If you were deploying all new APs today, N or AC?
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After talking to @Hubtech this morning, he brought up a good point.
Maintaining two separate systems (in my case an old Cisco wireless, and a new Unifi wireless) definitely adds to complications - are those complications worth it?
In my case - after much deliberation - I think they are. Maintaining two systems that once in place barely require any maintenance isn't going to cause me a lot of burden.
BUT, what about companies like NTG (or Hubtech's MSP)? In an MSP setup, it can definitely be worth moving as many client as possible to the same solution to reduce maintenance overhead.
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I would never force a client to change just because we took them over.
So this always makes for supporting multiple systems.
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@Dashrender said:
After talking to @Hubtech this morning, he brought up a good point.
Maintaining two separate systems (in my case an old Cisco wireless, and a new Unifi wireless) definitely adds to complications - are those complications worth it?
In most cases with Enterprise wifi systems. The differences are pretty minimal. Some of your higher end ones have better scanning for rouge networks. It it's really mostly UI differences. Meraki, Cisco, Aruba, UniFi don't really have much of a learning curve between systems.
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As much as having everything the same would help, if you are an MSP, as @JaredBusch said, there's no need to change for sake of keeping things the same especially if the client is not having major performance issues.
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@JaredBusch said:
I would never force a client to change just because we took them over.
So this always makes for supporting multiple systems.
Definitely not. If your MSP is doing that, you should reconsider the choice of MSP. It is one thing to recognize problems that should not be tolerated and forcing change for the convenience (or profit) of the MSP.
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@Dashrender said:
BUT, what about companies like NTG (or Hubtech's MSP)? In an MSP setup, it can definitely be worth moving as many client as possible to the same solution to reduce maintenance overhead.
It reduces extremely little, practically nothing. But, we are rarely acting as an MSP, but an outsourced IT department (similar but not the same thing.) We support our customers, whatever they are using (legally) just like any other IT department. Standardization for financial benefit would be a case by case business decision. But as long as you are putting in quality gear, the difference in cost for someone like NTG to manage it would be almost immeasurable or, at best, unpredictable.
Some products, like Meraki, might cost you slight less to have us manage (maybe $25 less per year for a decent sized deployment) but easily would cost you $10,000 more to deploy. So the management savings for standardization is generally background noise in the financial considerations.
Now if you are installing something in a green field scenario, considering your MSP might make sense. But still has to be kept in context.
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Green field scenario?
Yeah, all that makes since - I suppose the main point was that if something was being replaced or installed new (new implementation) then going with whatever your MSP is familiar with and already has infrastructure for should make things a bit better all the way around.
But changing to a new system just because you have a new MSP, definitely was not where I was going with that statement.
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@Dashrender said:
Green field scenario?
Green Field means there is nothing there already, not even prep work. You are starting from scratch (the field hasn't had its grass disturbed yet.)
Brown Field means there is some work done, maybe just the bulldozer leveling of a pad site, maybe a foundation is started - but something, so you have to account for the existing planning and work, even if you end up having to redo it.
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@Dashrender said:
Yeah, all that makes since - I suppose the main point was that if something was being replaced or installed new (new implementation) then going with whatever your MSP is familiar with and already has infrastructure for should make things a bit better all the way around.
At least worth considering. Factors like "The MSP uses this internally" or "has lots of other customers on this" means that issues are less likely to come up first with you. Or just learning things like how to navigate quickly to the feature settings or whatever. Don't let that drive decisions, but it is a factor worth considering.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Green field scenario?
Green Field means there is nothing there already, not even prep work. You are starting from scratch (the field hasn't had its grass disturbed yet.)
Brown Field means there is some work done, maybe just the bulldozer leveling of a pad site, maybe a foundation is started - but something, so you have to account for the existing planning and work, even if you end up having to redo it.
OK Thanks - I guess I'm in a Brown Field situation where the interior of the space has already been designed.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Green field scenario?
Green Field means there is nothing there already, not even prep work. You are starting from scratch (the field hasn't had its grass disturbed yet.)
Brown Field means there is some work done, maybe just the bulldozer leveling of a pad site, maybe a foundation is started - but something, so you have to account for the existing planning and work, even if you end up having to redo it.
OK Thanks - I guess I'm in a Brown Field situation where the interior of the space has already been designed.
brown town
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Green field scenario?
Green Field means there is nothing there already, not even prep work. You are starting from scratch (the field hasn't had its grass disturbed yet.)
Brown Field means there is some work done, maybe just the bulldozer leveling of a pad site, maybe a foundation is started - but something, so you have to account for the existing planning and work, even if you end up having to redo it.
OK Thanks - I guess I'm in a Brown Field situation where the interior of the space has already been designed.
Yes.
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I guess my mind is just in the gutter this morning... but somebody needs to pick a different color for referencing a brown field scenario...
I'll see myself out now.
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Well it is fitting that it is always better to be in a green field than a brown one.
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I hate when I jump over a fence and find out, too late, that it is a brown field.
