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March 10, 2005

Aruba, Maybe Trapeze Go Open Source

By Glenn Fleishman

Aruba will release some of its access-point code under open-source licenses: Trapeze may follow: Peter Judge at Techworld reports the fascinating news that Aruba wants more Atheros-based access points to incorporate their secret sauce by making it no longer secret. They’ll post source code on Sourceforge under open-source copyright agreements. This commodifies the AP, pushing Aruba’s intelligence entirely into the controlling switch and reducing overall cost of management. Judge reports that Trapeze is expected to make a similar announcement.

Now wait a minute, your grizzled editor thinks to himself aloud, scratching his head, where have I heard this model before?

Oh, yes: Sputnik. Sputnik’s first centralized management software release through its current one relies on firmware incorporated into access points that they make available at no charge to commoditize the AP and put value into the central controller. But Sputnik is a management tool; Aruba is a switch vendor. It’s interesting to see the model recapitulate itself.

Update: NetGear will pursue Aruba certification for their access points, Tom’s Networking reports.

Posted by Glennf at March 10, 2005 8:24 AM

Categories: Enterprise

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