By Business Wire, March 06, 2013, 08:30:00 AM EDT
Expanding BYOD challenges fuel enterprise need for network testing to
deliver quality of service and quality of experience
CALABASAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Ixia
(Nasdaq:XXIA) was selected by Microsoft as the official test house to
qualify Microsoft's Lync application against Wi-Fi networking and client
devices. With the trend of BYOD expanding, and as unified communications
applications carrying voice and video traffic become pervasive,
enterprises face significant challenges to guarantee application
quality. With Ixia qualification, enterprises are now able to determine
with certainty whether they can expect Wi-Fi
performance equal to wired networks, a commitment that cannot be
guaranteed without comprehensive qualification programs.
News highlights
Microsoft Lync, a UC platform providing a consistent, single client
experience for presence, instant messaging, voice and video, continues
to spread throughout the enterprise and across mobile devices. However,
consumer-grade Wi-Fi features in devices that are now extensively being
used in the enterprise lead to low adoption of critical UC voice and
video features.
This combination of bandwidth-heavy UC tools and the increasing number
of BYOD policies mean rising frustrations for both users and the IT
departments tasked with fixing Wi-Fi and device issues. To solve this,
Microsoft is collaborating with Ixia to test and qualify Lync's complete
Wi-Fi ecosystem, from access points to mobile devices, via the IxiaWi-Fi
test solutions.
—As the official testing house for the complete Microsoft Lync Wi-Fi
ecosystem, Ixia works directly with potential Microsoft partners to test
and qualify technology used with the UC system.
—Over a two-week time frame, Ixia will use the IxVeriWave solution to
create real-world conditions by emulating a full range of scalable,
media-rich application traffic.
—Once testing is complete, Ixia delivers a qualification report to
Microsoft and the technology partner with the security and reliability
findings. From this report, Microsoft determines whether the technology
is qualified for use with the Lync platform.
—As a result, Microsoft now has confidence that Lync users will receive
high-quality UC services, which equates to an increase in adoption of
the powerful and essential collaboration tool.
Industry commentary
"With tablets and smartphones embedded in our everyday lives, Wi-Fi
access to collaboration tools has become an integral part of today's
enterprises; however, poor quality over Wi-Fi has slowed that adoption.
Microsoft is dedicated to ensuring our customers' success, and
qualifying the devices in the Lync Wi-Fi ecosystem is a major driver to
enabling needed enterprise collaboration," said B.J. Haberkorn, director
of Lync Product Marketing at Microsoft. "Collaborating with Ixia to
provide comprehensive, real-world Wi-Fi testing ensures that the power
of Lync can be securely and reliably delivered to our customers."
"Wi-Fi is a vital component of customer and enterprise adoption of UC
collaboration tools, and the powerful but extensive video and voice
capabilities have put a strain on Wi-Fi's stability," said Joseph Zeto,
director of product marketing for Ixia. "By working together with
Microsoft and potential Lync partners, Ixia is helping to ensure
customers have the reliable networks they need to unleash the power of
the Microsoft Lync collaboration tools."
About Ixia
From the lab to the network to the cloud, Ixia solutions optimize
networks and data centers to accelerate, secure and scale the delivery
of applications and services. Ixia delivers the industry's only solution
with complete visibility into critical network, data center,
applications and services. Ixia provides actionable insight for
enterprises, service providers, government agencies and equipment
manufacturers with solutions that test, assess and optimize networks.
Ixia solutions use predictive data to accelerate and secure application
delivery, giving customers the confidence to know their business
networks are engineered to be understandable, dynamic and resilient. For
more information, please visit www.ixiacom.com.
Source: Ixia