I think it's always wise to look at other vendors when you're about to replace that amount of equipment, but unless you are unhappy, it's unlikely that the alternative will come out less expensive i.e. hardware purchase, plus learning/supporting another vendor.
If you're happy, work with your incumbent vendor to see what they'll do to keep you in the family. For Cisco, right now there is a deal where you can get substantial additional discounts on wireless if it's paired with switching (which also gets extra discounts), and these stack on top of the discount you get normally. Let's just say that 70%-ish off is not difficult. I took advantage of the discount last year and the cost for a 3702i was pretty amazing. Jeff -----Original Message----- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Oliver, Jeff Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2015 9:42 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Multi Vendor environments in WiFi space All, This is probably an old topic, but I have not seen anything in a while on it. At present we are a Cisco shop with regard to our wireless deployment, and we are looking at changing out a substantial number (250) of our AP's (1131 to 3702). These AP's represent about 30% of our deployment so is a substantial investment, and as such our CIO has asked us to look at other solutions. I am wondering if any of you are running multi vendor environments and if so, what the UX is like? What are the toolsets like regarding management of two disparate systems? Cheers, Jeff --- Jeffrey L. Oliver Sr. Network Analyst Information Technology Services The University of Lethbridge 4401 University Drive, Lethbridge, Alberta, T1K 3M4 Tel: 403.329.5162 Mob: 403.315.4461 Fax: 403.382.7108 URI: jeff.oli...@uleth.ca ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
