A few facts "for" the fats:
(BTW: those light-weights are as fat as heavy-weights!)
-Even as the number grows, FATS are still cheaper
(probably a matter of supply/demand issue)
eg: Our Cisco rep told us that more than 80% of sales
are still FAT APs)
-Some vendor may lure you with cheap Lightweight APs
but they get you on the controller pricing
-All traffic goes to a controller: What happened when the load
increases? (eg: 802.11n). Buy more controllers and build a cluster?
-Those controllers are usually PCs, with all their weaknesses.
-Proprietary: CBA solutions were not designed with Standard
protocols in mind. You are locked in a solution
until you infrastructure gets obsolete.
What do you do with you infrastructure when
Aruba/Trapeze/Meru goes belly up?
(deep fry you lightweights)
There is no doubt that
eventually FATs will be limited by 802.3AF (power over ethernet)
once they have to handle multiple 802.1x sessions over 802.11n,
dealing with less than 15 Watts.
(can you see two cat5 drops to each AP coming soon!)
CBA solutions might be the future. Is now the right time?
Philippe Hanset
**********
Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group
discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
