To cloud or not to cloud the Zone Director?

[said_ben_saida_]

Our ZD1100 and Aps are end of life. We are evaluating the refresh routes. The question we have is what are the pros and cons of using a virtual appliance zone director on-prem vs the cloud service?
Any input is greatly appreciated, thanks.

[michael_brado]

Hi Said,

    Our ZoneDirector controllers only come as hardware appliances.  Our SmartZone
products (SZ-100, SCG200, SZ300) are hardware, and Virtual SmartZone is a VM
version that runs on ESXi, KVM, GCE, AWS platforms (so you could run your own
vSZ in a cloud (GCE/AWS).

     We took the majority of ZoneDirector functionality, and created Unleashed which
can run up to 25 APs, using one as a Master, with DHCP and Mesh capabilities.  It is
easy to setup and manage, and self healing if your Master AP goes down, as another
member AP will take over.  Unleashed is a single flat LAN small medium business 
network product.

      Our Cloud Wi-Fi offering is a WebUI login, that has SmartZone controllers managing
your APs on different location "Venues".  It has a Dashboard with icons that summarize
your venues and AP statuses.  You define Network SSIDs, and specify which Venue/APs
will broadcast and service them.  It is user friendly, and provides multiple site management
capability.

       Both Unleashed and Cloud Wi-Fi solutions are pretty good designs, that you will
probably like working with...

[erin_mcclellen]

Hi Michael - on the Virtual SmartZone product, are the additional AP licenses perpetual?

[monnat_systems]

perpetual

[monnat_systems]

said
reading your OP, i am not able to make out what are your current challenges (cost/architecture/) and what is your deployment type & ur expectations if u put some light on that, one can stich a solution based on various product line and then it would make sense for pro/cons discussion...that would really add value to your decision making process ...my 50 cents..

[said_ben_saida_]

We have a zone director 1100 and ZF7372 access points. All are flagged End Of Life.
We would like to refresh our hardware. We were told we had the option between an on-prem virtual zone director and a cloud based. So the question I had is: what are the pros and cons of each to help us make an educated choice.