Best WLAN Solution

NightShade1

Which do you think is the best wireless lan solution? and why?

Okay ill start

For me its ArubaNetworks
It got really good features... for example
1-build in Firewall which allows you to for example if you got this integrated with aRAdius server with one SSID you can give the users different roles, for example:
SSID:Techexams
Groups in AD:blue, red, green
With just one SSID you can tell that blue just have access to server A and server C
with the same SSID you can tell that red group just got access to server B and so on
Does cisco can do this?

2-Build in IPS
3-Mission Critical application priority... you can prioritaze packets depending on which application you using for example if you can prioritize Microsoft Lync over icloud, dropbox etc etc, as far i know cisco cant prioritize packets depending on apps(cisco believers can correct me if im wrong)
4-Vlan pooling and named vlans with one SSID you can have many vlans and reduce the broadcast domain
5-ARM, with Band steering and spectrum load balancer and airtime fairness...
6-BYOD
7-build in Spectrum Analyzer and Air monitor APs modes...

And well many more i just mentioned 7...

it_consultant

Meraki.

Meraki Cloud Managed Wireless LAN

rsutton

+1 for Meraki. Easy to manage, solid, good support.

NightShade1

For what i have read it doest not surprice me yet... Anyone can tell me something really cool or name me good stuff that this solution got that others dont? besides from being a cloud solution

Another question
What happens when your internet dies? does your wireless dies also?
For example when you configuring a 802.1x does who does the request to your RADIUS? your wireless controller which in on the cloud?
Does the wireless controller is really on the cloud somewhere on miraki company or im totally lost here?

it_consultant

If the internet dies the wireless will continue to work, just with no internet, the config is saved into the Access Point. The controller doesn't do the radius lookup, the AP does. The controller is just a quick way to configure and monitor all of your APs.

NightShade1

it_consultant wrote: »

If the internet dies the wireless will continue to work, just with no internet, the config is saved into the Access Point. The controller doesn't do the radius lookup, the AP does. The controller is just a quick way to configure and monitor all of your APs.

Thanks for the info...
Anyone else other Wireless solution(i didnt know this solution tho the meraki one)

unclerico

Aerohive is phenomenal

emerald_octane

Cisco Wireless LAN Controller. Never worked with the aruba or meraki solutions so I cannot make comparisons nor do I know what features they offer, but I do work with the cisco.

Cons are obviously price. We've spent quite a bundle on Aironets and the controller.

Pros:
Knowledgable smartnet guys who know about the controllers, aironet and RF theory (I got a 2 hour lesson for free lol).
LWAPP - I can plug an aironet into any single VLAN and as long as they can get back to my controller on the correct ports then it will establish a tunnel that will include all traffic destined for seperate vlans, so I don't need to configure VLANs on my switchports for my APs.
Auto power level adjustment between the APs based on client data .
CleanAIR - auto rf adjustment based on realtime spectrum analysis
Guest access including guest accounts, and radius.
Multiple vlans via radius (this should be a given on all controllers though lol).
Rouge AP Detection (aruba does this as well) - . Detects rouge access points and attempts to capture connected clients
Office Extend APs - send your employees home with an AP that safely extends your corporate WIFI network.

NightShade1

emerald_octane wrote: »

Cisco Wireless LAN Controller. Never worked with the aruba or meraki solutions so I cannot make comparisons nor do I know what features they offer, but I do work with the cisco.

Cons are obviously price. We've spent quite a bundle on Aironets and the controller.

Pros:
Knowledgable smartnet guys who know about the controllers, aironet and RF theory (I got a 2 hour lesson for free lol).
LWAPP - I can plug an aironet into any single VLAN and as long as they can get back to my controller on the correct ports then it will establish a tunnel that will include all traffic destined for seperate vlans, so I don't need to configure VLANs on my switchports for my APs.
Auto power level adjustment between the APs based on client data .
CleanAIR - auto rf adjustment based on realtime spectrum analysis
Guest access including guest accounts, and radius.
Multiple vlans via radius (this should be a given on all controllers though lol).
Rouge AP Detection (aruba does this as well) - . Detects rouge access points and attempts to capture connected clients
Office Extend APs - send your employees home with an AP that safely extends your corporate WIFI network.

