© 2022 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

• Beamforming (typically transmit)
• Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Out (MU-MIMO), introduced with Wave 2
• Multi-gigabit backhaul
• Wireless intrusion protection
• Antenna options

Another very important thing to look for that differentiates each vendor’s individual product lines is their support for spectrum analysis, noise reduction and channel management. What To Look For In 802.11ac Access Points

Let’s take a closer look at some of the features you’ll find in 802.11ac enterprise gear.

Beamforming

All of the WiFi vendors mentioned in the product comparison on page two support some form of beamforming. So what is beamforming? Well at a high level, Beamforming allows the transmitter and MIMO receiver to work together to achieve the best signal possible by using multiple antennas to transmit and receive signals. This is done in order to effectively increase the signal strength by attempting to prevent signals from cancelling each other out at the receiver. This is accomplished through a number of different technical methods, the most simple (relatively) being the alteration of the signal gain and phase. Bi-directional beamforming takes this idea and optimizes it by having both the access points (AP) and the client support beamforming, this way the signal is not only being optimized from the AP to the client, but also from the client to the AP. However, some major wireless vendors have yet to implement it.

As with everything in business, the genuine results that are provided by a given vendor’s solution can differ significantly from what they promise. Make sure to take the time to test multiple vendors’ products in the target environment to ensure the expected performance is achieved.

MU-MIMO (New In Wave 2)

One of the biggest positive changes that came with Wave 2 supported devices is in their support for Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Out (MU-MIMO). While Wave 1 devices supported Single User MIMO (SU-MIMO), so have many 802.11n devices for some time. The big change is the support for multiple conversations between different wireless clients at the same time. With SU-MIMO, the AP has to communicate with one device at a time (for very short amounts of time). With MU-MIMO, the AP can now simultaneously communicate with multiple devices, which greatly increases the usability of the wireless network. 

Multi-Gigabit Backhaul

One of the common issues for existing wireless deployments is that APs have been typically deployed using Power over Ethernet (PoE) using a single copper cable for backhaul. With earlier wireless implementations this wasn’t a problem because the aggregate wireless throughput was always lower than the physical capabilities of that single cable. However, with the implementation of 802.11ac Wave 2 devices this is no longer true. There are a few different solutions for this including NBASE-T and MGBASE-T. Both offer solutions that allow existing cabling (copper cables that don’t support 10 Gigabit Ethernet) to stay where they are and now support rates of 2.5 or 5 Gbps, allowing companies to upgrade their wireless infrastructure without needing to upgrade their cabling infrastructure. 

Another option may exist for certain deployments where multiple cables exist for each AP. In this case, it may be possible for a link aggregation solution to work to combine the throughput of multiple links. In these situations look for products that support IEEE 802.3ad (LACP).

However, keep in mind that this is an issue that will only exist for specific environments (high density). Inspect your environment to make sure that this is truly a problem before using it as a selection criteria.

Wireless Intrusion Protection

As with every other piece of networking equipment, security is very important. Most vendors support some type of wireless intrusion protection, typically including detection of rogue access points and clients. While this may be an add-on to some vendor’s product lines, it should be a consideration in your 802.11ac product selection. Antenna Options

In the world of wireless, one thing that can never be overlooked is the selection of available antennas for a specific product. Since the environment that a wireless network must work within is almost always different, the ability to adapt a solution to use multiple types of antennas to achieve good performance is vital.

Spectrum Analysis, Noise Reduction And Channel Management

Anyone who has ever implemented a wireless network is familiar with what noise can do to the availability and capability of a wireless network (is the microwave running?). Most of the vendors have their own features that are intended to reduce both the noise created by their solutions and external noise that affects their solutions. This is done through a combination of both active and passive noise environment detection. Based on the results from this added information, the signal can be modified to best meet the requirements of a specific environment. Most of the 802.11ac solutions we list on page two support the ability to dynamically change the channel being used by each radio depending on this learned information. Some even offer the ability for a dual band radio to change from 2.4 to 5 or vice versa depending on the wireless demand and the current environmental conditions.

The next two steps coming to the wireless evolution are: the full implementation of the 802.11ac standard (also referenced in some places as Wave 3) and the eventual next standard 802.11ax.

802.11ac Full Implementation (Wave 3)

802.11ac Wave 3 is not the official name, but it is a familiar moniker that is used to talk about the full implementation of the 802.11ac standard. The implementation of Wave 2 comes up short against the specifications of the full implementation. The full implementation offers support for a maximum physical rate of around 6.9 Gbps (with a single radio) using 160 Mhz channels (or 80-80 Mhz non-contiguous channels), 256 QAM and 8 spacial streams.

Note: a physical line rate of 6.9 Gbps works out to about 4.5 Gbps of MAC throughput

802.11ax

The next version of the 802.11 standard is going to be 802.11ax. The standard is now in the process of being developed as this article is being written. Some of the things to look for are 10 Gbps wireless speeds, standard support for 1024 QAM (which is already supported in some consumer devices) and possibly (multi-user) multiple input, multiple output-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM). What else is in store for 802.11ax? We’ll keep an eye out for it and will update this article as more information is made available. Now let’s take a closer look at some of the top 802.11ac access points and how they compare.

