Keerti Melkote of Aruba Networks suggests wireless as a primary network strategy

Keerti Melkote, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Aruba Networks, presents a case for building networks starting with wireless. He discusses the Aruba architecture and strategy, and goes deep into the company’s approach to wireless and networking. Also joining the discussion is Aruba founding engineer, Pradeep Iyer.

In his presentation at Wireless Field Day 2, Keerti Melkote describes how Aruba Networks is advocating a shift in enterprise network design: leading with wireless as the primary network medium instead of treating it as a supplement to wired infrastructure. He emphasizes that modern computing trends—particularly the widespread adoption of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)—have changed user behavior and network demands, making wireless central to network strategy. Melkote highlights that new mobile devices, like tablets and smartphones, are entering the enterprise network in increasing numbers and often lack wired ports, rendering traditional wired-first network designs inefficient and outdated. Aruba’s solution involves redesigning networks for wireless capacity rather than mere coverage, optimizing application delivery, and addressing security challenges presented by untrusted endpoints.

To support this shift, Melkote outlines a need for new network architecture that captures user and application context at connection time and enforces security and performance policies dynamically, without relying on traditional VLAN segmentation. He states that Aruba has developed an integrated policy enforcement engine that spans both wired and wireless environments, allowing for user-aware and application-aware traffic control directly at the edge. This approach replaces static ACLs and VLANs with role-based access control that adapts in real time, addressing both security issues and performance concerns like prioritizing video streams or disabling BitTorrent traffic. This is part of Aruba’s broader goal to simplify network management, unify services, and deliver a consistent user experience across access methods.

Melkote also delves into the technical considerations of scaling such architecture, introducing Aruba’s “Instant AP” solution which embeds controller functionality directly into wireless access points. He argues that for small to medium deployments, virtual controllers within access points can manage up to 512 users effectively. However, for large-scale networks with frequent Layer 3 mobility, centralized controllers are needed to avoid performance pitfalls like backhauling wireless traffic between VLANs. The presentation concludes with a discussion on the need for dynamic firewall functionality integrated into the access layer, support for IPv6, and future trends such as personalized networks, location-aware services, and single sign-on integration—all of which are made possible by reimagining the network foundation as wireless-first.