Xirrus
Tailoring Right-Sized Wireless for High Performance

Shane Buckley, CEO, Xirrus, is a competitive sailor who is active in both onshore and offshore racing. He says that sailing requires significant planning before the race. “On a racing boat you have to be committed since you can’t jump off, even if the going gets tough. You realize that winning is a team effort and everyone must work hard throughout the journey for it,” explains Buckley, who use this experience to drive a strong team, that combine business acumen with technical savvy, to guide Xirrus to make the connected world a reality.

Headquartered in Thousand Oaks, CA, Xirrus was founded on the premise that ’wireless would replace wired as the primary choice for network access.’While wireless has historically been deployed as an optional or overlay network, the current environment, driven by heavy mobile device usage makes it a utility type of service. The company has created a next generation wireless solution uniquely positioned to address the challenges encountered in hospitality environments. From the hotel room, to the lobby, to the pool, to the conference center, Xirrus delivers the right-sized wireless to meet a broad range of use cases and performance needs.

Xirrus primarilyaddresses poor Wi-Fi performance. The scalable Xirrus solution, supporting 2 to 16 radio per product, reduces the amount of equipment required compared to competitive solutions.It can be easily scaled to handle the increased traffic on the wireless network, created by BYOD,all the while delivering consistent performance to users. Application level intelligence in the solution enables prioritization of critical applications to ensure consistent performance over wireless.

"The hospitality market is about providing the guest a satisfying experience so that they will return again"

The company’swireless management system –XMS,provides full monitoring and management of Xirrus wireless Array network. XMS scales from small to large networks and from one location to multiple locations, as well as large campus environments with thousands of wireless users. XMS remotely controls an entire wireless network from one central console. This system enableseasy remote troubleshooting of guest issues when they contact the help desk. The company’s additional client tools and remote diagnostics facilities support Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who may be supporting a given hotel wireless network

Xirrus serves a vast clientele in the travel and hospitality sector, including the W Chicago Lakeshore, Weston Diplomat, JW Marriot, San Antonio, and AlRawdaRotana Hotels. In an interesting case study, the Palace Hotel, in San Francisco, had a key requirement of minimizing the amount of equipment and cable runs in the historic hotel. The wireless network had to cover hotel rooms, public areas and meeting rooms. Xirrus provided a solution designed to address the unique requirements of each area that saved significant amount of equipment in the installation.With the multi radio Xirrus Array design, the client was able to save equipment, cable, installation procedures and power, ultimately reducing the total cost of ownership.

Going forward, Xirrus plans to extend its solutions in the hospitality market by focusing on improving the user experience on wireless, by introducing solutions of greater capacity and application intelligence that drive consistent performance. “We plan to offer services that can be layered on top of the infrastructure to monetize the wireless network and improve the ROI,” concludes Buckley.