Collectonomous - A New Paradigm

Collectonomous - A New Paradigm

By CWNP On 12/23/2008 - 7 Comments

First, there was Autonomous, then lightweight, and now...there's Collectonomous, from the word, "Collective."  Think, "The Borg" - a hive mind.  If you're not familiar with The Borg, change careers and then go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Borg  

The object of my focus is Aerohive's new HiveUI.  It's a GUI built into their 802.11n APs that is capable of managing up to 11 APs (including itself) with the limitation of a single hive (group of coordinating APs).  With a snazzy UI, snappy initial configuration, APs that coordinate data forwarding among themselves, and enough features to fit almost any SMB scenario, it's a paradigm shifter.  Given that there's no separate controller appliance/software or licensing beyond just buying the modestly-priced APs, getting buyer's remorse should prove difficult.  If you want to scale beyond 11 APs, buy Aerohive's HiveManager appliance, and voila - you've scaled.  To avoid confusion, HiveManager isn't a controller, but rather a WNMS.

Aerohive is still making regular optimizations to the HiveUI since it is a new offering, but we've seen in the lab thus far that each optimization makes a sweet improvement of some kind.  It's been our experience that Aerohive is a company that listens to customer and partner feedback, so there's no doubt this offering was brought to market by a product manager who was on his/her game.  HiveUI is targeted at the SMB market, and it hit the bullseye.

Every AP is a HiveUI client (CAPWAP client) by default, but as soon as you configure one as a HiveUI server (CAPWAP server), other APs on the same L2 segment are auto-discovered and added as HiveUI clients.  If HiveUI clients are on other segments (across L3 boundaries), it's trivial to enter the IP address of the HiveUI server into each HiveUI client.  Once all APs are part of the hive, the Borg Queen...uh, I mean the BorgUI server...rules the roost.  Phenominal cosmic power....in an itty bitty living space!

If you missed that joke, you likely didn't have kids back in 1992...so go here:

http://www.meglet.net/Old%20Page/Wavs/Movie/Aladdin/ittybitty.wav

Hey, it's Christmas, so I get to loosen the buttons a little.  :)  Go check out Aerohive's HiveUI.  It's the SMB smackdown.

Blog Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within these blog posts are solely the author’s and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of the Certitrek, CWNP or its affiliates.