Best 802.11ac Access Points Available Today

Since HPE acquired Aruba Networks, there are currently three manufacturers that lead the enterprise wireless LAN space: Cisco, Aruba/HPE, Extreme Networks and Ruckus. However, Cisco is well ahead of the others, maintaining around 45 percent of the total wireless LAN market share. The next sections will go over the currently available 802.11ac access points made by Cisco, Aruba/HPE, Extreme Networks and Ruckus and what they have to offer.

Aruba Networks/HPE 802.11ac Access Points

Aruba currently offers eight 802.11ac series access points. Aruba’s latest 802.11ac Wave 2 access points include the 310, 320 and 330 series devices. Aruba also offers a number of Wave 1 APs including the 200, 210, 220, 228 and 270 series devices.

Avaya 802.11ac Access Points

Avaya currently offers seven 802.11ac series access points. The company only offers one Wave 2 APs (9144), but seven Wave 1.

Cisco 802.11ac Access Points

Cisco currently offers nine Aironet product series that support IEEE 802.11ac, which offer built-in support via internal or external antennas, depending on the specific model. The Aironet 1810w, 1810OEAP, 1830, 1850, 2800 and 3800 are Wave 2 products. The Aironet 1700, 2700 and 3700 are Wave 1 products.

Extreme Networks 802.11ac Access Points

At this time Extreme Networks offers five 802.11ac access points for indoor and outdoor implementations. The AP3965 and AP3935 series APs are Wave 2 products while the AP3865, AP3825 and AP 3805 series are Wave 1 products.  Ruckus Wireless 802.11ac Access Points

Ruckus Wireless has four 802.11ac Wave 1 offerings including the R310, R500, R600 and R700 series of devices and a single Wave 2 offering, the R710.

How To Choose The Best 802.11ac Access Point

As you can see, there are a number of different options available and the selection of the best solution will really depend on the specific environment and the requirements of the situation. If you’re considering purchasing 802.11ac gear, take a look at the available options we listed in this article and compile that with the requirements of the intended environment. Then choose a few products that fill those requirements the best and test the access points in the genuine environment to ensure their performance before purchasing. In-house testing will not only help you ensure that you’ll get the best performance from your WiFi gear, it might even give you some leverage on the deal when you’re ready to make your final decision.

Orlando, FLA, Enterprise Connect Conference, —March 16, 2015—Altera Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTR) today announced that a new Avaya Scopia videoconferencing system takes advantage of Altera’s powerful H.265 video codec solution, which is capable of handling full duplex encoding and decoding on a single FPGA, enabling best-in-class videoconferencing. The new Altera H.265 codec enables multi-channel support for today’s 1080p60 resolutions on a single, low-power chip; the device will also manage 4K video. Avaya announced the addition to its Team Engagement videoconferencing portfolio, the Avaya Scopia XT7100, which uses Altera’s H.265 solution, on March 11.

Altera’s advanced technology combines high-end FPGA hardware and IP (software) to deliver a high performance H.265 codec that enables the “heavy-lifting” required in videoconferencing—encoding the live streams to enable superior picture quality with ultra-low video latency.

Altera offers a highly bit-efficient H.265 algorithm deployed in silicon that delivers an unprecedented combination of device utilization efficiency and video quality for the Avaya Scopia XT7100. This highly optimized implementation has led to a greatly differentiated, advanced solution for Avaya’s existing room-based video system.

“The business benefits of video are undeniable for driving deeper engagement and greater productivity – especially as members of any given team are increasingly widespread. With Altera’s programmable logic devices, we can provide high quality video performance in our flagship Scopia room system along with the efficiencies required to keep product costs down,” said Roberto Giamagli, senior director, Product Management, Avaya Video. “Our Scopia line delivers great value and best-in-class video quality that enables more effective, face-to-face collaboration over distances.”

“Altera is committed to providing proven solutions for demanding applications to customers such as Avaya, who need to be ahead of the standards to future-proof their high-density HD products, and Altera’s H.265 algorithmic maturity proves a clear lead in this space,” Dan McNamara, Altera’s vice president of the Industrial, Automotive and Broadcast Divisions. “Additionally, this solution sets up a migration path to the Stratix® 10 FPGA, which uses Intel’s 14 nm Tri-Gate process and will provide increased compute capability per Watt.”

Altera in Broadcast
Altera FPGAs enable broadcast equipment providers to deliver solutions for Ultra-High-Definition (UHD), multi-platform content delivery, cloud computing and video transport over IP networks to market faster. Altera offers off-the-shelf complete standard IP suites, the highest degree of flexibility to accommodate rapid design changes, and access to the latest silicon process nodes combining industry breakthroughs in transceiver, memory, core processing technologies and design tools. For more information of these solutions, go to https://www.altera.com/solutions/industry/broadcast/overview.html.

