Enterprise class wireless access point

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vxspiritxv

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Feb 10, 2001
Messages
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Looking for suggestions on a enterprise class access point.
Looking to run an open 802.11g (g only) access point.
I only require remote snmp so I can watch users status, like s/n, dropped packets, ect. Oh and external antenna connection of course (non diversity).
Right now just looking to do point to multi point secured by PPPoE VPN.
 
How many AP's are you looking to deploy?

I use Cisco Aironet 1200's and if you deploying a lot of them then the 4400 Controllers are very nice to have...
 
We use Cisco 1100s and 1200s here. Very happy with those. HP ProCurves are ok, have had minor frustrations with them though. But all ProCurve have a life time limited warranty which is nice.
 
You won't have the support of a major company, but I love monowall.

Build a monowall on a WRAP board, add an 8MB CF Card, put in a good case and impliment POE. Then toss in a 400mW , 96dB recieve radio and your choice of antenna for good measure. And you'll be in great shape.

Rock solid, powerful, and cost effective.

If you're more on a budget, netgear makes some business class access points. I bought one awhile back for a customer and I think it cost like $200. Had a very good quality radio with some of the best looking netstumbler graphs I've ever seen. But wasn't a VPN endpoint, monowall is a VPN endpoint.

If you're doing ALOT of VPN traffic you might want to look at building a monowall on a Soekris board. They build an add-on card for their boards which does hardware VPN. Figure $400 after antenna and everything for a monowall based Soekris board. Extra if you want a VPN board on there too.
 
PHUNBALL said:
How many AP's are you looking to deploy?

I use Cisco Aironet 1200's and if you deploying a lot of them then the 4400 Controllers are very nice to have...
Click to expand...

Only 5.


VeeDubbs said:
We use Cisco 1100s and 1200s here. Very happy with those. HP ProCurves are ok, have had minor frustrations with them though. But all ProCurve have a life time limited warranty which is nice.
Click to expand...

Didn't even know HP made wireless APs. They are looking really good to me, don't really care much for cisco products. What were your frustrations with them?
 
Asgorath said:
You won't have the support of a major company, but I love monowall.

Build a monowall on a WRAP board, add an 8MB CF Card, put in a good case and impliment POE. Then toss in a 400mW , 96dB recieve radio and your choice of antenna for good measure. And you'll be in great shape.

Rock solid, powerful, and cost effective.

If you're more on a budget, netgear makes some business class access points. I bought one awhile back for a customer and I think it cost like $200. Had a very good quality radio with some of the best looking netstumbler graphs I've ever seen. But wasn't a VPN endpoint, monowall is a VPN endpoint.

If you're doing ALOT of VPN traffic you might want to look at building a monowall on a Soekris board. They build an add-on card for their boards which does hardware VPN. Figure $400 after antenna and everything for a monowall based Soekris board. Extra if you want a VPN board on there too.
Click to expand...


Whoa 400mW cards are out? My vpn is a linux solution I made myself. Does compression, encryption, traffic shaping and bandwidth limiting all in one with a web interface. I hesitated on turning it into an AP for the only reason of cards not being as powerful as true access points. Tho I am still going to use true access points at the client location. Just for ease of repairs.
 
vxspiritxv said:
Didn't even know HP made wireless APs. They are looking really good to me, don't really care much for cisco products. What were your frustrations with them?
Click to expand...


Yeah...HP has their whole ProCurve line. Pretty nice for being fairly new. They license protocols and such from Cisco. Very nice switches, PoE switches and APs. We deployed about 50 of the ProCurve 420 access points. Couple issues in the beginning, went through two firmware upgrades. Seemed fine, now experiencing some different issues - have yet to determine if it is hardware or environment; however, im willing to bet is more environment.

Main frustrations were just bad codes in the AP - firmware 2.0.36 would shutdown the wireless radio whenever it got any kind of wireless interference. HP suggested we upgrade to 2.0.41. With this firmware the APs would reboot whenever they got any interference. Just frustrating having to go through two upgrades on 50 different APs. The new firmware, 2.1.2 seems a lot more stable. A lot of nice added features, ssh, HTTPS and AP Detection. But we have a couple of them freezing up on the management portion (i.e. telnet, HTTP, etc). I can't get to any of those! Anyways...very nice products. And like I mentioned - I believe all ProCurves have lifetime warranties.
 
I still vote monowall. They are so freaking slick and configurable not to mention stable as hell.
 
How many WiFi clients and/or VPN clients are you talking about? If You are looking to move the VPN away from your homebrew box you might want to take a look at SonicWall's TZW AP w/ VPN built right in. ~$400
 
If you are looking for a true ENTERPRISE class solution then stay with the big players, I stand by my Cisco recommendation because their AP's are solid...
 
We use Cisco 1200's with the Wireless LAN Controller 4400, things are great, go in with a new AP, plug it in, wait 2 minutes or so and it's on the network. We have a few companies we do networking for that don't need but maybe 3 AP's...even with them we push for the 2200 line of LAN Controller with a cisco solution, it's enterprise grade, we have AP's that have been up for 6 months + with no issues, never have to reboot them, they support wireless roaming between AP's and a bunch of other features. That's my 2 cents
 
I work with enterprise class APs all day long. If you want stability with very nice interfaces with the VPN support that you want, go with either Colubris or Nomadix. Period.

If you want to drop some money you can also go with vivatos as well, they are excellent units. Drop the Cisco stuff, they make excellent *wired* infrastructure stuff. Their wireless stuff is lacking though, but that is to be expected. :D
 
Foundry Networks makes great products if you are a security freak, and have the money for their products. Cisco's are not as nice.

Edited for clarity

==>Lazn
 
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