m25man Posted May 28, 2015 Posted May 28, 2015 Breaking news - http://finance.yahoo.com/news/fortinet-buying-meru-networks-39-152141496.html Via Yahoo Finance.
m25man Posted May 28, 2015 Author Posted May 28, 2015 Unfortunately I did a while before they tanked.... I held as I thought they were supposed to be the saviours of Edu Wifi ;D Guess we will have to see how this pans out.
Chris_ Posted May 28, 2015 Posted May 28, 2015 Unfortunately I did a while before they tanked.... I held as I thought they were supposed to be the saviours of Edu Wifi ;D Guess we will have to see how this pans out. But how many schools can afford to drop £100k on a wireless network!
njc235 Posted May 28, 2015 Posted May 28, 2015 £100k - Wow, how many APs, controllers, n+1 controllers, IDM, EzRF etc did you buy!!!! Are they gold played versions?
BKGarry Posted May 29, 2015 Posted May 29, 2015 We are one of those schools, but we got it as part of BSF. Although you are looking at about £300 per AP (if your lucky) and £10k for the controller. we have 51 APs for the entire site. So a replacement of APs (we have already replaced the controller this year, after 5 years) would cost us £15,3000 I think the 100k was a bit of an over estimate, but they are not cheap by far (although they have bee doing a good job and support is really good from them)
m25man Posted May 30, 2015 Author Posted May 30, 2015 We are one of those schools, but we got it as part of BSF. Although you are looking at about £300 per AP (if your lucky) and £10k for the controller. we have 51 APs for the entire site. So a replacement of APs (we have already replaced the controller this year, after 5 years) would cost us £15,3000 I think the 100k was a bit of an over estimate, but they are not cheap by far (although they have bee doing a good job and support is really good from them) I assume the new controller supports both your old AP's and any new ones you need to replace. So you will now actually spend £5k pa on your Wifi infrastructure over a 5yr cycle which is not excessive but probably more than many schools would like. The uncertainty now will be, will Fortinet continue the existing Meru technology roadmap or diverse into a completely new model leading to an early demise of your current investment? That's what we will have to wait and see, if the sale goes through unimpeded fine, if turns nasty with aggrieved shareholders and investors (as it appears to be) who knows what may happen. Either way anxious times for those that have just bought into MEG wifi or those that have orders pending for summer... 1
synaesthesia Posted May 30, 2015 Posted May 30, 2015 Fortinet already have a wireless setup (controllers, aps etc) so wonder how they'll merge them if at all.
psydii Posted June 2, 2015 Posted June 2, 2015 Wifi is Meru's specialism. I would be very surprised if Fortinet's wireless offer is anywhere near as technically capable, and it may even be OEMd from somebody else (Senao?). Meru does have a very compelling portfolio, SCA is great for full coverage and large channels. For Very High Density, their offer looks just like everybody elses'. There is a school of thought that suggests that SCA with 80-160Mhz channels may well be the winning move for 802.11ac for general to high density deployments. (i.e. everywhere bar lecture halls, conference halls or mass transit systems). It does put them back into the running for the Gartner Magic quadrant, but I suspect their switch offer will keep them from appearing in a 'good place' (that said, I did read that Gartner have backed away from requiring wifi vendors to have a switch offer in their portfolio). I would expect that Meru System Director and SCA to continue, and be augmented with the security and management tools from the fortinet side of the stable.
TheRobins Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 Im not concerned with this at all to be honest. The meru system I have has been nothing but a success. 100k is a very large estimate, although if you look at a large school environment with new switching, fibre links all thrown into the mix that could be a figure that pops up with not just meru, but all networks. I was once told a little saying by an old chap I had a lot of time for. "A poor man can only afford the best" Ill sit back and see what happens. 1
Popular Post mhowell Posted June 10, 2015 Popular Post Posted June 10, 2015 One could always contact me directly or Meru, or Fortinet rather than reading speculation from M25man. My details are here Mark Howell [email protected] The Fortinet acquisition is nothing but good news. With nearly a $1 billion in the bank this is exactly what Meru needs and secures the investment in the Meru architecture thats been deployed in well over 4000 schools in the UK, a figure that grows by over 600 schools education customers every year in the UK. It is well publicised that the lack of education E rate funding in the US caused a slow down in sales in the US, something that is affecting ALL wifi vendors if you read their financial statements in detail... Ruckus: Investors - News Release | Ruckus Wireless Aerohive: Aerohive Networks Reports First Quarter 2015 Financial Results Meru: Meru Networks Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2014 Financial Results (NASDAQ:MERU) All public information, All reference E rate funding as a problem The comments from M25man are simply designed to create FUD for his/her own benefit and as for the comments around the acquisition, have a look at the recent HP Aruba aquisition and you will see lots of highly paid lawyers wanting to get stuck in there too, par for the course. If you've a Meru quote of over 100K for your school then by all means send it to me and I will sanity check it for you, there are non Meru partners out