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There was a time when almost every organisation, whether large or small, had an in-house IT team, primarily tasked with keeping the firm’s IT infrastructure functioning to ensure minimal downtime. While that used to be the target, in practice, most companies had to contend with numerous outages along with deploying skilled manpower in repair and maintenance tasks. Due to the technological limitations of the time, there was barely any in-house innovation of products and services, as skilled manpower was deployed elsewhere.

With the gradual advancement in technologies over the past two decades in areas such as software development, semiconductor design and technology, processor and bandwidth capacity, today, almost every company can claim to be a cloud and AI company where they are finding innovative uses of various cloud-enabled services. It’s not just start-ups and unicorns that are digital natives and leveraging these technologies to grow, but a wide range of large and small organisations in traditional sectors that are feeling an acute need of adopting a cloud-first strategy to innovate and grow.

Cloud adoption has accelerated the pace of digital transformation across organisations like governments, enterprises and start-ups, along with verticals across industry sectors such as BFSI, healthcare, manufacturing and retail, among others. And, this trend will only gather momentum over the next few years as cloud, or more specifically, multi-cloud adoption becomes mainstream with customers. According to market research firm IDC, revenues from India’s public cloud services market—including infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions—totalled $2.2 billion for the first half of 2021 (January-June), with the overall market expected to expand at a CAGR of 24.1 per cent between 2020 and 2025, and reach $10.8 billion.

With the cloud-adoption market expected to increase rapidly over the next few years, an increasing number of organisations are acknowledging multi-cloud to be a foundational pillar necessary for innovation, collaboration, and digital transformation. For instance, three years ago, Divide by Zero—a pioneer in India’s 3D printing space—upgraded to a multi-cloud strategy from the single cloud it had its workload on. It decided to divide its workload between clouds from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) when it was implementing an on-demand 3D printing functionality on its web portal, which needed integration between various apps, complex codes, and large-size 3D files. “It started with disaster recovery (backup servers). We had users pushing 3D design files with sizes running into GBs. As a result, we switched to a multi-cloud environment,” says Swapnil Sansare, CEO & Founder of Divide By Zero. GCP handles its large datasets and runs ML and analytics algorithms whereas AWS handles its web services.

“Dependency on a single cloud service poses business continuity risks in case of inadvertent downtime. Multi-cloud offers a more resilient, secure and effective infrastructure,” says Sayed Peerzade, Executive VP & Chief Cloud Officer of Yotta, a managed data centre provider.

Adopting a multi-cloud strategy provides organisations with the ability to better use existing assets and take advantage of newer ways to store, compute, and analyse data. “It eliminates ‘vendor lock-in’-related performance difficulties, restricted alternatives, or expenses arising from employing just one cloud provider. It empowers businesses to modernise existing services, increase agility, and Excellerate business outcomes,” says Bikram Singh Bedi, Managing Director of Google Cloud India Region. Moreover, the adoption of multi-cloud allows organisations to adhere to data regulations without having to build captive data storage units, and still meet its compliance requirements as most cloud platforms ensure regulatory compliances around data storage and protection.

No wonder then that an increasing number of organisations across sectors are investing in a multi-cloud environment. Their cloud plans and adoption, too, have accelerated due to the pandemic, with most considering a multi-cloud strategy to optimise the management of SaaS applications and meet remote work needs. A accurate study conducted by hybrid multi-cloud computing service provider Nutanix revealed that 84 per cent of Indian enterprises prefer a hybrid multi-cloud configuration as their ideal operating model, while 58 per cent are expecting to implement such environments within three years.

Challenges Abound

While multi-cloud deployment has become the new norm, a company with little or no know-how of cloud can find itself in a fix when deciding the ideal configuration based on the requirements of workload, data portability, security, and managing different interfaces, let alone its technicalities. Despite these challenges, most enterprises find adopting clouds easy and are already doing it, explains Gaurav Agarwal, Senior Director of Enterprise and Government Sales at VMware India. “What starts with the consumption of one public cloud, results in the adoption of multiple public clouds. That, in combination with the management of an existing private cloud, creates the challenge of managing multiple clouds consistently,” he adds.

When moving to a cloud ecosystem, different companies have varying strategies and motivations. Some move to the public cloud to replace ageing and costly IT infrastructure while others do it to scale for growth and respond agilely to changing market dynamics. This helps Excellerate reliability and scaleability, cuts costs, and brings in new services and products to the market faster. So typically, applications that need to scale on demand make good candidates for cloud integration. “Based on Frost & Sullivan research, companies use an average of 4.5 infrastructure models within their organisation—but they don’t necessarily play well together. Lack of integration (between different clouds) makes it difficult to leverage data and new technology services,” says Ameeta Roy, Senior Director of Solution Architecture at Red Hat, an open source solutions provider. IT and business leaders face the challenge of deploying apps and services in a hybrid environment. Containers, which can mitigate these problems, are a challenge to instal on multi-cloud, she adds.

