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Craig Mathias

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WLAN Management Moves to the Cloud – Part 2

The Network World article is out – and a little more on this important topic is in order.

By Craig Mathias on Tue, 07/19/11 - 6:16am.

. What's this?

In my previous posting on the subject of moving WLAN management into the cloud, I looked at the concept and the idea. But now that my review of three services in this area is out, a little more commentary is appropriate.

First of all, I think WLAN management - and, indeed, network management overall - will move to the cloud for most organizations over the next few years. It makes little sense to set up a facility for this function, whether that is a simple server or a big-time NOC, if one can purchase everything, ready to go, and let someone else worry about maintenance, upgrades, support, fixing problems, and the rest. Network management is like any other (granted, mission-critical) application, and a SaaS solution here makes a lot of sense especially for SMBs who really haven't had any good options to date. The big opportunity for many, though, will be to implement big-system management functionality, irrespective of the size of the installation and from Day 1, and gain a broad range of benefits that were previously unavailable except to larger organizations.

And, very importantly, the review shows that there need be no compromise in functionality when moving to cloud-based WLAN management, as the very robust offerings from both Aerohive and Meraki show. I'm also quite optimistic about the OEM strategy that PowerCloud Systems has taken with their CloudCommand offering, although the implementation on the D-Link products reviewed shows a certain immaturity that really is to be expected at this stage of the company's growth. The biggest surprise in this testing was how easy the process was in every case. I must confess that, for someone who tests a lot of products, I often approach such projects with a certain degree of trepidation. Things often don't work, and a variable but often significant period of figuring out what's wrong ensues. I'm happy to report that, in every case here, installation, setup, and getting operational was a breeze - as literally plug 'n' play as such can be, and certainly no more complex than configuring an individual access point for initial operations via the usual HTTPS interface.

And the degree of facility and service available, especially from Aerohive and Meraki, is amazing. My only real wish is for a greater degree of customization of the various screens in any given implementation. Yes, I know this makes support more difficult, but I want to normalize the control panel, if you will, to my specific needs at any given moment in time, rather than seeing with the designers of the application think I need to see. More commentary on this point shortly, but, for now, it's full speed ahead for (W)LAN - and other network and beyond - management in the cloud.