Meraki Bells and Whistles
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@Dashrender said in Datto AP60:
@scottalanmiller said in Datto AP60:
often related to VoIP quality and reliability, that are simpler.
See - now there you go - a reason you're replacing them.. becuase VOIP on them sucks. Thanks.
It doesn't suck, we just lack flexibility for detailed settings and/or it is so time intensive to do that it's better to replace than to work on. And considering how cheap replacing is, it's under one hour of work difference. That's what people often miss....
If we need to do a task on a Meraki that takes 45 minutes longer than on a Unifi, it's cheaper than the labour to replace the device regardless of the cost difference between Merkai and Unifi. The customer conversation is "We can do this in 2 hours on the Meraki and almost certainly it will work" or "We can do this in one hour on the Unifi and we do this constantly and it always works." When "it always works" is cheaper than "it'll almost certainly work" it's a huge win.
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@scottalanmiller said in Datto AP60:
@Dashrender said in Datto AP60:
@scottalanmiller said in Datto AP60:
often related to VoIP quality and reliability, that are simpler.
See - now there you go - a reason you're replacing them.. becuase VOIP on them sucks. Thanks.
It doesn't suck, we just lack flexibility for detailed settings and/or it is so time intensive to do that it's better to replace than to work on. And considering how cheap replacing is, it's under one hour of work difference. That's what people often miss....
If we need to do a task on a Meraki that takes 45 minutes longer than on a Unifi, it's cheaper than the labour to replace the device regardless of the cost difference between Merkai and Unifi. The customer conversation is "We can do this in 2 hours on the Meraki and almost certainly it will work" or "We can do this in one hour on the Unifi and we do this constantly and it always works." When "it always works" is cheaper than "it'll almost certainly work" it's a huge win.
/sigh... I'd say that your need to spend 2 hours on Meraki to make (hopefully) VOIP work = sucks when you KNOW you can get it to work on Unifi in 1 hour.
plus as you said - getting rid of the high maintenance costs of Meraki... but still, replacing a single Meraki firewall/Switch and say 3 APs still likely going to cost you 4 hours or more of install time, compared to the 2 hours for that single VOIP fix... you're not likely coming out ahead in that single case - but future looking, or am I missing something?
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@Dashrender said in Datto AP60:
plus as you said - getting rid of the high maintenance costs of Meraki... but still, replacing a single Meraki firewall/Switch and say 3 APs still likely going to cost you 4 hours or more of install time, compared to the 2 hours for that single VOIP fix... you're not likely coming out ahead in that single case - but future looking, or am I missing something?
You are moving the lines again.
First piece: We replace the Meraki firewall to make things work. Whether VPN, VoIP, or whatever. This is done for technical reasons that are easily financially justified.
Second piece: Far less important components that are nearly "dumb" (APs, switches) get evaluated as they are unnecessarily costly and break our ability to get a SPoG. Since they cost a fortune to maintain and essentially nothing to replace, replacing them to get a single pane of glass, plus newer gear that is generally higher performance, is a huge slam dunk.
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Locking to fork.
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I am wondering if any of you discussing Meraki, Ubiquiti and Datto have used their interface and actually deployed it? It is not just cut and dry. The significant cost savings is obviously there but it is not just about that. I hear there is not Security per AP but there is even on Sophos APs and others is just a matter of cost. However this thread should be forked to its own discussion.
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@dbeato said in Meraki Bells and Whistles:
I am wondering if any of you discussing Meraki, Ubiquiti and Datto have used their interface and actually deployed it? It is not just cut and dry. The significant cost savings is obviously there but it is not just about that. I hear there is not Security per AP but there is even on Sophos APs and others is just a matter of cost. However this thread should be forked to its own discussion.
It has been, unless you mean yet another fork?
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@dbeato said in Meraki Bells and Whistles:
I am wondering if any of you discussing Meraki, Ubiquiti and Datto
Meraki and Unifi and UBNT all of the time.
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@scottalanmiller said in Meraki Bells and Whistles:
@dbeato said in Meraki Bells and Whistles:
I am wondering if any of you discussing Meraki, Ubiquiti and Datto
Meraki and Unifi and UBNT all of the time.
Well, apparently we're talking about SPoG for Meraki, but not unifi - because no one around here ever talks about using USGs, only ERs.
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@Dashrender said in Meraki Bells and Whistles:
@scottalanmiller said in Meraki Bells and Whistles:
@dbeato said in Meraki Bells and Whistles:
I am wondering if any of you discussing Meraki, Ubiquiti and Datto
Meraki and Unifi and UBNT all of the time.
Well, apparently we're talking about SPoG for Meraki, but not unifi - because no one around here ever talks about using USGs, only ERs.
We manage probably 90% Unifi. Both are good and have a place, but with SMBs we use Unifi more.
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Changing to Ubiquiti is something that we've discussed here. We're currently on Meraki for our APs only (checked the firewalls / security appliances but dodged that bullet)
Does Ubiquiti do the following? (We're currently using these features and having to retrain the users would be a real PITA)- WPA2 Enterprise tied to Radius based on AD Group membership for company issued / owned laptops
- AD integrated splash sign-on for mobile / byod
- ability to create guest users
- Fully isolated access for the BYOD and Guest SSIDs
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@notverypunny said in Meraki Bells and Whistles:
Changing to Ubiquiti is something that we've discussed here. We're currently on Meraki for our APs only (checked the firewalls / security appliances but dodged that bullet)
Does Ubiquiti do the following? (We're currently using these features and having to retrain the users would be a real PITA)- WPA2 Enterprise tied to Radius based on AD Group membership for company issued / owned laptops
- AD integrated splash sign-on for mobile / byod
- ability to create guest users
- Fully isolated access for the BYOD and Guest SSIDs
- Yes, it does supports WPA Enterprise. The RADIUS Server needs to be on a Linux or Windows Server. If not AD you can use it from one of the XG firewalls.
- Not for AD but you can do it for the Guest network
- Yes, you can create guest users or give them vouchers
- Guest devices are Isolated to the AP you are on (they can still ping devices on the same AP they are on in their same network).
