On 29/04/13 22:51, Barros, Jacob wrote: > It feels like I am coming full circle to where I was six years ago. > Though I know its not exactly the same, I went back to the thin vs > thick debates in the archives. A few things stood out to me as > considerations: One concern was vendor longevity. Another was whether > or not the thick AP model would be able to keep up with the controller > based architecture. An advantage of the controller based architecture > that stood out to me was central processing, specifically regarding key > exchange. > > Are these points still valid concerns? If your administration asked you > to consider a distributed architecture, what other (vendor-neutral) > concerns would you have?
There's a middle ground between thick and thin - relatively thick APs, that are centrally managed but with enough smarts to process traffic locally. 802.11ac will have an effect here, as each thin AP could theoretically require 1Gb/s to the controller. This is why Cisco is putting controllers in its switches, to distribute the traffic load. Most controller-based vendors do support local bridging, but some will not support all features or not maintain sessions if the controller fails. I haven't really looked at the new range of thick APs like Meraki or Aerohive, so can't comment on their architecture. -- James Andrewartha Network & Projects Engineer Christ Church Grammar School Claremont, Western Australia Ph. (08) 9442 1757 Mob. 0424 160 877 ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
