Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller vs. FortiAP

At this point the Cisco 5520 Wireless Controllers are end of life as a Cisco product, so I would not recommend them to anyone looking to purchase a wireless controller for an enterprise. However, many people are still using these, and they do work reliably, even if they are a bit long in the tooth now.

Incentivized

Any rollout is well suited for a FortiAP - from small office networks, to large warehouse deployments. Adding additional APs to your network is simple and easy. Monitoring is simple with Forticloud monitoring. Configuring the devices can be as complex or as simple as you need. Adding additional Fortinet devices (I have switches and firewalls) makes the network even more secure and easy to manage - all devices working in tandem make monitoring much easier

Incentivized

• It has the ability to manage all Cisco access points that we have, regardless of the model. The limit is 1500 pieces of equipment.
• The WLC enables roaming functionality in the localities, this helps with collections, wireless IP phones, and access with notebooks.
• The WLC manages the quality of the "air" and "signal" of the 2.4ghz frequency, avoiding noise and interference.
• The WLC has an interesting feature of visibility of the traffic of the internal network.

Incentivized

• Provide secure wifi
• deploys easily
• facilitates users connectivity when moving between offices

Incentivized

• We have had some issues with access points losing their configurations and going offline. This is not a common issue and we are not entirely certain if it is a fault of the controller or the individual APs. That said, the controller does not appear to retain the knowledge of the offline AP which can be a management headache.

Incentivized

• Better to work with a Fortinet partner, their support is inadequate.
• Maybe a lack of security features when using it without Fortigate

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

This is an excellent product for an SMB - cost isn't outrageous and deploy is simple. I can monitor my network without breaking the bank.

Incentivized

Overall the usability is ok. The centralized management reduces complexibility and offers bulk features like adding access points to specific groups which automatically applies linked configurations.

On the other hand the GUI is very outdated and some features are not displayed correctly on new browsers. Also automation possibilities are very limited compared to the new 9800 series controller.

Incentivized

I love FortiAP and how easy they are to use. It's very quick to train people to use them at a basic to intermediate level.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Fortinet offers excellent support. They will work with you until the solution is doing what it is designed to do, within its capabilities. They also do an excellent to follow-up with the end-user prior to closing the ticket.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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 centrally the AAA sessions from all the WLCs keeping a central point of management for wireless infrastructure.

Incentivized

as a stand-alone product, the Fortinet wireless LAN solution isn't the most powerful, nor compelling out there. Others, like Cisco Meraki, offer great products, with added wifi features at a similar price point, but where Forti shines, is when integrated into a network with firewall enablement such as FortiGate. Overall, it stacks up well with others and is a solution that needs to be evaluated in a purchasing project.

Incentivized

• [It provides] centralized management.
• 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.

Incentivized

• Less management cost
• Less expensive to buy

Incentivized