It should also be noted that not all "controller in the cloud" solutions are the same. The key difference is the control plane. While the data plane is distributed and the management plane is centralized the control plane will be handled differently depending on the vendor.
If the control plane is cloud based then the APs are dependent on the WAN link and cloud availability in order to maintain dynamic intelligence (and all of the features that are tied to the control plane - roaming, RF mgmt, etc..). If the control plane is also distributed then the APs will maintain their "intelligence" when they cannot talk to the cloud. Make sure the vendor explains all of the features which are tied to the control plane before deployment. /rf On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Kevin Hess <kh...@westmont.edu> wrote: > Hi Ethan, et al, > > I am new to the list but noticed this discussion and thought I might offer > my two cents. I work at Westmont College, a liberal arts college in the > Santa Barbara area. We evaluated Aruba, Cisco and Meraki last summer. We > had a previous Aruba installation, running for several years, and with > moderate success. What we found was that Meraki's model was made extremely > flexible and simple by virtue of having no onsite controller. Being in the > cloud, the controller itself was accessible by anyone we chose to allow > access to it, not just whoever had knowledge of the specific command > structure of the onsite controller, as was the case with the Aruba > installation. Because of that flexibility, I or any of my network staff can > log on from anywhere, be it a cafe, home or iPhone. Additionally, I can > easily log into my local AP, wherever I am on campus, and get local > information about that AP. > > Being a smallish shop, we used a local integrator, Novacoast, to work with > us on some reengineering and deployment. I only mention that because before > we approached them, NC had never even heard of Meraki. Within a few weeks > they were fully credentialed and ready to go. That I almost entirely > attribute to how easy Meraki is to deploy, though certainly NC were great. > We spent some time working through our preferred configuration, some of > which was a logical lift from the Aruba and some entirely new. We had > around 270 Aruba ABG units (AP61s I think...) that were not upgradeable to N > and as I mentioned the controller management was challenging. Only our > Network Manager had access and knowledge enough to manage the unit. We > replaced with nearly the same number of Merakis but gained full coverage > around campus (indoor and out), N, dual and triband radios and an elegance > in operation that has continued. With the Meraki setup even our CIO logs on > and can easily run usage reports, drill down to specific APs, clients, time > frames etc. Whenever Meraki enables a new feature, of which there have been > several, they are applied to the cloud controller and have no effect to the > local APs (=no down time). There have been a couple firmware updates but > those are applied intelligently so that there is minimal downtime in the > middle of the night and the update is applied in batches so we don't have a > campus of dark APs during the upgrade. We haven't had a single unit fail. > > The long and short is that we have barely thought about the system since > putting it in. We are in it all the time to check usage (...the ongoing > struggle to have enough bandwidth etc etc), troubleshoot client issues > (typically client misconfiguration by user), and see what new features have > been added. But I don't worry about it. Ever. That may not be a standard > TCO argument but for my money it's a big one. > > Cheers > > Kevin > > ______________ > > Kevin J. Hess '98 > > Senior Director > > Information Technology > > Westmont College > > 805.565.6154 > > kh...@westmont.edu > > ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE > Constituent Group discussion list can be found at > http://www.educause.edu/groups/. -- /rf ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
