Cisco 8540 Wireless Controller vs. SonicWall SonicWave Series

[Cisco 8540 Wireless Controller's] software quality has been shed in recent years. The only problem I have with it is its inability to work with older Cisco Access Points. However, that's to be expected for any deployment. While the controller's UI works well, some areas could be improved. API integrations lack flexibility. [I feel] it's time for policy redesign. It can be a little difficult to determine coding quality.

Incentivized

Helps ensure a better user experience by designing a wireless network optimized for your environment. The wireless network's safety and satisfaction are improved for the company. Even more important is the need to protect the information that travels over it and that is where SonicWALL wireless network security, in a nutshell, provides a solution with true excellence.

• 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

• The problem we are addressing with SonicWall SonicWave Series is security over our network. We handle information and have to keep everything confidential. So we use SonicWall SonicWave Series to keep our network safe from intrusion and anybody who may want to try to get into our system to do harm

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

• Detailed setup instructions
• Auto Setup Feature for mesh
• Provide filters without a yearly subscription

Incentivized

Very well made product. Very stable. We have had no issues administering the 8540.

Incentivized

It is a better product. The evolution is positive.

Incentivized

We have [done] some work before with the Cisco 3504 product, but the more recent Cisco 8540 Wireless Controller provides a wider range of capabilities for managing the wireless network and each individual device [and] also being able to handle more users. Unfortunately, we didn't test and deploy equivalent products from other concurrent companies.

We evaluated Aruba and then evaluated SonicWall. SonicWall had fewer features, but it was cost-effective and suitable for our budget. Aruba, on other hand, was a dedicated WiFi solution and it was way costlier than SonicWall firewall and access point together, hence we selected SonicWall Sonicwave for our branch offices and Aruba for our head office where user count is more, and even management users are present in head office.

Incentivized

• The Cisco 8540 Wireless Controller allows you to reduce your hardware footprint of wireless controllers deployed in your environment. Instead of having a controller per site deployed, you can have a couple of 8540 controllers in your data center that can handle up 6000 Access Points.
• Some of the savings on hardware cost is offset by the cost of redundant WAN circuits. The access points will continue to function when connectivity to the Cisco 8540 Wireless Controller is unreachable, but it will not allow any new connections in that wireless environment.

Incentivized

• SonicWall has an intuitive user interface that allows you to manage all the sound waves in a piece from a single pane of glass.
• In addition, it is easy to register and onboard access points with SonicWall.
• As simple as scanning the QR code, the API is automatically added to the network infrastructure once you have registered your new access points and the SonicWALL Wi-Fi Planner tool.

Incentivized