Aerohive Networks Launches Refreshed Partner Portal

Cloud-managed networking player Aerohive launches a new partner portal aimed at better serving channel partners and unveils two new artificial intelligence and machine-learning-powered visibility and analytics tools.

Aerohive Networks is showing off a newly revamped partner portal in addition to two new technologies that have been injected with artificial intelligence and machine learning to help businesses grapple with the influx of connected devices and increasingly complicated Wi-Fi management.

Milpitas, Calif.-based Aerohive, which does 100 percent of its business through the channel, has released a new partner portal built on Salesforce Partner Communities to better serve its channel partners. The company said it's been designed to promote more efficiency through the entire channel process and enhancing user experience.

Aerohive said that the new portal will include a more automated on-boarding process and amplified marketing services to help partners effortlessly drive demand and build pipeline. The portal also will feature increased sales support that will expose partners early to leads and new opportunities, as well as real-time visibility and analytics to track help partners track their ROI.

[Related: Aerohive: We’re Solving MSPs’ Pain Points]

The "new" Aerohive wants to go beyond only showing enterprises who is connecting to their networks. That's why the networking and cloud management specialist is adding new features that focus on visibility to help enterprises and, in turn, channel partners earn more revenue, said Alexandra Gates, director of product marketing for Aerohive.

"The goal is to create more powerful views for customers," Gates said.

Maximum Client Capabilities is a new feature that takes advantage of AI and machine learning to automatically detect and verify Wi-Fi services and applications on all connected clients across all Wi-Fi bands within an enterprise's environment. The feature lets network administrators see and score client health, which can help with Wi-Fi management as more devices come onto the network, Gates said.

"[Maximum Client Capabilities] is really great for planning and making upgrades because you can see how many clients are capable of supporting, say, 802.11ax that are on the network," she said.

Traffic Insights, on the other hand, uses presence and proximity based on Wi-Fi connectivity and Bluetooth LE to offer insight into client behavior. Pushed live in April, Traffic Insights can do things like track and follow individual connected endpoints and users as they enter and move throughout a building or environment.

"This is powerful for IT administrators, but taking it a step further, in retail, for example, these businesses would like to see where people are within the store so they can have the right resources in place," Gates said.

Aerohive in March opened a new HiveManager Public Cloud data center in Sweden aimed at driving cloud networking.