ExtremeCloud IQ vs. Perforce Puppet

ExtremeCloud IQ is definitely best suited for a mid/large-scale business. The tools provided for what you pay for would be mostly unnecessary for a small business - the pricing also would not condone the purchase for a small business. That said, we are more of a mid-sized district, and being able to manage this system with 120 APs deployed across 10 locations has been great. I'm the only person that purchases, configures, deploys and manages everything with ExtremeCloud IQ - and it doesn't take too much time to be able to do so. I'm certainly a fan of the product!

Incentivized

Puppet is good enough to get the job done, you can use it to automate deployments and maintain files and configurations, if this is all you're looking for it's great. If you're looking for more control over your systems as a whole without having to write your own scripts or install multiple configuration management systems then Puppet is not what you're looking for.

Incentivized

• GTAC support is excellent; they understand the issue and do not hesitate to help in detail.
• The layout is very intuitive and easy to use, especially the templating of switch port types. It makes it simple to use context-based names so the purpose of the port can be understood.
• The auto channel selection now works very well, including the SDR dual 5GHz mode.

Incentivized

• Provides a clear map of how a system is configured
• Eases the creation of a system in a specific cluster as it is scripted in code
• Simplifies configuration changes to a cluster or to every system such as rolling out vhost configurations, updating ldap roles, NFS mounts, etc
• The syntax is very easy to read and carries a lot of fluidity once the language is learned.

Incentivized

• XIQ Refreshes could be enhanced for closer to on-prem experience.
• Client Data polling interval needs to be quicker, 10 minutes.
• Full feature parity of switch management in XIQ.

Incentivized

• The setup of Puppet is a nightmare compared to ansible. Anyone watching a youtube video can easily set up ansible with minimal IT knowledge. All one needs is the source IP addresses and we are good to go. Setting up Puppet is a more hands-on task and pushing the puppet agents to all the boxes is another issue. If the installation and setup were simplified like ansible that would attract a lot of people to this platform
• The syntax of the code for Puppet is not as easy as ansible. Ansible simply follows a YAML format and it's like typing in normal English. Even complicated tasks can be written by just understanding YAML syntax. Perhaps Puppet needs to revisit the lanugage used and try to come up with a much simpler lanugage for writing code. This will make day-to-day usage easier.

Incentivized

Being a web platform, it is very easily accessible. The user interface is very simple, intuitive, and visually well-designed. The learning to use it was very quick and can be done even without specific user manuals. Access to the analytics and troubleshooting tools is also extremely intuitive and very well-crafted.

Incentivized

Puppet has top class support. You can simply mail them with their query and they will respond to your query in a timely manner. We do have enterprise license for puppet. Also there is a vibrant community for puppet out there. So even if you dont purchase a premium support option you can simply google your queries and get answers

Incentivized

I previously used Aruba APs in the early 2010s - but have no other experience since then

Incentivized

HPSA is a licensed product and incurs significant upfront investment costs due to COTS licensing. Puppet Data Center Automation has a significantly lower upfront investment and product documentation is more readily available. Chef is a very similar offering, however, at the time our decision was considered, the adoption of Chef vs. Puppet was significantly less in the community.

Incentivized

• It has been referred to as "invisible IT" because the number of support tickets to the IT desk has been reduced to practically none.
• An IT team no longer desires ongoing WiFi support agreements, as once it is set up well, they do not need to contact us for higher-tier support.

Incentivized

• Cut deployment times down to around 1 hour from 4-5 hours.
• Allows us to get a fully running system up from scratch in around 30 minutes.
• Allows for a more clear view of what is required to get a host running.

Incentivized