“The road to the cloud must accommodate a diverse range of workloads across a diverse set of new cloud apps, existing infrastructure, and hybrid models, also known as the multi-cloud strategy,” says Vishal Agrawal, Managing Director of India and SAARC region at Avaya, a business communications software, systems and services provider.

A multi-cloud environment also means multiple cloud providers to deal with. In India, Microsoft Azure, AWS and GCP continue to be the most preferred public clouds, but many companies struggle to choose between the three. However, John Hernandez, Executive VP and GM of Genesys Multicloud Solutions, says that they do not see this as a workload decision, but a function of the company’s overall investment and strategy—though workload decisions could become a consideration in the future. “For example, some companies may have a strategic partnership with Microsoft, which means they will go for Azure, whereas others could be all-in on Amazon (AWS), or Google (GCP). Another consideration would be the availability of cloud services based on region. Companies in China, for instance, may prefer Alibaba Cloud or Baidu.”

A multi-cloud environment also means architectural complexity. Girish Dhanakshirur, IBM Distinguished Engineer & CTO, IBM India Software Labs, simplifies this, “Public cloud catalogues tend to vary in complexity depending upon the choice of as-a-Service used. IaaS offers a lot of flexibility; however, it also increase complexities. PaaS, on the other hand, offers development velocity, but may require a lot of re-write of existing applications. Adopting container-based deployment helps infuse consistency and future-proofs the investment into applications.”

The in-house IT skill requirement poses another critical challenge as current skillsets of employees may not include cloud deployment skills such as DevOps, SRE, Automation, and cloud security. Moreover, chief experience officers (CXOs) who are short on such skills end up facing challenges during implementation. Since there are often different app development teams in an organisation, there exists a wide range of skills across on-premises and cloud. Enterprises look for consistent interoperability between the two so they can unify development practices.

Cloud interoperability has also emerged as an essential element in enterprise cloud strategies as companies seek to mitigate vendor lock-ins, ensure business continuity, and navigate through fluctuating workloads. “At its core, interoperability requires shared processes, APIs, containers and data models across the multi-cloud environment to enable communication between application components. It also requires dynamic discovery of application components, along with real-time data synchronisation,” explains Shivir Chordia, Azure Business Group Lead at Microsoft India.

For instance, Future Generali India Life Insurance (FGILI), had generated a vast amount of data in the past few years, and had adopted a multi-cloud approach. External customer-facing apps that FGILI agents use to onboard customers and issue insurance policies run on Azure, which is scaleable, fast and cost-efficient. Data that is more sensitive such as financial and investment apps, customer records and internal operations is stored on its hyperconverged infrastructure Nutanix Acropolis, which offers more control, security and privacy. Responding quickly to Covid-19, FGILI used US-based IT services firm Veeam’s advanced replication capabilities and direct restore to Azure, which helped its IT team transfer 100 TB of data to Azure in a week. “Going beyond backup, Veeam’s cloud data management solutions have revolutionised our definition of ‘uptime’ ever since the company switched over from legacy solutions. We are no longer constrained by recovery time objectives (RTO), and recovery point objectives (RPO) of hours or days, as we now think in minutes,” says Byju Joseph, CTO of FGILI.

Lastly, another important challenge enterprises encounter is the different interface for every cloud service they opt for. Rakuten’s experience is a prime example. Due to a chip shortage in the industry, Rakuten was not able to meet internal client demand for GPUs, so instead of making clients wait, it moved the GPU-specific workloads to a public cloud. However, it wasn’t easy for them as investing in multi-cloud involves a lot of upfront planning. “Managing a multi-cloud environment from an operations perspective was a challenge. With workloads spread across different cloud vendors, any outage anywhere can impact business. Humanly it is extremely challenging to monitor distributed workloads, monitor uptime, performance, and many things that can go wrong,” says Ashish Nanjiani, Senior Director of Engineering at Rakuten India. The company used Rakuten SixthSense, which combines AI/ML algorithms to monitor machines, and proactively alerts if something is going wrong in the multi-cloud infrastructure. But not all enterprises have access to in-house solutions to manage multiple clouds like Rakuten did.

Multi-Cloud Management

As managing a multi-cloud environment can be a complex task, there are cloud orchestrators which facilitate not just cloud migration and configuration but also take care of optimisation, security, and maintenance. Cloud orchestrators like VMware, Genesys, Veeam, Verint, Yotta, HPE, and even big IT names such as TCS leverage their extensive ecosystem of alliances and partners to support managed multi-cloud services for organisations worldwide, and provide a customised dashboard for easy access.

While opting for a cloud orchestrator involves additional costs, Anil Chawla, Managing Director of Customer Engagement Solutions at Verint India clarifies, “Passing cloud and application ownership to an OEM as managed services will reduce total cost of ownership and help companies manage the application with experts [available at the] right time. The difference in the cost depends on the scale of implementation, and the services they want the OEMs to manage.”

