Cisco Access Points with CleanAir Tech Coming

[buddhav1]

razor512, i doubt you have any actual knowledge of how Enterprise networking works. Cisco's primary demographic is LARGE business. That's where they make their money. Cadillac doesn't aim to sell luxury sedans to the lower class. Neither do Ferrari or Porsche. Cisco is top of the line, workhorse enterprise equipment. They've been on top for as long as I can remember, and I'm very aware that their equipment is expensive, I remember paying almost 1200 bucks for my 1841 series router, and that was used. The equipment is expensive because it's the best. End of story.

 

[Guest]

"The technology even reduces wireless troubleshooting time from hours to minutes, saving businesses valuable time and money."

Is this something they said? If so, it should be in quotes. If not, this advertisement needs some explanation.

 

[DaddyW123]

It's been said already, but these are for big business. I work for a very large nation wide company with a couple hundred locations across the US and Canada. We are putting in these units (most sites have 1 for the office and several for production plants) because of security and managability. so you are looking at between 300 and 500 units within our organization all at around $800/unit. Why? First, they can be configured so that they are tied to Active Directory. You don't have an AD account? You don't get wireless! And they can be centrally managed by one server/application. Your signal's not strong enough? I can change the power settings, signal strengths, channels or even send reboot commands to ANY AP in the country from 1 application!

And the 1242 model that somone mentioned above are rugedized for our plant environment. 2 months after being installed and there is 2 inches of dust layering everything. I'd like to see a household wireless AP survive that!

All of you people saying "I wouldn't buy this for myself though"... no I should hope not, that's not what they are meant for.

 

[michaelahess]

[citation][nom]czar1020[/nom]As far as the cost goesCisco AIR-AP1242G-A-K9 CISCO AIR-AP1131AG-A-K9 They are have different usage but they both cost ~500 and they are several years old. Very high quality.[/citation]

I use many 1130AG's, very nice and super stable.

 

[michaelahess]

[citation][nom]buddhav1[/nom]razor512, i doubt you have any actual knowledge of how Enterprise networking works. Cisco's primary demographic is LARGE business. That's where they make their money. Cadillac doesn't aim to sell luxury sedans to the lower class. Neither do Ferrari or Porsche. Cisco is top of the line, workhorse enterprise equipment. They've been on top for as long as I can remember, and I'm very aware that their equipment is expensive, I remember paying almost 1200 bucks for my 1841 series router, and that was used. The equipment is expensive because it's the best. End of story.[/citation]


Like they say "No one ever got fired for recommending Cisco."

 

[nekatreven]

[citation][nom]michaelahess[/nom]Like they say "No one ever got fired for recommending Cisco."[/citation]

They say that about IBM, not Cisco. If you type it into Google it auto completes with IBM on the end of it by the type you've finished the third word.

TBH though it probably isn't any less true about Cisco.

 

[michaelahess]

Oh I've heard it a lot about Cisco!

 

[nekatreven]

I recognize the argument for enterprise kit, especially with regard to wifi when you have really high client density...but just a heads up on some of these features you Cisco guys think the dd-wrt fellas don't have:

The wifi auth via AD is as simple as adding the radius server to a windows server and pushing a wpa supplicant to the AD client machines via gpo. Then just set the AP to radius! Easy.

The multi-ssid stuff is old news, including separate encryption and ap isolation options for each network. We've had that forever too.

Webmin has the ability to run ssh commands on any number of hosts from one interface at one time...AP, server, or otherwise. Shell scripts that do substitution in the configs and issue a reboot work the same on 1 AP as on 5 and aren't rocket science.

I've worked under both schools of thought and with both classes of hardware...so don't be so impressed with yourselves and your budgets that you can't appreciate some schmuck on a forum defending a well thought out wrt deployment. Sheesh.

 

[michaelahess]

[citation][nom]nekatreven[/nom]I recognize the argument for enterprise kit, especially with regard to wifi when you have really high client density...but just a heads up on some of these features you Cisco guys think the dd-wrt fellas don't have:The wifi auth via AD is as simple as adding the radius server to a windows server and pushing a wpa supplicant to the AD client machines via gpo. Then just set the AP to radius! Easy.The multi-ssid stuff is old news, including separate encryption and ap isolation options for each network. We've had that forever too.Webmin has the ability to run ssh commands on any number of hosts from one interface at one time...AP, server, or otherwise. Shell scripts that do substitution in the configs and issue a reboot work the same on 1 AP as on 5 and aren't rocket science.I've worked under both schools of thought and with both classes of hardware...so don't be so impressed with yourselves and your budgets that you can't appreciate some schmuck on a forum defending a well thought out wrt deployment. Sheesh.[/citation]


I've got to agree with you but having done both like you, the one thing I can say, hardware quality is still Cisco's best point. I've had more wrt54g's die than Cisco ap's, and I've had a LOT more Cisco's. Functionality wise they may be very similar, but reliability is still why Cisco is champ.

There may be some other consumer routers that run dd-wrt and are more reliable than the linksys ones, but it's still a crap shop. Cisco just works.

 

[Guest]

Cisco ditch investing in wireless tehcnology long time ago, that let to other companies to show up their stuff, like Aruba and Meru, and gain market share. Cisco now is worry and wants to cath up...

 

[Guest]

Ruckus Wireless solved the problem of Wi-Fi interference with its patented smart antenna array years ago - unfortunately, they just don't have the same mindshare or marketing muscle that Cisco has. Take a peek at this video, which explains why Cisco's "CleanAir" is too little, too late. http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=giE2Rg5jMGc

 

[razor512]

[citation][nom]nmhill[/nom]Ruckus Wireless solved the problem of Wi-Fi interference with its patented smart antenna array years ago - unfortunately, they just don't have the same mindshare or marketing muscle that Cisco has. Take a peek at this video, which explains why Cisco's "CleanAir" is too little, too late. http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=giE2Rg5jMGc[/citation]


now this is actually good technology. another benchmark needs to be done to show how much this improves performance,

the ruckus AP seems to beat the competition by leaps and bounds

I would like to see how it handles a situation where there clients all around it, will it still offer the extra range and performance?

http/www.tomshardware.com/reviews/beamforming-wifi-ruckus,2390-13.html