Meru or Aruba for new Wi-Fi

[AlanD]

Aerohive - controllerless - fascinating. I thought I was the only one in the country to do this...although...when I say controllerless - I use One access point in a each building running version 3.5 of the firmware to "manage" the others. (I think you can use later versions of the firmware and enable Web interface via command line). I do use command line stuff for odds and ends too. Paid £10 per access point from an Hotel chain getting rid of them. Does radius authentication via smoothwall. Aerohive firmware is essentially autonomous in that it understands neighbouring accesspoints and arbitrates and negotiates between themselves so apart from configuration (which can be done via command line) they don't actually require any central management controller. They work really well - but I guess using them this way would not be to everyone's taste.

[emdrum]

+1 for Aruba also. We have Aruba at one school and Meru at another. Aruba has the better performance.

 

+1 for Meru. One of our schools is getting rid of Aruba after a number of issues. We have a Meru solution with 1000+ users and it performs well.

 

Performance is dependent on so many variables, wall thickness and material, other networks, internal infrastructure, etc etc...

[LemonEntry]

Whichever is the most cost effective over the lifetime of the product. Aruba AP 305, Ruckus R700, UniFi AC HD, Meraki MR32 are all Wave2 3x3:3 MIMO 802.11ac enabled access points. All of their respective controllers offer similar monitoring and reporting. All support the same configuration options (WPA-Enterprise, RADIUS / LDAPS, VLAN tagging, guest networks and captive portal login etc). When all other options are equal, cost is the only deciding factor.

 

We have gone with Aruba purely because it was the cheapest with acceptable support. I'd have preferred the UniFi solution as I'd be building the lot and would get a *lot* of experience and knowledge out of it, but it wasn't the right solution for the school.

[Wave9_Lee]

If considering all options, I'd be pleased to offer a Meraki option - in terms of value over the term, some recent changes mean that it now represents a compelling option - PM me for details and a quote

 

cheers

 

Lee

[Wave9_Lee]

If considering all options, I'd be pleased to offer a Meraki option - in terms of value over the term, some recent changes mean that it now represents a compelling option - PM me for details and a quote

 

cheers

 

Lee

[Mr_Jiminy]

If considering all options, I'd be pleased to offer a Meraki option - in terms of value over the term, some recent changes mean that it now represents a compelling option - PM me for details and a quote

 

cheers

 

Lee

 

Out of interest what type of changes Lee?

[Mr_Jiminy]

If considering all options, I'd be pleased to offer a Meraki option - in terms of value over the term, some recent changes mean that it now represents a compelling option - PM me for details and a quote

 

cheers

 

Lee

 

Out of interest what type of changes Lee?

[Wave9_Lee]

Out of interest what type of changes Lee?

PM'd @Mr_Jiminy