[itdiscuss] Ubiquity Unifi and SonicPoint

[Rob Shaw]

Dayron,

I'm kinda at that same crossroads, although am CURRENTLY a SonicPoint and NSA3500 user.  The problem I have, is these SonicPoints seems to be lasting only 2-3 years each and are VERY expensive to replace.

I am investigation the Ubiquity solution myself as the A.P.s are a fraction of the cost of the SonicPoints.

Please let me know what you decide, as I may have some SonicPoints at a fire-sale price soon.  ;-)

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[cid:F0228FC4-B282-4AA8-9594-8951EE71BFAE]

From: Dayron Daugherty <ddaugherty at precept.org<mailto:ddaugherty at precept.org>>
Reply-To: IT Discussion Forum <discuss at itdiscuss.org<mailto:discuss at itdiscuss.org>>
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2011 09:36:37 -0400
To: IT Discussion Forum <discuss at itdiscuss.org<mailto:discuss at itdiscuss.org>>
Subject: [itdiscuss] Ubiquity Unifi and SonicPoint

Recently a discussion came up here regarding wireless and Ubiquity was mentioned and raved about. We’re in the process of planning out a new wireless infrastructure. Currently for indoor APs we use are using Linksys WRT54G’s with DD-WRT. DD-WRT breathed new life into our AP’s, but as some of our older APs die we want to move towards a more professional, centrally managed solution for our indoor APs. Our SonicWall is an NSA 3500 which has a central management piece for SonicPoint APs. So I’m exploring that route. But, needless to say SonicPoints are a little pricey. The benefit is they (as said) are centrally managed from the SonicWall and all security subscriptions and access rules we have can be applied to the SonicPoints with much granularity if desired.

Our main campus buildings are all uplinked with fiber. However we have a few smaller buildings that are connected with a Proxim 802.11A basestation and omni antenna on our central building and Proxim subscriber units and parabolic or yagi antenna at each of the outlying buildings. We want to upgrade this equipment as well. I spoke to SonicWall yesterday and I was told they do not have point-to-point equipment built specifically for this kind of setup but it’s “on their roadmap…possibly”.

We also want 2 SSID’s (private and public) without having to have 2 physical APs physically connected to 2 different subnets (which we have to do now). I’ve seen reference in the Unifi specs refereeing control of a guest network. I’m assuming that is the public SSID I’m needing, but I can’t find a detailed description of how to configure that. I’d like to know more about that if anyone is using a private\guest configuration on the same AP.

So, given that I’m going to have to manage 2 wireless networks anyway (the APs and the p2p) if I go with SonicPoint I wanted to get your thoughts and experience with the Ubiquity Unifi solution. It looks much less expensive on the AP side of things. Does it also allow central management of their p2p gear?



Dayron Daugherty
Precept Ministries International
Senior Network Administrator
ddaugherty at precept.org<mailto:ddaugherty at precept.org>
(423) 296-8777

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