Not surprisingly, the global multi-cloud market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 30.9 per cent from $1.17 billion in 2017 to $4.49 billion in 2022 as per a report by Markets & Markets, a market research firm.

Nidhi Srivastava, VP and Global Head of Google Cloud Business at TCS, says as enterprises tilt towards multi-cloud environments, interfaces, tools and automation too will mature. Meanwhile industry experts advise enterprises embarking on the migration journey to leverage their company resources, skills and IT capabilities, and business needs to overcome the unique challenges they will surely face.

@nidhisingal

Internet Native Banner (INB) is used by office staff on campus to administer applicant and student records, package and award financial aid, enter, approve and track financial transactions, control the hiring process, run payrolls, track donor giving and potential donors, and other duties.

Access INB securely through the "Tools" tab on the mySLU portal. The following modules are available: 

Financial Aid

The SLU Banner Financial Aid module is used by advanced users performing various functions for the University. Student financial aid processes and procedures are performed within the Financial Aid module. This means a very close association with the Office of Admissions.

Once students are accepted, the information within Financial Aid is intertwined with other information in the Student system. To further maximize its data availability, the Financial Aid system is also fully integrated with the Finance, Human Resources, and Alumni/Development modules.

Finance

The SLU Banner Finance module is an online product that uses the Oracle Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) to maintain and share data. The Finance module can function as a stand-alone system or be integrated with the other Banner modules to provide access to information that already exists in the database.

The Banner Finance module is a complete financial information and management system that delivers strategic financial data that University executives and business officers need to make the right fiscal decisions. It meets GAAP requirements and addresses the latest FASB and GASB positions on depreciation accounting and financial reporting. The system distributes purchasing functions to the Purchasing Department and accounts payable and check processing functions to the Accounts Payable Department. Each module is designed for the department it serves.

Overall, the SCT Banner Finance system provides a comprehensive, integrated financial management system that enables you to track, maintain, and process all of your relevant financial data.

Human Resources

The SLU Banner Human Resources module is an online product that uses the Oracle Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) to maintain and share data. The Human Resources module can function as a stand-alone system or be integrated with the other Banner modules allowing you to access information that already exists in the database.

The Human Resources system supports personnel recordkeeping, payroll functions, compensation, and other essential University needs. Additionally, information in the Human Resources system supports other systems, including e-mail and SLU People Finder.

Student

SCT Banner Student supports the full range of functions necessary for student administration, including registration; data collection for scheduling of classes, admissions, assignment of housing, faculty workload analysis, and creation of catalogs; all accounts receivable; and academic history and degree audit reporting.

The Student module benefits many administrative offices. To further maximize its data availability, the Student system is fully integrated with the Finance, Human Resources, Alumni/Development, and Financial Aid modules.

Advancement/Alumni

The SLU Banner Advancement/Alumni module supports the diverse activities critical to a successful University advancement program. Day-to-day operations of the alumni and development offices, such as maintaining comprehensive information about individuals and organizations, tracking pledges, and recording gifts, are handled through Banner and its forms. Banner also provides the necessary information for program planning and evaluation. Online processing keeps biographical and giving records continually updated.

The SCT Banner Advancement System receives valuable information on new graduates as well as past and present students from the SCT Banner Student system through an interface.

Similarly, financial data from the SCT Banner Advancement system is transferred through an interface to the SCT Banner Finance system. Payroll deductions from the SCT Banner Human Resources system can be interfaced to create gifts in the SCT Banner Advancement system

Vulnerabilities found in widely-used network switches could allow attackers to bypass security features such as network segmentation to gain access to critical systems

PALO ALTO, Calif., May 3, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Armis, the leading unified asset visibility and security platform, today announced the disclosure of five critical vulnerabilities, known as TLStorm 2.0, in the implementation of TLS communications in multiple models of network switches. The vulnerabilities stem from a similar design flaw identified in the TLStorm vulnerabilities (discovered earlier this year by Armis), expanding the reach of TLStorm to millions of additional enterprise-grade network infrastructure devices.

In March 2022, Armis first disclosed TLStorm—three critical vulnerabilities in APC Smart-UPS devices. The vulnerabilities allow an attacker to gain control of Smart-UPS devices from the internet with no user interaction, resulting in the UPS overloading and eventually destroying itself in a cloud of smoke. The root cause for these vulnerabilities was a misuse of NanoSSL, a popular TLS library by Mocana. Using the Armis knowledgebase—a database of more than two billion assets—our researchers identified dozens of devices using the Mocana NanoSSL library. The findings include not only the APC Smart-UPS devices but also two popular network switch vendors that are affected by a similar implementation flaw of the library. While UPS devices and network switches differ in function and levels of trust within the network, the underlying TLS implementation issues allow for devastating consequences.

