Meraki Enhances Network Insight Technology with Apple iPad Fingerprinting

SAN FRANCISCO, June 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Meraki, the cloud-based wireless networking company, today announced that its Network Insight technology now fingerprints Apple iPads, aiding wireless network administrators in analyzing and supporting their networks.

Network Insight is a technology unique to Meraki's Enterprise Wireless LAN, wherein Meraki's access points perform application-level inspection on wireless traffic, capturing forensics information used by network administrators to analyze network activity and troubleshoot client issues.  The technology identifies network events (DNS, ARP, HTTP, etc), and client information such as the NetBios name, MAC address, operating system, and device make and model.  This deep packet inspection operates at line-rate, with no drop in performance.  

Once captured, this data is uploaded to the Enterprise Cloud Controller, Meraki's hosted network intelligence platform, allowing a network administrator to access the entire network's data from Meraki's browser-based Dashboard management tool.

With the enhancements announced today, Network Insight distinguishes Apple iPads from other devices running the iPhone OS, namely iPhones and iPod Touches.

"There is incredible excitement around the iPad, yet network administrators are eyeing it with caution," said Kiren Sekar, Product Marketing Manager at Meraki.  "After the iPad's well-publicized DHCP renewal bug, as well as the potential for significant bandwidth consumption, administrators need visibility into their networks to see the iPad's impact and to support their users.  Meraki's enhancements to Network Insight make this simple."

In use at MIT CSAIL network (covering MIT's largest interdepartmental laboratory), Network Insight identified iPads as a significant driver of wireless traffic.  For the week ending May 21st, iPads made up 9 percent of all iPhone OS devices on the network yet consumed more than half of the bandwidth.  The average iPad user transferred more than 300MB over the week, compared to an average of 31MB for iPhone users and 12MB for iPod Touch users.  Overall, 40 iPads transferred 13.3GB, out of a total of 4192 devices that had transferred nearly 1TB of wireless data.  

"The visibility that Meraki provides into their wireless solution is invaluable in understanding our network and supporting our users," says Jack Costanza, Assistant Director at MIT CSAIL.  "Meraki removes the guesswork and uncertainty as we encounter new devices like the iPad that require us to adapt to new usage patterns."

iPad fingerprinting is available immediately for all Meraki Enterprise Cloud Controller customers.

About Meraki

Meraki offers enterprise-class wireless networks at a fraction of the cost and complexity of traditional networking vendors.  Using Meraki's unique cloud-based architecture, an administrator can configure thousands of Meraki access points over the web through a single interface.  The company's customers include small-to-medium sized businesses, global hotel chains, and world-class educational institutions.  Meraki wireless networks serve millions of users on over 15,000 networks in more than 140 countries.  Meraki is located in San Francisco, California, and is funded in part by Sequoia Capital and Google. Follow Meraki on Facebook and Twitter. For more information, go to www.meraki.com.

SOURCE Meraki