MERU NETWORKS MAXIMIZES WLAN SECURITY FOR CONVERGED NETWORKS WITH NEW "APPLICATION-AWARE" CAPABILITIES

AirShield Security Suite 2.0 First to Deliver Secure Mobility with Optimum Performance for VoIP and Mission-Critical Applications
 

Sunnyvale, CA – March 12, 2007

Meru Networks, the leader in standards-based mobility infrastructure solutions for the All-Wireless Enterprise, today announced AirShield™ Security Suite 2.0, the first wireless local-area network (WLAN) security offering that simultaneously prevents RF threats while assuring application availability and continuous quality-of-service (QoS) in converged voice and data networks.

Compromise-free WLAN Security
Traditional WLAN offerings must disable security scanning to serve voice or other mission-critical applications. The Meru Networks AirShield 2.0 Security Suite recognizes such mission-critical traffic on the network and allows the QoS requirements of the application to be met while continuing to scan the RF for rogue devices. Using AirShield 2.0, companies can provide WLAN security and performance without compromise—even with demanding applications such as voice or broadband video.

The new features include:

• Per-application, per-user, policy enforcement firewall and traffic separation functionality that gives administrators complete control over network access
• Policy-based bandwidth policing and rate-limiting for optimizing performance of critical applications on the network
• Packet-signature based firewall for classifying, isolating and blocking encrypted and proprietary applications
• Generic routing-encapsulation (GRE) tunneling, which allows administrators to protect the network and isolate traffic based on user type and location of access

These features are in addition to the AirShield 1.0 feature set—which includes Wi-Fi Certified™ WPA2, Captive Portal and Guest access, dynamic VLANs, rogue AP detection and mitigation.

The new per-user, per-application firewall allows network administrators to centrally and precisely enforce a set of security and QoS policies for each wireless user and device. Access to applications can be defined and controlled by location and time of day, giving the administrator complete control over the types of traffic carried over the wireless network. Bandwidth can also be policed based on application and user, which allows administrators to rate-limit some applications, such as FTP traffic, while giving full bandwidth to more mission-critical applications like voice.

The AirShield 2.0 enhancements also provide the Meru WLAN System with the unique ability to classify, isolate and block encrypted and proprietary traffic, enabling administrators to assign and enforce firewall policies for such traffic. It uses signature-based packet inspection to provide accurate detection of traffic—especially useful for protecting corporate network resources from potentially harmful peer-to-peer applications.

The new GRE tunneling capability gives enterprises additional flexibility and protection by allowing them to separate network traffic—internal versus external, or branch office versus headquarters, for example—and assign different security levels to each. This function builds upon the AirShield 1.0 ability to enable traffic to be categorized and tracked across the enterprise by static virtual LAN (VLAN) or dynamic VLAN.
The AirShield 2.0 Security Suite will begin shipping in late March. Pricing will be $3495 for a 30-AP network.

The Meru WLAN System is the only wireless LAN solution that is purpose-built to handle the stringent requirements of converged voice and data over wireless. With Meru's standards-based technology, wireless users can reliably connect and communicate throughout their facilities, regardless of the size of the area or density of users. Meru technologies have been recognized by Gartner, which ranked the company as the most visionary infrastructure provider in its 2006 WLAN Magic Quadrant.
"Meru is commited to providing not just the most capable WLAN solution, but also the most secure WLAN solution," said Kamal Anand, senior vice president, marketing, Meru Networks. "Our AirShield Security Suite now provides comprehensive security capabilities to control access to the corporate assets and confidential data based on applications, users and location."

Expanding Security Partnerships
As part of its overall commitment to open systems and helping its customers make the mos of their existing technology investments and vendor relationships, Meru is also announcing partnerships with leading network-access control solution vendors (see "Meru Networks Teams with Network-Access Control Leaders to Give Customers Secure, Next-Generation WLAN Performance and Freedom of Choice," also announced today). The new partners include Microsoft, Juniper Networks, Vernier Networks and Lockdown Networks.

About Meru Networks
Meru Networks is the global leader in wireless mobility infrastructure solutions for Fortune 500 educational, healthcare, enterprise, and government markets. Its industry-leading innovations deliver pervasive, robust wireless service for business-critical applications. Meru's award-winning Air Traffic Control technology brings the benefits of the cellular world to the WLAN environment, and it offers the only solution on the market that delivers the reliability, scalability, and security necessary for converged voice and data services over a single WLAN infrastructure. Founded in 2002, Meru is based in Sunnyvale, California. For more information on Meru Networks and its products, visit www.merunetworks.com or call +1-408-215-5300.