The new TLStorm 2.0 research exposes vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to take full control over network switches used in airports, hospitals, hotels, and other organizations worldwide. The affected vendors are Aruba (acquired by HPE) and Avaya Networking (acquired by ExtremeNetworks). We have found that both vendors have switches vulnerable to remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities that can be exploited over the network, leading to:

• Breaking of network segmentation, allowing lateral movement to additional devices by changing the behavior of the switch
• Data exfiltration of corporate network traffic or sensitive information from the internal network to the Internet
• Captive portal escape

These research findings are significant as they highlight that the network infrastructure itself is at risk and exploitable by attackers, meaning that network segmentation alone is no longer sufficient as a security measure.

"Research at Armis is driven by one simple purpose: Identify emerging security threats to provide our customers with real-time and continuous protection," said Barak Hadad, Head of Research, Armis. "The TLStorm set of vulnerabilities are a prime example of threats to assets that were previously not visible to most security solutions, showing that network segmentation is no longer a sufficient mitigation and proactive network monitoring is essential. Armis researchers will continue to explore assets across all environments to make sure our knowledgebase of more than two billion assets is sharing the latest threat mitigations to all of our partners and customers."

Captive Portals

A captive portal is the web page displayed to newly-connected users of a Wi-Fi or wired network before they are granted broader access to network resources. Captive portals are commonly used to present a login page that may require authentication, payment, or other valid credentials that both the host and user agree upon. Captive portals provide access to a broad range of mobile and pedestrian broadband services, including cable and commercially provided Wi-Fi and home hotspots, and enterprise or residential wired networks, such as apartment complexes, hotel rooms, and business centers.

Using the TLStorm 2.0 vulnerabilities, an attacker can abuse the captive portal and gain remote code execution over the switch with no need for authentication. Once the attacker has control over the switch, they can disable the captive portal altogether and move laterally to the corporate network.

Vulnerability Details and Affected Devices

Aruba

• CVE-2022-23677 (9.0 CVSS score)  - NanoSSL misuse on multiple interfaces (RCE)
• The NanoSSL library mentioned above is used throughout the firmware of Aruba switches for multiple purposes. The two main use cases for which the TLS connection made using the NanoSSL library is not secure and can lead to RCE:
• Captive portal - A user of the captive portal can take control of the switch prior to authentication.
• RADIUS authentication client - A vulnerability in the RADIUS connection handling could allow an attacker that is able to intercept the RADIUS connection via a man in the middle attack to gain RCE over the switch with no user interaction.
• CVE-2022-23676 (9.1 CVSS score)  - RADIUS client memory corruption vulnerabilities
• RADIUS is an authentication, authorization, accounting (AAA) client/server protocol that allows central authentication for users who attempt to access a network service. The RADIUS server responds to access requests from network services that act as clients. The RADIUS server checks the information in the access request and responds with authorization of the access attempt, a rejection, or a challenge for more information.
• There are two memory corruption vulnerabilities in the RADIUS client implementation of the switch;   they lead to heap overflows of attacker-controlled data. This can allow a malicious RADIUS server, or an attacker with access to the RADIUS shared secret, to remotely execute code on the switch.

Aruba devices affected by TLStorm 2.0:

• Aruba 5400R Series
• Aruba 3810 Series
• Aruba 2920 Series
• Aruba 2930F Series
• Aruba 2930M Series
• Aruba 2530 Series
• Aruba 2540 Series

Avaya management interface pre-auth vulnerabilities

The attack surface for all three vulnerabilities of the Avaya switches is the web management portal and none of the vulnerabilities require any type of authentication, making it a zero-click vulnerability group.

• CVE-2022-29860 (CVSS 9.8) - TLS reassembly heap overflow
• This is a similar vulnerability to CVE-2022-22805  that Armis found in APC Smart-UPS devices. The process handling POST requests on the webserver does not properly validate the NanoSSL return values, resulting in a heap overflow that can lead to remote code execution.
• CVE-2022-29861 (CVSS 9.8) - HTTP header parsing stack overflow
• An improper boundary check in the handling of multipart form data combined with a string that is not null-terminated leads to attacker-controlled stack overflow that may lead to RCE.
• HTTP POST request handling heap overflow
• A vulnerability in the handling of HTTP POST requests due to missing error checks of the Mocana NanoSSL library leads to a heap overflow of attacker-controlled length, which may lead to RCE. This vulnerability has no CVE because it was found in a discontinued product line of Avaya meaning no patch will be issued to fix this vulnerability, though Armis data shows these devices can still be found in the wild.

Avaya devices affected by TLStorm 2.0:

• ERS3500 Series
• ERS3600 Series
• ERS4900 Series
• ERS5900 Series

Updates and Mitigations

Aruba and Avaya collaborated with Armis on this matter, and customers were notified and issued patches to address most of the vulnerabilities. To the best of our knowledge, there is no indication the TLStorm 2.0 vulnerabilities have been exploited.

Organizations deploying impacted Aruba devices should patch impacted devices immediately with patches in the Aruba Support Portal here.

Organizations deploying impacted Avaya devices should check security advisories immediately in the Avaya Support Portal here.

Armis customers can immediately identify devices that are vulnerable in their environments and begin remediation. To speak with an Armis expert and experience our award-winning unified asset visibility and security platform, click here.

Research Presentations

Armis experts will discuss the TLStorm research during the following event:

Additional Resources

About Armis

Armis is the leading unified asset visibility and security platform designed to address the new threat landscape that connected devices create. Fortune 1000 companies trust our real-time and continuous protection to see with full context all managed, unmanaged assets across IT, Cloud, IoT devices, medical devices (IoMT), operational technology (OT), industrial control systems (ICS) and 5G. Armis provides passive and unparalleled cybersecurity asset management, risk management, and automated enforcement. Armis is a privately held company and headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Visit www.armis.com.

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Revenue: GAAP up 5%, Adjusted up 7%; EPS: GAAP up 13%, Adjusted up 19%

Reaffirming 2022 Revenue and EPS Growth Outlook

Order Backlog at $408 Million, up 5%

BUFFALO, N.Y., August 03, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gibraltar Industries, Inc. (Nasdaq: ROCK), a leading manufacturer and provider of products and services for the renewable energy, residential, agtech and infrastructure markets, today reported its financial results for the three-month period ended June 30, 2022.

"Gibraltar generated solid performance in the quarter, with adjusted revenue up 7% and adjusted EPS up 19%. Our Renewables, Agtech, and Infrastructure margins improved sequentially according to our expectations and our Residential business delivered both strong revenue and margin performance," Chairman and CEO Bill Bosway stated. "Part of our ongoing strategy is to further simplify and digitize our businesses, and we completed two additional ERP implementations during the quarter; these systems are designed to enable us to better connect with and provide seamless value to our customers while increasing speed, flexibility, and efficiency of our operations. Demand drivers remain solid for the overall business despite our Renewables’ customers waiting for clarity on panel availability to execute orders and finalize projects."

Revenue from continuing operations increased 5.3% to $366.9 million. Adjusted revenue increased 6.8% to $364.2 million driven primarily by participation gains and price management in the Residential segment, partially offset by continued supply chain challenges and project delays in the Agtech and Renewables segments.

GAAP earnings increased 11.0% to $29.3 million, or $0.90 per share, and adjusted earnings increased 18.0% to $31.5 million, or $0.96 per share. Profitability in the quarter was driven by participation gains, price management, business mix, and 80/20 initiatives.

Adjusted measures exclude charges for restructuring initiatives, acquisition-related items, senior leadership transition costs, and the results of the Processing business, which was classified as held for sale in the first quarter of 2022, as further described in the appended reconciliation of adjusted financial measures.

Second Quarter Segment Results

As expected, solar project schedules remained dynamic as customers continued to understand the impact of the Department of Commerce investigation, the implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act by the U.S. Custom and Border Protection Agency, and the Executive Order issued by the administration with respect to solar panel tariff enforcement. As a result, revenue was down 5.8%. Backlog was down 2.1% as new bookings slowed pending visibility on these key trade issues. Backlog is expected to Excellerate once these trade issues are resolved.

Adjusted operating income improved $11.4 million, for a margin increase of over 1,200 basis points sequentially and reached double-digit performance in both May and June. Gibraltar expects sequential margin improvement to continue in the second half of the year. Acquisition integration efforts are on track with a common ERP system now live and in-sourcing initiatives on schedule for implementation in the second half of the year.

Revenue increased 21.9%, marking the eighth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. Revenue was driven by price management and participation gains.

Adjusted operating income grew 36.0% and adjusted operating margin improved 190 basis points to 18.5% through price / cost management, supply chain initiatives, labor management, and additional 80/20 initiatives. Gibraltar also implemented a new ERP system in the mail and package business.

GAAP revenue decreased 18.6%, with adjusted revenue down 11.9% due to Produce and Cannabis project movement into the third and fourth quarters of 2022. Quote activity and new order bookings were robust in the quarter, resulting in backlog increasing 30%.

Adjusted operating margin improved 80 basis points over last year through business mix, price / cost management, supply chain improvement, 80/20 initiatives, and integration activities.

Revenue decreased 5.3% versus a very strong Q2 2021, which benefitted from the scheduling of customer projects. Order backlog was flat during the quarter, but bidding activity is very strong and new bookings have accelerated early in the third quarter. Management continues to expect a positive impact from the infrastructure bill later in the second half of 2022.

Adjusted operating margin improved 690 basis points sequentially as the business overcomes steel inflation impacting fixed-price projects with state departments of transportation booked in 2020 and early 2021. Unfavorable product mix resulted in margins being down versus last year. Management continues to expect margins to Excellerate through 2022 with lower margin projects subsiding, business mix improving, and volume leverage.

Business Outlook
Gibraltar is reaffirming guidance for revenue and earnings for the full year 2022, with consolidated revenue expected to range between $1.38 billion and $1.43 billion. GAAP EPS is expected to be between $2.80 and $3.00, and adjusted EPS expected to be between $3.20 and $3.40.

