The Cisco 5520 Series Wireless LAN Controller is a highly scalable, service-rich, resilient, and flexible platform that is ideal for medium-sized to large enterprise and campus deployments.
N/A
Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Cisco's Meraki MR Series is a wireless LAN solution.
Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller has better high availability features compared to the others. Also Cisco has a worldwide service center and is located in nearly all countries to offer fast and reliable support in case of any hardware issue. Also Cisco offers more features, for …
These Cisco 5520 Wireless Controllers were our choice at the time over Aruba's offerings. We went with them for ease of use and how they integrated nicely within our existing, mostly Cisco, network environment.
Cisco Identity Services Engine is well integrated on Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller because the WLC supports a lot of authentication methods and security protocols (such as PEAP, EAP-TLS, Captive Portal redirect). They perform very well with ISE. Cisco ISE is able to manage …
It is chosen mainly for the capacity of users, performance and stability of the equipment. It has the possibility of working in mobility group mode and has the option of redundant sources and high availability configuration.this makes it usable in medium and high density …
The Cisco 5520 Wireless controller was the one that we were able to deploy the easiest between our qty of access points and the location these devices are located in.
Cisco is the most stable company in switching parts including wireless, and it has the most powerful support team with a lot of online documents, community, and market share so when you get stuck, you can find support from anywhere. And usually, you won't need it as its product …
We used standalone Cisco 3850 switches prior to implementing Cisco 5520s. While 3850s are individually a cheaper solution, the limitations [are that it is] only able to manage the access point directly connected to that particular device was too much of a limitation. We also …
[The] best bet is the integration with ISE. Users use their active directory credentials to access the wireless and very simple guest portal to gain access to the Internet. We plan on integrating Cisco DNA Centre in the future that will give us more visibility and improved …
Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers, Cisco VoIP PBX, Cisco Unified Contact Center, Cisco UCS C-Series, Cisco TelePresence Collaboration Room Endpoints, Cisco Small Business 500 Series Wireless Access Points, Cisco Nexus and Cisco Ethernet Switches
Definitely, the ease of use is critical for me. Very easy to deploy, very easy to maintain. It actually works very fine. So compared with the other products, it’s way easier to maintain and support.
I like it. easy and a well known product. been a admin prior to Cisco acquiring it, however the changes of the GUI is a bit fast and at times i get lost where certain configurations are location.
I was working in a refresh and Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points was one of the best devices in the market, we are a global enterprise, and this was chosen was a standard solution for global, we was suffering with previous devices and obsolescence , we have a good uptime …
Nowadays the catalyst and meraki hardware became one. You can use C9100 series access points and use them in the WLC or in Meraki dashboard, giving a lot of flexibility and options for customers. You can also migrate from and to the WLC and the process itself is very easy to use.
Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points are very easy to install, configure, and manage. Centralized management offers excellent features, and especially if you have multiple locations where the access points are installed, they're very easy to manage, saving you a lot of time. …
Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points has been easier to configure and deploy even with more complex network configurations than we were able to do with other products. The cloud dashboard has been ahead of the competition even from the early days of Meraki. Having layer 7 …
I consider that its implementation is recommended for configurations where the amount of access points exceeds 50 devices and the performance exceeds 4 Gbps. In environments where the access point density is less than 10 units, we can use the option of Express Mobility.
The Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points is a good solution although not for everyone. Cost wise it is more expensive than competition. Technically speaking, if you are going for a full Cisco Meraki solution from firewall, switches, WAP, and management app, it requires a solid technical understanding of where each part and piece falls. If you have the money and the technical capabilities (in house or outsourced) then it is a solid platform that leans on Cisco's respectable history in the communications and infrastructure industry.
It's cloud based, so as long as we have an internet connection, we can access it. Whenever we push a change, it's one stop like a single pane of glass to manage all our equipment. And so that's what I liked about it.
[It] can improve on the possibility of using the physical controllers with the virtual one.
[It] can improve on the possibility of having site-to-site failover capabilities, [like in the case of] controllers at production go down and controllers at our DR site take over.
The possibility of an app on your phone for alerts and minor configuration of the controllers.
