Aruba Networks is making a big push into the industrial WiFi market, announcing a new family of hardened & explosion- resistant access points and two partnership agreements with ruggedized device makers Panasonic Toughbook and Psion Teklogix, as well. It also announced a customer win with petrochemical company Amerada Hess.

Aruba decided to design access points from the ground up because current access points trying to serve the industrial market don't cut it in terms of being explosion resistant. The industrial market has been a difficult one for WiFi companies to crack given the interference problems the heavy metal interior of industrial facilities pose.

Michael Tennefoss, head of strategic marketing with Aruba, said the company uses higher power radios -- 200 milliwatt instead of 100 milliwatt -- to get better throughput in these areas and processes the signals through adaptive radio management to recover any lost signals. The access points can also be powered using solar power, a car battery, street light or power over Ethernet.

Aruba securely delivers networks to users, wherever they work or roam. Its unified mobility solutions include Wi-Fi networks, identity-based security, remote access and cellular services, and centralized network management to enable the Follow-Me Enterprise that moves in lock-step with users: