Radiator for Libraries - Enable connection for patrons without extra provisioning

In recent years, libraries have evolved from venues where people come to pick up books into community places for people to read, study, work and much more. As most of these activities require reliable internet access, there is no denying that providing stable connectivity is becoming a requirement for modern libraries.

Hence why more and more libraries are looking at efficient and secure ways to enable connectivity for their patrons, while ensuring that that connection is not used for malicious business. Having an open Wi-Fi broadcasted across the library facilities is not the way to, and provisioning separate credentials for internet connection for all users visiting the library is a big hassle.

Radiator has got you covered. Radiator AAA server seamlessly integrates with existing Library management system (LMS, also known as Integrated library system, ILS) providing patrons connectivity utilising the credentials from LMS, used for lending books.

How does it work?

The key to library Wi-Fi authentication with Radiator lies on 3M™ Standard Interchange Protocol 2.0, known as the SIP2 protocol. The SIP2 protocol provides an interface between a library’s management system and library automation devices. This is the same protocol used for automated self-check devices for loaning and returning library books, and the parameters that can be used for self-lending can also be used for Wi-Fi access.

Radiator authenticates patrons based on their existing patron credential, for example library card number and PIN code. This means libraries do not need to provision and store separate Wi-Fi credentials for patrons. The basic version of this configuration is very simple and Radiator’s scripts handle the communication with the library system. Essentially, in the library system’s view, Radiator is a self-service loaning device among the others.

This integration also enables further functionality. Radiator can be configured to do that if the patron has outstanding fines or fees that exceed an agreed threshold, their Wi-Fi access will be declined upon login. This is done by Radiator’s scripts and is a toggleable option within the Radiator configuration file. The access can be tied to patron status or other patron information, for example age restriction can be applied.

Swift commercial process, flexible testing

Radiator is priced based on the number of servers, which makes a single library deployment very cost-effective. Radiator’s flexible evaluation licences allow you to set up a test system and see the solution working before making any commitments.

If you are interested in deploying a secure, robust and affordable solution for your library connectivity, please contact our sales team at sales@radiatorsoftware.com

Radiator Simple WiFi Authentication – Introduction to Radiator Cloud

We are pleased to announce an expansion to the Radiator product offering – Radiator Cloud for Azure. We have ever so often been approached by companies and organisations that require a fast to set up, easy to use hosted WiFi authentication solution.

Often the trouble with Software-as-a-Service type WiFi solutions is the concern for privacy, who has access to customer data and how it is handled. To address the demand for a hosted solution with complete privacy to customer data, we’ve developed an Azure-native cloud solution – Radiator Cloud for Azure

Radiator Cloud for Azure is a managed application that is deployed, hosted, operated and monitored all in Azure. User data and logs stay within your Azure tenant with no external access. User and NAS client provisioning is done with enhanced Azure UI and the solution can be monitored with premade Azure Monitoring queries.

Radiator Simple WiFi authentication, powered by Radiator Cloud

The first application that is now live in Azure Marketplace is Radiator Simple WiFi authentication. It is a simple username-password authentication solution that allows organisations to take control of their wireless network with minimum requirements. The only prerequisites to deploying the solution are an active Azure subscription and access to one’s network device configuration.

Deployment is done within minutes from the Azure Marketplace. A user with at least Contributor permissions for their tenant can deploy the application. Provisioning and monitoring is made straightforward with Azure UI and billing is done together with the organisation's other Azure applications.

Radiator Simple WiFi authentication – Easy, Fast and Affordable

The main customer groups that benefit from the application are organisations who do not yet have any WiFi authentication solution in use, as well as organisations with multiple locations who want to centralise their WiFi authentication operations. Radiator Simple WiFi authentication provides an easy way for centralised user and device management with minimum prerequisites.

Radiator Simple WiFi authentication is easy, fast and affordable. The simple structure of the application, backed with comprehensive deployment guide and user manual, make the application easy to deploy and operate. Deployment process is automated and does not need any vendor approval. Provisioning is very straightforward. In a typical deployment, you have a working system within the same day.

The costs of the application consists of two parts: fixed monthly software cost and Azure running costs for hosting the application. All costs are transparent and easy to estimate. You are only billed by Azure, along with your other Azure applications.

The future of Radiator Cloud

While Radiator Simple WiFi authentication is already available for purchase in Azure Marketplace, we are also actively looking to expand the Radiator Cloud product family both horizontally with other use cases and vertically to other platforms.

Our two big roadmap items for Radiator Cloud are enterprise-grade WiFi authentication application and an application for WiFi authentication utilising Microsoft Entra IDs. Both of these address a direct need not only from new but also existing customers who are looking to move from their existing Active Directory on to Azure.

While these development news are all about Radiator Cloud, this is by no means a sign that we would have shifted focus from our on-site products. Radiator is committed to active development and latest standards and these efforts are made to make Radiator products more accessible to all organisations across different platforms and deployment models.

Want to know more?

If you have any questions about Radiator Simple WiFi Authentication or Radiator Cloud roadmap items, please do not hesitate to contact us at sales(a)radiatorsoftware.com

Connect to OpenRoaming™ with Radiator

Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), provides OpenRoaming™, a roaming federation service enabling an automatic and secure Wi-Fi experience globally. It creates a federation of networks and identity providers to enable automatic roaming and user onboarding on Wi-Fi. More information can be found from WBA OpenRoaming™ pages or from the video below.

 

Recently, we have seen developments where carriers and other organisations, such as universities, are embracing OpenRoaming™ for their guest Wi-Fi access. This industry backig and focus on end user experience is one of the key benefits of OpenRoaming™.

As OpenRoaming™ becomes more integrated in the Android and Apple devices, the host organisations do not need to worry about how they will provide guest user credentials for guests. The guests will already authenticate with Apple, Google, participating operators and even in the future with Facebook credentials to guest networks without requiring host organisations to instruct them or provide configuration to their devices. For users, this development would bring significant benefits: secure and easy access to the Wi-Fi network wherever they go.

Radiator Software, being a WBA member and solution provider, can provide your organisation the products and services you need in order to join OpenRoaming™.

Radiator supports OpenRoaming™ requirements

For OpenRoaming™, support both for RadSec and DNSRoaming protocol is needed in order to implement the roaming securely and without extra effort to the end user. Radiator AAA Server supports both these protocols as can be seen from our product page. With RadSec, we are proud to tell that Radiator was the first commercial AAA Server where the protocol was implemented.

At the same time, we have 20 years of experience for providing roaming solutions to our Radiator customers - especially for international roaming federations suchs as eduroam and govroam. For these customers, we can of course provide assistance when joining OpenRoaming™.

Interested in joining OpenRoaming™ using Radiator?

For OpenRoaming™, our team can offer you a complete package: providing the software and the installation and the configuration assistance in order to join OpenRoaming™. After this, with Radiator support, you can ask for any later on assistance needed if for example configuration changes are needed.

Please contact our sales team at sales@radiatorsoftware.com

TNC19 Radiator technical workshop presentations available!

Terena Networking Conference 2019 (TNC19) is over as is our Radiator technical workshop, which was part of the conference. Here are all of Radiator Software presentations presented in the Radiator technical workshop. You are able to find these also on our SlideShare account, where we will upload also future public presentations about Radiator.

1) TNC19 Radiator Technical Workshop -- Introduction, what's new with Radiator (Software)

2) TNC19 Radiator Technical Workshop -- Using Radiator to ensure better SP/IdP connections to eduroam/govroam

3) TNC19 Radiator Technical Workshop -- Meet Radiator developers

Thank you to all Radiator technical workshop participants, we hope to see you again. We also will look into possibilities of repeating our technical workshop as a webinar together with TNC19 organisers for those who were not able to attend live.

Connect your organization to govroam with Radiator

Recently, we have been implementing solutions for our customers that want to join govroam. With govroam, for example UK public-sector staff can roam in Wi-Fi networks in different locations - in a similar way that eduroam works in academic sector internationally.

