08/06/2010

By Scott Thompson

Scottish Midland Co-operative Society has completed the deployment of Aerohive Networks' Cooperative Control wireless LAN architecture into its warehouse environment.

The network has also been extended to the independent food, health and beauty retailer's administrative HQ and, going live later this month, will support VoIP over WLAN and data services. The company is also trialing Aerohive's APs in a handful of outlets, with a view to rolling out the technology to all 270 of its stores.

"Finding a single wireless solution to support each of these different environments, and future-proof the business against emerging applications and devices, was challenging. Of all the vendors assessed, Aerohive was the only one able to support all our business needs," says Brian Eley, technology analyst at Scotmid Co-op. "The WLAN has been faultless since it went live, and in the warehouse we're already seeing operational improvements attributed to pickers having the ability to roam freely without interference or connectivity issues."

Aerohive\\\'s cooperative control access points (HiveAPs) were also a key differentiator for Scotmid, as they require no network controllers or overlay networks. Instead, software in the HiveAPs enables them to self-organise into groups called Hives. "To provide the required level of redundancy with controller-based products we would have had to buy two controllers; we were also able to cover the warehouse with fewer access points than we would have needed with any other products we looked at. With less hardware to deploy and manage, we're reducing both capital and operational cost to the business," says Eley.