Monday, April 18, 2011

Wireless Access Point Feature Matrices

Many customers have confusion around which access point model to select based on various factors including pricing, feature sets, performance, and other factors. This is true for almost every vendor product line, but especially so with large vendors and complex website navigation. With multiple product offerings in very similar technology space, customers are often confused about product differentiation that is almost always not apparently clear in documentation.

In fact, most vendor marketing material and product data sheets gloss over technical differences, focusing on marketing literature on the "positive" side of the equation for each and every product they have. As a customer, how are you to distinguish amongst multiple offerings, each touting how they enhance your business and deliver unparalleled services above the competitors?

Vendors carefully develop product features to ensure clear product segmentation, establish differentiated pricing levels, and maintain profit margins. This information is available, albeit sometimes in hard-to-find locations.

Customers looking to make decisions amongst multiple wireless access point product lines should reference the following vendor product matrices:

Cisco Aironet Access Point - At A Glance 
(Linked from Products > Wireless > Aironet 1040 > Product Literature > At-A-Glance > Cisco Aironet Access Point PDF)


Aruba Access Point Product Line Matrix 
(Linked from Products > Access Points > Access Point Product Line Matrix)


Ruckus ZoneFlex Specifications Matrix 
(Linked from Products > ZoneFlex Indoor > Product Wizard)


Aerohive Corporate Brochure
(Linked from Resources > Datasheets & Brochures > Aerohive Corporate Brochure)
(For detailed specs on each model, see the individual HiveAP Datasheets)


Motorola Wireless LAN Solutions At-A-Glance
(Linked from Resource Library > Wireless LAN > Enterprise WLAN Infrastructure At-A-Glance PDF)


HP E-802.11n Access Point Series Data Sheet
(Linked from HP > Networking > Resource Finder > Data Sheets)
(For detailed specs on each series, see the individual data sheets)



Other Vendors:
Meraki Compare 802.11n Access Points
Meru Individual Access Point Data Sheets
Xirrus Wi-Fi Array Product Summary
Juniper Trapeze WLAN Access Point Compare Family Models
Siemens Enterasys HiPath Wireless Access Point Data Sheet

Use these comparison tables as a reference when planning network upgrades, expansions, or new deployments.

Cheers,
Andrew

4 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Thanks for the great resource. All in one place.

    Keith

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  3. ...Besides the fact that Motorola also has AP-5131, AP-5181, AP-7181 and AP-6511...

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  4. Please follow the links provided to see the entire feature matrix for Motorola and other vendors. The screen clips provided are only examples, as most of the matrices are much larger than are feasible to post in the article.

    Andrew

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