Cisco 8540 Wireless Controller vs. Cisco Embedded Wireless Controller vs. Juniper Mist Wi-Fi Assurance

I recommend using Cisco 8540 Wireless Controller as an economical solution for assurance of best wireless connectivity across departments and cloud resources. It can resolve most of the networking and cloud connectivity-related issues. It can also eliminate the issues related to bandwidth. It can provide uninterrupted connectivity to cloud resources and databases at high speed with security.

Incentivized

Overall I could see myself recommending these to others if they have the right set of circumstances at their place of business. Those would be like ours, if they had a location that couldnt be served by a WLC. Once setup they are easy to manage and self healing as in they wont go down when one is offline.

Incentivized

• The GUI on the Cisco 8540 WLC is much better designed than other Cisco products. Its easy to navigate between the different settings to find what is needed.
• The AP groups allows touching multiple APs at one time.
• It also allows us to create standard SSIDs that can be used at all sites that connect back to it, this saves a lot of time instead of hitting each site with a local controller.

Incentivized

• Automatic controller failover in the event of an outage.
• Lots of great deep security features that Cisco is known for.
• Well priced for an all in one device.

Incentivized

• Code quality is a bit hit and miss. This will be great for a while, then things will be bad for a while, then we'll do it again. The UI of the controller works, but could do with a refresh, and I would like to see some improvement on layout and organization.
• The constant code/firmware upgrades and the QA of new code could be better.
• Maybe the compatibility with old Cisco Access Points could be improved, but it's normal in all kinds of deployments.

Incentivized

• Occasionally require a reboot to get an AP back online
• Sometimes they will fight to be the controller
• They dont seem to handle as many clients as AP's connected to a WLC

Incentivized

Very feature rich, easy enough for beginners to understand layout and initial setup. Need a good training (online, Cisco Leaning Network, etc.) to fully understand all features and product capabilities. Strict power requirements for APs are only major drawback for our specific implementation.

Incentivized

Giving this rating as i have recommended and configured EWC for many customer where they don't needed much AP and on-prem controller was also not needed. most of features available on 9800 WLC is also available on EWC

Incentivized

It is a better product. The evolution is positive.

Incentivized

Cisco products offer an unrivaled experience that outperforms the majority of other alternatives. This is a long-term investment that will provide a great return on investment. The Cisco 8540 Wireless Controller, on the other hand, is more powerful and has more features for managing each device and the wireless network.

Incentivized

Cisco EWC is better to all its competitor as it provide same robust solution which is available to its hardware based controller, Customer experiences are similar to what other 9800 hardware based devices provides.

Incentivized

• Network engineers find it easier to [manage] high-stress levels since they're more reliable and robust.
• Their initial cost is very high compared to other router providers, such as Juniper.
• Their hardware dependability can be a big drawback if you run on a budget.

Incentivized

• Minimal IT resources required
• No cost of physical appliance
• Benefit of enterprise features with a cost-effective approach

Incentivized