So the Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points dashboard, it's a little bit like comparing Apple and Android. So with Android you can do a lot more configuration, whereas with Meraki there are a lot of assumptions about a radio resource management. There are a lot of assumptions around, for instance, when it does a heat map, it's a heat map, which is a population density rather than a wireless coverage heat map. So that can cause confusion because normally when you look at heat map, you're looking at, that is a metric for how well it's performing rather than how many devices are using it. So I think that's always at the bone of contention around one of the things it can do.
This equipment from Cisco has been dependable and we are able to easily continue to add access points or make changes easily to the Wi-Fi password settings.
We have been operating this equipment for a number of years and it does not give us any issues.
Reliability and Performance: Reflect on whether they provide consistent, high-quality connectivity in your environment. Cost-effectiveness: Weigh the value they deliver against their cost and any alternatives. Support and Usability: Think about the ease of use of the Meraki dashboard and the quality of customer support. Scalability: Assess how well they align with your organization's growth plans
In the dailies activities it's simple to manage a wireless network and also to perform changes: the GUI is well known and intuitive for engineers that know how to operate on Cisco WLC. It has High Throughput and consolidated features such as CleanAir, Roaming supporting natively Cisco ISE authentication methods and DNA Center. It's recommended for Wi-Fi 5 wireless infrastructures.
To get basic functionality doesn't take long. Set up a new Meraki Dashboard activate the licenses and get internet connection for the APs and you are more or less done. The Dashboard will find your items and you're good to go.
Cisco support is always ready to support and engage in any problem or issue. Starting from the implementation support, troubleshooting any software issue or hardware. Their engineers are engaging whenever we ask for support, keep following up with us, and troubleshoot any problem till we find a solution and be satisfied [with] the service.
Meraki support is usually top notch. The are quick to respond and stick with an issue until it is resolved. One of the difficulties I've had with Meraki MRs is the limited ability the customer has in troubleshooting. Much of the more technical aspects of resolution can only be accessed by the Meraki support team, meaning dedicated IT teams are reliant on them when more complicated issues arise.
Just take your time when setting up the HA pairs as those can be tricky. Also take your time setting up AP groups and make sure they are on all the SSIDs you need to be on.
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.
Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller has better high availability features compared to the others. Also Cisco has a worldwide service center and is located in nearly all countries to offer fast and reliable support in case of any hardware issue. Also Cisco offers more features, for example AVC, CleanAir and TrustSec which the compotitiors don't. And we could use some of our als Cisco APs with the Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller and didn't need to buy that much new APs.
Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points are very easy to install, configure, and manage. Centralized management offers excellent features, and especially if you have multiple locations where the access points are installed, they're very easy to manage, saving you a lot of time. If a location wants to expand or reduce its Wi-Fi network, this is incredibly easy. Integration with other Cisco network components is smooth, connecting seamlessly. Updating and layer 7 analysis help create a stable network.
As far as I know, it's 10. I mean, because like I said, I manage stuff in the south. I have coworkers that manage it in the north. And so the scalability of it to be able to be go in and see the configurations of the ones in the north as well as they can see in the south. So across the board, it works really well for how widespread out it is.
Implementing the [Cisco] 5520 [Wireless] Controllers offered us a huge improvement in administrative time over our previous Cisco 3850 deployment. Being able to see all of our APs on a single controller as well as centrally manage them is a great benefit. This also removed the need to deploy specific equipment in different IDFs throughout our Industrial locations and instead only requiring switches with Power Over Ethernet (POE) capability.
Wireless performance has improved with the deployment of our 5520s, which allows our plant operators to do their jobs more efficiently while on the move.
Having three Cisco 5520 Wireless Controllers provides tertiary redundancy for our wireless networks. The solution is elegantly simple. Preventing downtime is, obviously, a profound part of our supply chain capabilities.
Uptime has improved significantly. The dashboard automatically keeps devices up to date by scheduling upgrades at remote times (say 2am on a Sunday)
Swapping to Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points has reduced the management overhead. No more long controller software hardware upgrades and obviously no more need for beefy central controllers.
