NEC and Meru Networks Collaborate to Enable Open-Standards-Based Software-Defined Networking (SDN) Solutions for the Enterprise

NEC Corporation of America (NEC), a wholly owned subsidiary of NEC Corporation
and leading provider and integrator of advanced IT, networking and
communications solutions, and Meru Networks® (NASDAQ: MERU), a leader in
intelligent Wi-Fi networking, today announced an agreement through which the two
companies will work together to create software-defined network (SDN)-enabled
unified wired and wireless enterprise access networking solutions. The two
companies are collaborating on support for OpenFlow™ to enable seamless
interoperability between the NEC ProgrammableFlow® Networking Suite and Meru
802.11ac intelligent Wi-Fi solutions. 


NEC and Meru, both members of the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), are two of
only three vendors worldwide to have received ONF conformance for their
networking solutions. ONF members, including NEC and Meru, are collaborating
with companies around the world to bring open networking solutions to market and
are in the vanguard of innovation in SDN solution development. The ONF
Certificate of Conformance gives customers confidence that they are purchasing
current technology that accurately implements a particular version of OpenFlow
-- the only globally-recognized specification for SDN. 


The BYOD phenomenon and upcoming explosion of the Internet of Things (IoT) are
pressuring IT departments to become more agile. However, most networks today are
being managed using antiquated proprietary Command Line Interfaces (CLI).
Open-standards-based SDN support simplifies network management and provisioning
by enabling greater automation and accelerating the deployment of new
applications and services. It also enables application-specific service level
agreements (SLAs) and development of third-party applications for network
traffic monitoring, location-based services and enhanced security.


The benefits that SDN provides in the data center, including network traffic
optimization and lower cost of ownership, have been widely recognized, with
large cloud-based service providers broadly adopting SDN switches. Realization
of its benefits in the enterprise has grown recently, as wireless has become the
primary method of network access. 


"Meru and NEC share a vision for creating truly open networks through OpenFlow
and SDN that allow customers to choose best-of-breed networking solutions," said
Dr. Bami Bastani, president and CEO of Meru. "Working together, we can set a new
standard for vendor interoperability, increasing agility and lowering costs for
our customers as they move into the open networking era." 


"NEC and Meru are taking a leadership position in the networking industry by
working together to drive adoption of open standards," said Mitsuhiro Murooka,
vice president, strategic business and planning, NEC Corporation of America.
"Customers today want flexibility in networking vendor selection, along with the
ability to manage those assets in the way that best suits their specific needs.
The combination of our technologies, bound together by OpenFlow and SDN,
addresses their requirements completely." 


About Meru Networks
Meru Networks (NASDAQ: MERU) is a leader in intelligent 802.11ac Wi-Fi
solutions, delivering uninterrupted user experience for education, healthcare,
hospitality and enterprise. The Meru MobileFLEX architecture is designed to
enable seamless roaming with traffic separation for critical applications,
providing top performance and high capacity in high-density environments. Visit
www.merunetworks.com or call (408) 215-5300 for more information. 


About NEC Corporation of America
Headquartered in Irving, Texas, NEC Corporation of America is a leading provider
of innovative IT, network, communications and biometric products and solutions
for service carriers, Fortune 1000 and SMB businesses across multiple vertical
industries, including Healthcare, Government, Education and Hospitality. NEC
Corporation of America delivers one of the industry's broadest portfolios of
technology solutions and professional services, including unified
communications, wireless, voice and data, managed services, server and storage
infrastructure, optical network systems, microwave radio communications and
biometric security. NEC Corporation of America is a wholly-owned subsidiary of
NEC Corporation, a global technology leader with a presence in 140 countries and
$29.5 billion in revenues. For more information, please visit www.necam.com.


©2014 Meru Networks. Meru and Meru Networks are registered trademarks of Meru
Networks, Inc. in the United States. NEC and ProgrammableFlow are registered
trademarks of NEC Corporation. 



FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: 

NEC Media Contact:
Linda Graham
NEC Corporation of America
214.262.3766 
linda.graham@necam.com

Meru Media Contact: 
Wilson Craig
Mindshare PR 
+1 408 516 6182
wilson@mindsharepr.com
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