Aruba Networks offers the Instant On AP series of wireless access points, with models designed for indoor and outdoor access points.
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Cisco Meraki Wireless Access Point
Score 9.6 out of 10
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Cisco offers the Meraki (MR) line of wireless access points supporting basic LAN with inbuilt antivirus (NAC), cloud management with network-wide access control, and location analytics, as well as support for indoor and outdoor spaces of various sizes across different product models.
The Cisco Meraki MR solution, as it does not need a WLC controller, has an advantage over other brands and is inclusive over the Cisco Aironet solution, since it allows them to be implemented, that is, to perform the configuration from anywhere in the world before the equipment …
Aruba Instant On AP Series Access Points are well suited for a small to mid-size setup (i.e., from 20 users to 500 devices that need to connect to WiFi). Aruba provides access points for both indoors and outdoors (e.g., commercial spaces and offices, and manufacturing units as well). Aruba Instant On AP Series Access Points can also support controller-based architecture, and I would recommend going for that when the AP devices are more than 30.
Cisco controller EoL/EoSupport and looking for a WLAN refresh. Some particular scenarios have 10s of 1000s of APs deployed over 500 sites. Some existing modern APs can be migrated over to the cloud and smaller sites will receive hardware forklifts to refresh with native cloud experience. Meraki cloud is not appropriate for OT environments with critical control systems that require isolation from Enterprise and greater internet.
Cisco Meraki Wireless does a GREAT job marketing their product and building your trust. They offer free and very informative webinars that offer free gear for your home network. They rely on word of mouth marketing and it simply works. They offer great try and buy programs as well. They stand behind their product and trust the technology.
Cisco Meraki Wireless administrators dashboard is top notch. Their wireless UI interface is integrated with all other Cisco Meraki Wireless products. This makes it easy to use. It has single-use credentials and is seamless.
Cisco Meraki Wireless support is also top notch. While they are backed by Cisco, Meraki always feels like you are working with a small business that takes your account seriously. They are specialized and a rare breed in the industry. Getting support from them is a pleasure!
Well, for me, part of it comes down to the value proposition of Meraki is that it's easy to use, but as someone who's worked in IT a lot, sometimes I want to be able to dig under the hood to find those bells and whistles of things that I might want to configure on my own. And I understand that sometimes that can create challenges. So maybe as someone who's a little bit more seasoned in the IT space, my thought process is to hide that, but still let me get into it if I have to because there are occasions when there's a little setting that I need to mess with.
The Cisco Meraki WiFi Access Point dashboard and support license is mandatory so to continue usage we will need to renew the license. We may opt to purchase a more current WiFi generation device if something newer is available at that time. Currently, happy with the use of the dashboard as it is very feature rich.
The Meraki dashboard is an excellent tool to administer and manage the Meraki WiFi Access Point. Navigating the dashboard is intuitive and there are lots of use cases on the Meraki site. The dashboard is the key to having a great administrative experience with the product, easy to use, fast to find information.
Cisco Meraki support has been very helpful when it comes to troubleshooting and supporting their products. There is an online knowledge base with tons of documentation and there is also 24x7 phone support available as part of the dashboard license. Every time I've called support, the engineer I spoke with has been very informative and dedicated to resolving my problems.
There were documents that detailed how the WiFi Access Point was to be installed and mounted. The only issue was to cable the device, we use a third party for this type of work and typically has to be performed after normal business hours. Other than that, the installation was easy.
I've found that Meraki Wireless Access Points are able to stack up against all of the other access point manufacturers I've used. I think they are more usable and easy to understand when compared to others like Fortinet, Aruba, or traditional Cisco wireless. I do think the features offered are enough for almost all companies looking for a good wifi plan. They have less detailed settings than Aruba and Cisco so if you have complicated deployments they might be missing some options you are after. Keeping it simple is how Meraki wins. They also have a much easier way to do a zero-touch deployment. You can add the access points in the dashboard and get them running very quickly. They can be managed from anywhere without a VPN or local connection which gives them an edge over their competition.
I give this rating because the scalability is easily achieved with the licensing models which Cisco Meraki Wireless Access Point has to offer, as well as a product line that is robust enough to meet needs large and small. The scalability is furthered by the constant evolution of upgrades and improvements which Cisco Meraki Wireless Access Point advertises.
Positive impact #1: Deployment of AP's are as easy as entering a serial number to your existing configuration and mounting the AP. The configuration automatically downloads to the AP as soon as it is plugged into the network. Huge time saver.
Positive impact #2: Creating a seamless Wi-Fi infrastructure enables our mobile workstations to move around the manufacturing floor without loosing connectivity to our corporate network. Enables us to provide services to our manufacturing operations instantly. End users can access engineering data from anywhere on the operations floor without being tied down geographically.
Positive impact #3: Managing all of my AP's from one console is a significant time savings. We can make global changes as well as update our firmware with a few clicks of the mouse. Adding new SSID's and making configuration changes deploy instantly to all affected AP's quickly.
The only negative (from my perspective) is the annual cost and the fact that if your subscription runs out so does your access. However, Cisco, won't just turn you off immediately...they give you a grace period :). Additionally, when you add an AP, the time of your subscription is amortized across the quantity of AP's. So, if you have 10 AP's and are on a 3 year contract and then add an AP, the contract time left will be adjusted accordingly. Not a big deal to us, but something to think about before making a decision.
