Meraki Wifi - Move to new system?

[techie17]

Hi

 

We use Meraki at all our schools with nearly 100 access points and have used Meraki since 2010 however so far it’s taken nearly 5 weeks (and still waiting) for Meraki to come back to resellers with special pricing. The quote so far is astronomical per access point and Meraki seem very slow and possibly unwilling to budge on the original price, so as much as I like Meraki, I think I have no option but to move to a new wifi system.

 

Any recommendations would be welcome, especially wifi systems with a cloud controller.

 

I know prices in general for IT stuff has gone up but £800 for and access point and licence is utterly ridiculous and even though I’ve chosen Meraki for the last 12 years, Meraki don’t seem to give a monkeys!

[slugshead]

I had a quote from @Net-Ctrl recently which was half the price of Meraki, that was a two controller setup too.

[techie17]

I had a quote from @Net-Ctrl recently which was half the price of Meraki, that was a two controller setup too.

 

Which wifi system was it? As the school is serverless I kind of need a system without a controller.

Edited April 14, 2022 by techie17

[Alawil]

We went with Cambium, rock solid now for several years, essentially never touch it.

[StormTrooper59]

We've been struggling to get a quote for a new HP/Aruba WiFi system for the past 3 months. We want Aruba as our other school in the trust had one installed and we want to standardise. Not sure if there is a general issue getting pricing for WiFi!

[techie17]

We've been struggling to get a quote for a new HP/Aruba WiFi system for the past 3 months. We want Aruba as our other school in the trust had one installed and we want to standardise. Not sure if there is a general issue getting pricing for WiFi!

 

Yeah I don’t know what’s going on to be fair. 5 weeks now and multiple suppliers can’t seem to get special pricing. I’m conscious I need wifi for the school for august and the lead times for Meraki APs is apparently 16 weeks! I wish Meraki would just be honest and say if there is an issue or they won’t do special pricing rather than leave us hanging.

[slugshead]

Which wifi system was it? As the school is serverless I kind of need a system without a controller.

 

Smartzone for us, if you're serverless, you could use virtual smart zone and host it in azure/aws? But ruckus unleashed is the controller-less

[Alawil]

Forgot to mention, Cambium is entirely cloud based management and it’s free.

[Aprice]

Aruba would be my go to, budget permitting. As already said supply can be an issue.

Alex

[techie17]

Aruba would be my go to, budget permitting. As already said supply can be an issue.

Alex

 

Is the Aruba system controller less/cloud controller or does it have and on-site controller?

[Norphy]

There are three distinct types of Aruba wireless network ranges at the moment:

 

InstantOn: Designed for SME, up to 25 APs on a site, can manage up to eight sites and wholly cloud managed.

 

Instant: up to to 250 devices (I think) on a network, controllerless but centrally managed (One of the APs elects itself the master and all configuration is done from that one), managed on-site but can connect to a cloud system called Aruba Central for some management features. Can also be managed by a similar on-prem management system called AirWave, both are optional.

 

Campus: Managed by one or more controllers, can manage tens of thousands of APs from one management interface. Very powerful, but very expensive. Can also be connected to Aruba Central or AirWave if you wish.

 

These days, Instant and Campus APs are the same; Instants can be converted to Campus. Going the other way is possible but not supported. InstantOn APs are their own thing.

 

All of the systems are very good and have their advantages and disadvantages.

 

/edit Just noticed your comments about serverless infrastructure. Regarding Aruba controllers, they’re more typically hardware appliances than VMs, although you can get them as either. Once you start managing big networks though, appliances would work better. Their appliances look like 1U switches.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Norphy

[techie17]

There are three distinct types of Aruba wireless network ranges at the moment:

 

InstantOn: Designed for SME, up to 25 APs on a site, can manage up to eight sites and wholly cloud managed.

 

Instant: up to to 250 devices (I think) on a network, controllerless but centrally managed (One of the APs elects itself the master and all configuration is done from that one), managed on-site but can connect to a cloud system called Aruba Central for some management features. Can also be managed by a similar on-prem management system called AirWave, both are optional.

 

Campus: Managed by one or more controllers, can manage tens of thousands of APs from one management interface. Very powerful, but very expensive. Can also be connected to Aruba Central or AirWave if you wish.

 

These days, Instant and Campus APs are the same; Instants can be converted to Campus. Going the other way is possible but not supported. InstantOn APs are their own thing.

 

All of the systems are very good and have their advantages and disadvantages.

 

/edit Just noticed your comments about serverless infrastructure. Regarding Aruba controllers, they’re more typically hardware appliances than VMs, although you can get them as either. Once you start managing big networks though, appliances would work better. Their appliances look like 1U switches.

 

Thanks. Based on this, as we have 10 sites, InstantOn won’t be adequate but Instant will be fine. Just to confirm, there is no controller so is there as single pane of glass to look at all access points across multiple sites, a bit like Meraki?

[Norphy]

Correct. One of the APs elects itself the master. All of the APs have management IP addresses and the AP that's the master has an additional virtual IP from which management is done. If the master falls over, another AP on the network elects itself the master and takes over the virtual IP to do management.

 

All of the APs are controlled from the master, so there's a single pane of glass to do management.

 

/edit It turns out I was mistaken about the amount of sites that you can manage from InstantOn, it's pretty much unlimited but you're still restricted to 25 APs per site, so depending on the size of your schools, InstantOn MAY be good enough. I'd still go with Instant though, it's more enterprisey.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Norphy

[Net-Ctrl]

@techie17 - please send me a PM if you would like to take a look at your options.

 

Stock continues to be a challenge across many suppliers. We're working closely with UK distribution to secure stock for summer projects so we will try to assist should you need support.

 

We primarily work with Ruckus as our WiFi vendor of choice. That continues to be where we do most of our work and is our preferred manufacturer and where our skill set is most suited. We work with Aruba mainly on networking as well as Ruckus, so we can get Aruba WiFi pricing. We do also have partnership with Cambium which we tend to use for smaller schools.

[HarkNowHear]

I know prices in general for IT stuff has gone up but £800 for and access point and licence is utterly ridiculous and even though I’ve chosen Meraki for the last 12 years, Meraki don’t seem to give a monkeys!

 

Blimey. What APs are you speccing? We recently purchased a load of MR44s at about a quarter of that price along with 10 years licensing for the price of five etc.