better your Wi-Fi network.

In order to have a better infrastructure, exist also some Xirrus switches, The Xirrus XT enterprise-class switches simplify integration with existing wired network infrastructure and deliver a reliable, robust, high performance Gigabit wired access network. Of course they are not mandatory, but for customers that want a complete solution, is an interesting option.

Finally there is also the EasyPass solution that enable, with just a few clicks and no IT involvement, guests can self register and employees can self-onboard to your company’s Wi-Fi network from any personal device with little to no technical knowledge required.

Disclaimer: Condor Consulting Group has invited me to this even and they will paid for accommodation and travels, but I am not compensated for my time and I’m not obliged to blog. Furthermore, the content is not reviewed, approved or published by any other person than me.

Andrea Mauro

Virtualization, Cloud and Storage Architect. Tech Field delegate. VMUG IT Co-Founder and board member. VMware VMTN Moderator and vExpert 2010-24. Dell TechCenter Rockstar 2014-15. Microsoft MVP 2014-16. Veeam Vanguard 2015-23. Nutanix NTC 2014-20. Several certifications including: VCDX-DCV, VCP-DCV/DT/Cloud, VCAP-DCA/DCD/CIA/CID/DTA/DTD, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, CCA, NPP.