there who will provide you with a Meru quote, deliberately inflate it so they can sell you their product of choice at a cheaper price (at least cheaper to what they offered you anyway) Some large independent schools do have to spend that amount due to the nature of independent schools building construction and size of campus. If you buy cheap there's a reason for it being cheap, but ultimately it all depends on what you as a school are wanting to do from a mobility perspective. Some cheap products will work fine for your needs, expand on those needs and they may well not. Any Meru customers out there, that designed for coverage years ago, that are now requiring more performance based wifi then feel free to get in touch, or back in touch with your partner, and have a read of the recent post I posted regarding the trade in to 11ac offers that are available. Views my own not necessarily my employer 5
wifispray Posted July 17, 2015 Posted July 17, 2015 Hopefully with the acquisition by Fortinet we will see Fortinet/Meru drop single channel, which is a dead technology! The truth is Meru had some great ideas with this that have been since fixed by the standards. Problem with Meru is they have been very niche for many years and due to the market not adopting single channel almost caused there demise. Although it doesn't break standards it takes a view on specific parts of the standard which doesn't play nice with neighboring Wi-Fi, they adjust certain parameters which allows there APs to transmit quicker (adjusting inter-frame spacing etc).... Its great to see them being purchased although for a very small price for a WiFi company, look at Aruba/HP and Cisco/Meraki you will see its a steal. If they had not been im sure they would have slowly disappeared. This does bring uncertainty for anyone who is currently a customer, or people looking at this until the acquisition is fully complete. Mark works for Meru and will always be biased to his technology.
CyberNerd Posted July 17, 2015 Posted July 17, 2015 Why is single channel dead? I don't understand because it works so well!
wifispray Posted July 17, 2015 Posted July 17, 2015 Ok dead is strong, maybe dying is more the word to use. SINGLE channel doesnt scale in high density! Multi-Cell, Multi-Single channel, Channel Blankets, Channel duvet whatever its called now does..... With the world moving to IoT, single channel isnt the answer, maybe for schools its ok. Meru helped the industry to bring ideas such as airtime fairness, fact is they have fallen behind over the years.
WifiWizard Posted July 17, 2015 Posted July 17, 2015 Single channel was a nice way to fix issues with VoIP and roaming in the past. Since then amendments to the 802.11 standard (802.11r, OKC - not in the standard but widely used) which has fixed these issues. The issue with single channel is that it inherently causes contention on the medium and therefore does not work as efficiently in dense environments. Meru can obviously do channel layering (which requires additional APs/cost) or turn VC/VP (SCA) off and operate like all other vendors to try and scale for high density.
CyberNerd Posted July 17, 2015 Posted July 17, 2015 I have heard that argument before - mostly from non-meru people. The fact is that we have 1200 wireless devices on at any time, with 30 users in each classroom. They are all booted up, logged in and on the internet within 10 seconds. Many School's ICT suites can't achieve that. If that isn't a high density environment then I don't know what is! Notwithstanding a few driver issues for particular machines I really fail to see why it is an issue, infact I would go so far as to say it works REALLY well!
wifispray Posted July 17, 2015 Posted July 17, 2015 30 devices per room isnt high density in my opinion, also if internet is your only application im sure that will work no problem. The fact is you could have half the APs and it would likey work the same. Your right alot of people who talk on her are non-meru people, ive used in the past with very mixed results..... Glad your network is working well for you, hopefully in the future with IoT it will scale.....
CyberNerd Posted July 17, 2015 Posted July 17, 2015 ^ yes we could probably use fewer access points. Having more gives redundancy if an AP does fail and TBH it is more about the range than density.
psydii Posted July 17, 2015 Posted July 17, 2015 (edited) Every vendors VHD solution looks the same, including Meru's: Stack as many 20Mhz channels into a space as you can, high minimum beacon speed etc. Single Channel is really great (in my experience) for general school-level density stuff. 10 years ago, before ubiquitous smartphones, a school with lots of laptops was the highest density wifi you'd find, which is why some still talk about a classroom as VHD. Nowadays in schools, only the large auditoriums (if they have them) come close to needing a true VHD deployment. Going back to Meru and SCA vs MCA. IMO it is the behaviour in the AC wave 2 space that will either make or break Meru's USP. I am looking forward to seeing a bake off between a SCA 802.11ac 160Mz channel 4 AP deployment with 120 active clients doing school typical traffic (boot, gpo, domain auth, gpos, roaming profiles) and MCA in the same spectrum with the same number of clients/aps. Until then both sides are just blowing hot air. Edited July 17, 2015 by psydii
njc235 Posted July 18, 2015 Posted July 18, 2015 High density- how about 7 conference rooms with up to 2000 delegates per room. Talk to the QE2 in Westminster. 1
CyberNerd Posted July 18, 2015 Posted July 18, 2015 High density- how about 7 conference rooms with up to 2000 delegates per room. Talk to the QE2 in Westminster. That clears that one up then!
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