Chuck has the right idea here. Our respective college strategic missions don’t mention running servers or wireless controllers as strategic to the mission of the college. Cloud/SaaS solutions free up folks from the mundane tasks, allowing them to focus on those higher-up technology layers that can benefit the strategic mission. I think it’s easy today to see the benefits of moving on-premise email systems to GAFE or O365, but that comfort level isn’t there yet with some other systems such a Wireless.
From a support standpoint, a vendor like Meraki has global visibility of how their product is operating, meaning they can correlate/see/react to issues faster including patching. For the controller-based solutions, there is the isolation factor, capability of the customer to gather support info, and the vendor not knowing if other customers are having the issue. I suspect both options will be with us for years to come, but as more and more of our respective data centers move to the cloud, I predict the wireless cloud services will become more popular. Jeff From: "wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu" <WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU> on behalf of "Enfield III, Charles Albert" <cae...@psu.edu> Reply-To: "wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu" <WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU> Date: Thursday, May 17, 2018 at 1:38 PM To: "wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu" <WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU> Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Options I don’t want to put words in John’s mouth, but operating controllers requires time and effort beyond what’s required to manage configurations. Scaling, security, software upgrades, etc., all require resources but contribute nothing to the user experience. For us the benefits of hosting our own controllers is worth it, but I understand that isn’t true for everybody. I’m not even sure it will always be true for us. When the benefits of controllers as traffic aggregators can be easily replaced with SD fabrics, I’ll probably want cloud controllers too. The details will matter, but it’s where I think we’re going. Chuck Enfield Manager, Wireless Engineering Enterprise Networking & Communication Services The Pennsylvania State University 119L, USB2, UP, PA 16802 ph: 814.863.8715 fx: 814.865.3988 From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv <WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU> On Behalf Of Peter P Morrissey Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2018 4:30 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Options Same here. I was also curious as to why it would be limited to cloud based solutions. I would drill down a layer into the perceived benefits of cloud based, and define it that way. Easier management requiring less staff time and thus lower TCO and more ability to accomplish other activities? Etc. Maybe. One of the disadvantages of cloud based solutions besides losing some control and visibility is the ongoing costs. We love Meraki as much as anyone, but the annual recurring licensing costs are rather steep and should be carefully weighed against the benefits. Pete Morrissey From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Jake Snyder Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2018 2:26 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Options I’m curious about the requirement that controllers be “cloud based” and what business requirement that maps to. Trying to understand what a cloud based controller give your business that an on-premises controller does not. How that translates to better experience, happier students or faster connectivity. Sent from my iPhone On May 17, 2018, at 12:13 PM, Norton, Thomas (Network Operations) <tnort...@liberty.edu<mailto:tnort...@liberty.edu>> wrote: I highly recommend looking at Aruba as well. T.J. Norton Wireless Network Architect Network Operations Office: (434) 592-6552 [Image removed by sender. http://www.liberty.edu/media/1616/40themail/wordmark-for-email.jpg] Liberty University | Training Champions for Christ since 1971 From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Trenton Hurt Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2018 2:11 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU<mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU> Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Options https://www.mist.com/<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mist.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7Ctnorton7%40liberty.edu%7Cc75bdb0477514218a00c08d5bc21c019%7Cbaf8218eb3024465a9934a39c97251b2%7C0%7C0%7C636621775498942781&sdata=LxLmDpwl3h17su4HEiv9evWnHBODxMCN0tmzXxYir0w%3D&reserved=0> On Thu, May 17, 2018 at 2:10 PM John Rodkey <rod...@westmont.edu<mailto:rod...@westmont.edu>> wrote: Our college - about 40 buildings, 1200 students, 3500 wireless clients per day, currently 310 WAPs - is considering a major upgrade in WAPs, replacing a number that are 9 years old and no longer supported. We could replace with the latest model of our existing vendor, but want to consider all the feasible alternatives. We have a hard requirement that the controller be cloud-based, the system deal well with Mac clients, understand VLANs and an enterprise quality network, and have a rich set of configuration, logging, monitoring, and troubleshooting tools for dealing both with clients and access points. Responsive support is also required, and unsurprisingly total system cost is a significant issue. 3 vendors come to mind: Meraki, Ubiquiti, and Aerohive. Questions: 1) do other vendors come to mind that play well in this space? 2) what are your positive experiences with any of the above? 3) what are your negative experiences? 4) have you recently gone through this analysis, and if so, what were your conclusions? 5) what issues have you experienced with PoE capacity requirements with these devices? 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