"Our first half results, current demand profile, and ongoing 80/20 initiatives support our confidence in delivering our full-year performance commitments. We remain focused on execution, including supply chain optimization, price / cost alignment, labor management, 80/20, and further simplifying our businesses," said Mr. Bosway.

Second Quarter 2022 Conference Call Details
Gibraltar will host a conference call today starting at 9:00 a.m. ET to review its results for the second quarter of 2022. Interested parties may access the webcast through the Investors section of the Company’s website at www.gibraltar1.com, where related presentation materials will also be posted prior to the conference call. The call may also be accessed by dialing into the call at (877) 407-3088 or (201) 389-0927. For interested individuals unable to join the live conference call, a webcast replay will be available on the Company’s website for one year.

About Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a leading manufacturer and provider of products and services for the renewable energy, residential, agtech, and infrastructure markets. Gibraltar’s mission, to make life better for people and the planet, is fueled by advancing the disciplines of engineering, science, and technology. Gibraltar is innovating to reshape critical markets in comfortable living, sustainable power, and productive growing throughout North America. For more please visit www.gibraltar1.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
Certain information set forth in this news release, other than historical statements, contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that are based, in whole or in part, on current expectations, estimates, forecasts, and projections about the Company’s business, and management’s beliefs about future operations, results, and financial position. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to a number of risk factors, uncertainties, and assumptions. genuine events, performance, or results could differ materially from the anticipated events, performance, or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause genuine results to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, the availability and pricing of our principal raw materials and component parts, supply chain challenges causing project delays and field operations inefficiencies and disruptions, availability of labor at our manufacturing and distribution facilities or on our project sites, further impacts of COVID-19 on our customers, suppliers, employees, operations, business, liquidity and cash flows, the loss of any key customers, adverse effects of inflation, other general economic conditions and conditions in the particular markets in which we operate, changes in customer demand and capital spending, competitive factors and pricing pressures, our ability to develop and launch new products in a cost-effective manner, our ability to realize synergies from newly acquired businesses, disruptions to our IT systems, the impact of regulation (including the Department of Commerce’s solar panel anti-circumvention investigation), rebates, credits and incentives and variations in government spending and our ability to derive expected benefits from restructuring, productivity initiatives, liquidity enhancing actions, and other cost reduction actions. Before making any investment decisions regarding our company, we strongly advise you to read the section entitled "Risk Factors" in our most accurate annual report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q which can be accessed under the "SEC Filings" link of the "Investor Info" page of our website at www.Gibraltar1.com. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable law or regulation.

Adjusted Financial Measures
To supplement Gibraltar’s consolidated financial statements presented on a GAAP basis, Gibraltar also presented certain adjusted financial measures in this news release, including adjusted revenues, adjusted operating income and margin, adjusted net income, adjusted earnings per share (EPS) and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Adjusted EBITDA) each a non-GAAP financial measure. Adjusted revenue reflects the removal of revenue associated with our Processing business, which has been classified as held-for-sale. Adjusted net income, operating income and margin excludes special charges consisting of restructuring costs primarily associated with 80/20 simplification or lean initiatives, senior leadership transition costs, acquisition related costs and the operating losses generated by our processing business that has been classified as held-for-sale. These special charges are excluded since they may not be considered directly related to the Company’s ongoing business operations. The adjusted measures now exclude the results of the Processing business since it was classified as held for sale as of March 31, 2022. Our adjusted financial measures as of and for the three-month and six-month periods ending June 30, 2021 have been recast to reflect this additional adjustment as detailed in the appended reconciliation of adjusted financial measures. The results of the Processing business are considered non-recurring due to the Company’s commitment during the first quarter of 2022 to a plan to sell the Processing business. The aforementioned exclusions along with other adjustments to other income below operating profit are excluded from adjusted EPS. Adjusted EBITDA further excludes depreciation, amortization and stock compensation. In evaluating its business, the Company considers and uses these non-GAAP financial measures as supplemental measures of its operating performance. The Company believes that the presentation of results excluding these items provides meaningful supplemental data to investors that are indicative of the Company’s core operating results and facilitates comparison of operating results across reporting periods as well as comparison with other companies. Adjusted EBITDA is also a useful measure of the Company’s ability to service debt and is one of the measures used for determining the Company’s debt covenant compliance.

Adjustments to the most directly comparable financial measures presented on a GAAP basis are quantified in the reconciliation of adjusted financial measures excluding special charges provided in the supplemental financial schedules that accompany this news release. These adjusted measures should not be viewed as a substitute for the Company’s GAAP results and may be different than adjusted measures used by other companies and our presentation of non-GAAP financial measures should not be construed as an inference that our future results will be unaffected by unusual or non-recurring items.

Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures related to full-year 2022 guidance have not been provided due to the unreasonable efforts it would take to provide such reconciliations due to the high variability, complexity and uncertainty with respect to forecasting and quantifying certain amounts that are necessary for such reconciliations.