The Better WLAN

Frank Bulk replies: Airespace currently doesn't offer much scalability, but with Cisco Systems' acquisition of the vendor, I feel the problem will be addressed.

Airespace's N+1 functionality is best optimized if you preconfigure the access points with the primary, secondary and tertiary switches. But unless you require failover times no greater than 20 seconds, you can leave the system unconfigured; the APs will seek out the first available switch, probably in less than a minute.

Both ACS (Airespace Control System) and Aruba's master-local design have pros and cons, but we gave Airespace the nod because we believe its design offers more enterprise deployment and management flexibility than Aruba's.

Multiple factors went into our security score, and because of rounding, a few small items prevented Aruba from tying with Airespace. We consider integration of a firewall in a WLAN switch an extra; enterprise network security administrators are likely to use their existing firewall rather than depend on a WLAN solution. But smaller shops could benefit.

Merger Mania

I couldn't agree more with Rob Preston's column "The Trouble With Mergers" (March 3, 2005). I'm glad to see someone finally shed light on this dirty little secret.

In a surprising number of cases, bigger isn't better. When my vendor is swallowed up by a larger player, I tend to take my business elsewhere--generally because the merger suffers from the very things Preston warns about.

It's amazing that so many people, particularly shareholders, still buy the dog-and-pony show companies trot out when they merge. It appears that M&A failures far outweigh the successes.

Marc Thornsbury
Information Systems Manager
TLR-Total Logistics Resource
[email protected]

Correction

We received and published incorrect pricing for Avaya SIP Telephony in "Live in the Labs: IP PBXs" (March 17, 2005). The correct price is $147,193 or $190,327 with installation and one-year maintenance. Although this changes Avaya's numerical grade slightly--from 4.10 to 4.08--its letter grade (B+) and rank (first place) remain the same. You can find an updated features chart here. Our updated report card can be found here.

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