Yeah Aruba does all that...
Clean air with aruba is called ARM

I wonder if cisco is still a way more expensive than Aruba...

What does Airohive got of interesting? can you list their best features?

I really would like to see other wireless solution that can do stuff that aruba CANT.... i mean is good to know the other wireless solution as well...

unclerico

Aerohive:
- Controllerless architecture
- Hivemanager (HM) can be a physical appliance, a VM, or hosted by . The HM is simply an NMS that lets you see everything under the sun in regards to the WLAN environment. It is configuration manager as well. You also do site surveys with it
- APs form a hive so each one knows about all others. They use a L2 SPF algorithm to determine the most optimal path from one client to another
- Automatic channel selection protocol
- Dynamic power
- Any AP can be used as client access, mesh point, and/or bridge at the same time
- Stateful firewall built in to each AP
- Rogue mitigation
- WIPS
- Client isolation on a common SSID
- Guest manager
- Teacher view for educational settings. It lets teachers control who, what, where, when, and how students can access the network
- Captive portal
- 802.11e/WMM support. Prioritize certain .1p/ToS values, application types, SSIDs as a whole
- per user and/or per SSID rate limiting
- Dynamic airtime scheduling
- The 300 series and BR series can be IPSec VPN endpoints plus perform NAT
- Interface tracking. If the Ethernet interface has power but it stopped forwarding traffic one of the radios will dynamically be placed in back haul mode and form a mesh link with another AP so client traffic won't be interrupted
- Access Console SSID. If you have an AP in a difficult place to reach and it loses network connectivity it can dynamically enable a special maintenance SSID so you can connect up and determine what is wrong
- Automatic rollback of configs. If you push a config change and it makes the AP lose connectivity it will automatically rollback the config.

There are many, many more features...

NightShade1

unclerico wrote: »

Aerohive:
- Controllerless architecture
- Hivemanager (HM) can be a physical appliance, a VM, or hosted by . The HM is simply an NMS that lets you see everything under the sun in regards to the WLAN environment. It is configuration manager as well. You also do site surveys with it
- APs form a hive so each one knows about all others. They use a L2 SPF algorithm to determine the most optimal path from one client to another
- Automatic channel selection protocol
- Dynamic power
- Any AP can be used as client access, mesh point, and/or bridge at the same time
- Stateful firewall built in to each AP
- Rogue mitigation
- WIPS
- Client isolation on a common SSID
- Guest manager
- Teacher view for educational settings. It lets teachers control who, what, where, when, and how students can access the network
- Captive portal
- 802.11e/WMM support. Prioritize certain .1p/ToS values, application types, SSIDs as a whole
- per user and/or per SSID rate limiting
- Dynamic airtime scheduling
- The 300 series and BR series can be IPSec VPN endpoints plus perform NAT
- Interface tracking. If the Ethernet interface has power but it stopped forwarding traffic one of the radios will dynamically be placed in back haul mode and form a mesh link with another AP so client traffic won't be interrupted
- Access Console SSID. If you have an AP in a difficult place to reach and it loses network connectivity it can dynamically enable a special maintenance SSID so you can connect up and determine what is wrong
- Automatic rollback of configs. If you push a config change and it makes the AP lose connectivity it will automatically rollback the config.

There are many, many more features...

Thank you very much for your comments.

Can aerohive do vlan pooling? i mean with one SSID assign it like 10 vlans if you want, to lower the broadcast domain in really dense Areas like for example in a School, you can have one SSID for the students but behind it you can have as many vlans you want behind just one SSID?(this is one of the features i find more useful(we do lot of deployments in schools))
Which is the feature you find more useful?