As Radiator has strong background in eduroam and in other federated wifi networks, our solutions are a very good fit with govroam as well. We already have good experiences working, for example, with NHS organizations in the UK.

In couple of recent cases, Radiator provides the govroam compliant solution for user authentication and proxying. With Radiator, this has solved a a challenge for customers especially when using Windows AD / Windows NPS in their environment. While working with these cases, we have tailored couple of solutions that helps the organizations to be compliant with govroam specifications.

Also, Radiator can be run on Windows and Linux platforms, and in the cloud as well. In govroam cases, installations have been made to many different environments.

What Radiator Software offers

In our govroam use cases, we have developed two solutions for different types of organizations. The packs include both Radiator licenses as well as the support service for Radiator products:

• Radiator Govroam Federation Support Pack
• Solution for organisations that want to create a regional root service that is connected to govroam
• Radiator Govroam Support Pack
• Solution for individual organisations that will connect to regional root service connected to govroam. In this solution, Radiator is used as a RADIUS proxy providing the needed configuration in order to comply to govroam specifications.

For more info, please contact our sales team at sales@radiatorsoftware.com . We are happy to have a call about your govroam needs in order to provide a suitable solution for your own organization.

Using Radiator for Wi-Fi offloading: how to make savings in mobile packet core network

With Wi-Fi offloading, mobile operators can transfer traffic from their Evolved Packet Core network to Wi-Fi networks. One of the key reasons for this is cost savings - as an example from Radiator customer can demonstrate.Our customer has currently 50,000 public hotspots in their country - the best Wi-Fi coverage in the nation.

Hotspots in the country by operator

In order to get the most out of their Wi-Fi network, a solution was needed for automatic SIM authentication for mobile users. For this, our regional partner implemented a solution with Radiator SIM Pack for the customer. This enabled them to increase the network usage from 1 M usages  per month to over 70 million usages per month. A key component, in addition to Radiator SIM Pack, was iPhone Carrier Bundle with auto connect - that provides automatic authentication to the end-user.

After the initial surge, customer still sees growth of 13 % per month.

The current progress of WiFi Auto Connect usage

Because of the solution, customer is now offloading almost 600 TBytes of data from evolved mobile packet core (EPC) each month - and the amount is still growing. If cost of each GByte to the EPC is around USD $4, the customer is saving over USD $2M per month - and over $24M per year!

Amount of offloaded data by month

Interested in Wi-Fi offloading?

If you have interest in Radiator solutions for Wi-Fi offloading - please do not hesitate to contact our sales team at info@open.com.au

Radiator Interoperating with Hotel Management Systems

One of the widely seen use cases for Radiator is interoperating with different hotel property management systems (PMS). Radiator is used between the hotel’s PMS and the network equipment that controls internet access in hotel rooms. One of the commonly used systems is Micros Opera that is used by both independent hotels and hotel chains.

For Opera, we have implemented support in Radiator that is easy to deploy with your own team or with the help of our experts. When Radiator starts up, it will receive hotel customer information from Opera. This information is used for Wifi network authentication. The basic information received from Opera is name, room and customer id of the guest. When the hotel guests check in or check out, the information Radiator maintains is updated by Opera. Radiator support is not limited to Opera: it supports any PMS that provides a FIAS interface.

Many hotels require guests to log in with their name and room number. Radiator then gives access based on customer information it has received from Opera. This functionality is shown in the picture below.

In addition to simply offering unpoliced, complimentary internet access, Radiator provides you more advanced options for revenue generating services. Radiator can, for example, give policy instructions, such as the speed given to the customer - based on the price customer is willing to pay for the internet access. Also, Radiator can pass information to network equipment (such as Mikrotik controllers) about how long the customer can use the internet with their current login without having go through the login process again.

Same need in your own hotel or hotel chain?

If you need a smart and flexible internet access service for your business, just contact our sales team at sales@radiatorsoftware.com. Our experts at Radiator Software can provide you with competitive service package suited just for your needs.