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Did you know that all cloud Wi-Fi’s aren’t created equal?
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The race is on to put cloud in Wi-Fi
Currently, the cloud managed Wi-Fi space is expanding rapidly. Naturally, Wi-Fi vendors, traditional and emerging, want to be in the cloud Wi-Fi game. Nobody wants to be without a “cloud” solution! Controller-less Wi-Fi vendors have explicitly built cloud managed Wi-Fi from the ground up, while controller Wi-Fi incumbents have repositioned traditional offerings in the direction of cloud Wi-Fi.
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The word “cloud” in the name doesn’t tell the whole story, one has to dig deeper. Here’s why.
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When vendors associate the word cloud with their Wi-Fi solutions, they can be referring to completely different things. This is quite apparent in light of some recent developments.
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Controllers over WAN REBRANDED as Cloud
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Hemant Chaskar Cloud computing, WiFi Access, Wireless security, WLAN networks AirTight Wi-Fi, Aruba Activate, cloud managed, cloud Wi-Fi, controller-less
As Wi-Fi deployments extend into large distributed environments, management of these Wi-Fi networks poses unique challenges. It could be the clinic-wide deployment for the medical facility running into 100’s of sites, branch-wide deployment for the bank running into 1000’s of sites, or store-wide deployment for the fast food restaurant running into 10,000’s sites. The network and security management needs for such deployments are very different from the traditional campus Wi-Fi. Accordingly, the network management console has to deliver on a number of fronts. Read more…
Hemant Chaskar Cloud computing, WiFi Access, Wireless security, WLAN networks ap tagging, ap tags, cloud Wi-Fi, console, GUI, Network management, WIPS
With rising popularity of the cloud Wi-Fi in the distributed Wi-Fi deployments, there is also an attempt to pass off the legacy controller technology as the cloud Wi-Fi by deploying conventional controllers over the WAN. Realizing that it is infeasible to deploy many smaller controllers in the distributed Wi-Fi deployments such as retail, remote offices, etc., the controller over WAN architecture deploys bigger controllers at the HQ and calls it a cloud Wi-Fi. However, the controller over WAN Wi-Fi does not measure up to the true cloud Wi-Fi for many reasons as outlined below. We will use example of Cisco’s controller over WAN architecture to illustrate these differences. Earlier, Cisco called it H-REAP and ELM, now it calls it FlexConnect, but does changing terminology get controllers to measure up to the true cloud? Let us find out. Read more…
Hemant Chaskar 802.11n, Cloud computing, WiFi Access Cisco, cloud Wi-Fi, FlexConnect, Wi-Fi controller
Currently, market is inundated with announcements from vendors on 3-stream MIMO APs. Sure enough AirTight has also launched one being at the forefront of Wi-Fi technology. But what sticks out of some of those announcements is lopsided mention of high speed wireless connectivity, even to the extent of misleading claim of 900 Mbps for the dual radio 3-stream APs albeit with a sneaky word “upto” before the number. While connectivity speed is important consideration (actually now a commodity available out of 3-stream Wi-Fi chipsets), that consideration alone does not help to come up with a good game plan for deploying 3-stream Wi-Fi. A more holistic thinking taking into account real world performance, security, and next generation Wi-Fi architecture is required when selecting 3-stream MIMO APs. Read more…
Hemant Chaskar Cloud computing, WiFi Access, Wireless security 3x3:3, cloud Wi-Fi, controller-less, MIMO
