Likelihood to Recommend In a corporate environment that requires strong security and the ability to block / allow a large variety of users, the Cisco Wireless platform excels. The system is extremely robust and can provide literally a blanket of coverage, with very good performance. They also offer external/out doors access points which provide excellent performance. Because the system is well built and designed, you often go through the lifetime of the product (you really need to apply updates) with very little issues. However, when you reach the end of the support life on the box, it is not cheap at all to upgrade/replace. You really need to keep an eye on the current life cycle and plan accordingly for a replacement date and fund.
Read full review The Extreme access point solution has been used in the cooperative scenario with VLANs for employees in access through 802.1x authentication and also for guests through the captive portal that allows access of people for a limited time and prior registration. The equipment has great performance and connection speed and supports a high density of users connected at the same time without lag and crashes. The management of this equipment is being carried out through software with cloud management and is accessed by our infrastructure team to configure and monitor alerts.
Read full review Pros It's Cisco and like all our other Cisco products, chiefly switches, once you get it set up to your liking, it just runs itself after that. The reliability factor has been huge for us. Ease in deploying new APs has been nice. We have a DNS record (and DHCP Option 43 as a fallback) that helps new AP find the WLC. The WLC takes it from there. Good monitoring of connections, kicking people off, [and] blocking certain MACs are all useful features. Read full review Extremely easy to provision new devices, once the profiles are set up, due to centralized management Very quick provisioning of new devices, due to centralized management and predefined profiles Read full review Cons Configuring wireless settings is very confusing because various settings are scattered all over the interface in different tabs Lots of settings use Cisco's technical verbiage rather than common phrasing, so it's confusing what a lot of settings will do and requires researching the meaning before modifying the setting The interface could be easier to use to do simple tasks such as reboot an access point Read full review In my experience, licensing has become a nightmare. Licensing must be tied to a device, they also won't let you activate used units from other companies if they are donated or purchased third-party. Customer service is outsourced overseas. In my experience, technicians are incentivized to close tickets quickly - whether the issue has been fixed or not - which can be frustrating to work with. Read full review Likelihood to Renew Although it is a very good product, support is easy and can manage by Level 1 support persons and downtime is too much less but still there is a cost factor matters which is consider by each organization. Furthermore, organizations also compare with other competitors so it is hard to pursue and defend the high prices.
Read full review Usability As I said before, the only thing we miss in our old model is the fact that the management interface never received an improvement in design. It has the same look and feels since it was launched. It's not that it's hard to use. It's just the case of could be modernized.
Read full review It has worked for us as advertised with little technical issues. The system has been stable with no major downtime.
Read full review Reliability and Availability Downtime fear is the first fear which IT persons look and want to eliminate as much as they can but eventually you have to face it as nothing is perfect. Cisco Wireless Lan controller are feasible to use and easy to manage and other than this their issue reported are pretty low so you can get the best up time. now it also depends on scenario as well as environment.
Read full review Performance Cisco Wireless Lan controller are feasible to use and easy to manage and other than this their issue reported are pretty low so you get the better uptime. if your get the uptime then it means its a stable product in your environment. Product performance also depends on the product management and Cisco Wireless Lan controller management is easy so you can get the great output.
Read full review Support Rating As usual, the support from Cisco's TAC (Technical Assistance Center) is lacking. Granted, they always get the job done , but the amount of lead time on a non-emergency is enough to make you just handle it yourself. The good news is that if you ask for Cisco's assistance and forget about it, they'll jump on by the time you've forgotten where you were in troubleshooting it and have it fixed for you.
Read full review Support was always responsive and willing to help, but at times did not know when to call it and send a replacement to stop the bleeding. I respect that fact that they wanted to get the solution working, and the wanting to learn more and understand, but at times you cant do that at the expense of the customer.
Read full review Implementation Rating That was a great experience of having a new project and working on it. Although we got some hurdles and challenges but we overcome all the things and try to work efficiently for this. in this time Cisco support team also helps a lot an give pro tips which help us.
Read full review Alternatives Considered The Aironet access points are used for employee WiFi access, and they integrate well with Meraki. They would offer a separate guest network, too, but the decision was made to physically separate the guest network, so even if a bad actor would gain access to the ethernet port of the AP, they'd still not see any company traffic.
Read full review The Aerohive wireless devices are comparable to Cisco's wireless solution, in regard to performance, features, and management. But the cost of utilizing Cisco Wireless Access Points versus using the Aerohive access points is staggering. Since our wireless access points do not maintain a constant heavy load, we chose a more cost effective solution and have not had many issues with them.
Read full review Scalability Cisco is a brand name and people trust on it. if any one thing about the networking then Cisco is among those brand which is count as trusted brand and people rely on it. Also it support is good so people can use it. Cisco Wireless Lan controller are easy to use and manage so it requires less effort.
Read full review Return on Investment Positive impact 1. Our employees are able to move around anywhere in our 12-story building and have access to our corporate network. Employees are not tied down to an office and can easily move around to meetings and stay connected. Because the equipment is so reliable, we do not have any unscheduled outages. Employees come in the building and connect without issues and have a sense that the wireless network "Just Simply Works." When performing network maintenance, I usually have to block out several ours for our maintenance window. Upgrades sometimes do not go as smoothly as planned. This can be frustrating for the engineer. Read full review Less downtime to our business units that use Aerohive Radios are very compatible with most wireless devices out today I spend less time managing Aerohive than any other wireless product Read full review ScreenShots