Meraki released some new enterprise gear recently and I've been using it
in our office of ~20 for a while. Some of the key differences to the
community Meraki gear we use in socalfreenet:
+ dual-band 802.11N operation gives 600mbit performance ('ideal')
+ no more NAT and client isolation (configurable)
+ lots of fancy enterprise-style config options (e.g. WPA2 via radius)
+ vlan tagging tied to the multiple SSID support
+ band steering (favor 802.11a over bg for clients that support it)
See http://meraki.com/products_services/access_points/MR14/ Fun stuff.
It replaced our Cisco AP1200 radios, as well as our separate Guest
wireless (a WRAP box running pfSense for captive portal).
I see this as a real money maker for Meraki. Businesses with no real IT
skills will be able to setup and monitor their own 'corporate'-style
wifi and manage it 'in the cloud' (as the Meraki cheesy marketing spin
puts it).
The web management + zero AP config is also great for consultants like
many of us who manage multiple client networks remotely. E.g. new
installs via phone: "Yes, just unpack the radio .. yes, the radio is
that white box ... now plug it into the wall in Sam's office. Make sure
it gets a green light. Ok, yes, you're done now. Bye." I did this with a
neighbor's wifi node recently. She ordered the radio directly from
Meraki, called and gave me the number on the box (so I could add it to
the network) and then plugged it in and walked away. It took a few hours
for it to find good routes and settle in (once she stopped moving it
around trying to get more green lights!). The radio came good and has
filled in a nasty black (wireless) hole in her house ever since.
Happy to answer more questions - don't want to spam you with this but
thought some of you would be interested.
cheers, michael
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