Honestly, they are not that expensive. If you were very cost conscious you could look at offerings from OpenMesh/Cloudtrax. There is no license cost for their cloud controller, you just by the hardware.
When looking at higher end solutions (Meraki, Cisco, Motorola, Air Tight, AeroHive, Ruckus, etc) you have to factor in a few considerations. First, the hardware is substantially better quality than consumer grade hardware. My company primarily deploys Meraki hardware, and we have deployed literally thousands of APs, and we have seen maybe 1-2 out of box failures, and maybe 1-2 in field failures over the last 3-4 years. In additional to the very low failure rates, the amount of resources that are required to maintain an enterprise size deployment is drastically reduced. If you had independently managed APs, you would require IT resources at almost every office. With cloud managed solutions, that can be reduced a single IT person at a central office. Considering your average IT (CCNA) worker makes a 50K-80K salary, you are really coming out ahead.
Finally, you are probably looking at MSRP. Most companies will not end up paying that cost. They will by from a re-seller, and the re-seller will make between 8 and 20 points of margin on the sale. The re-seller is buying from a distributor at 40-60% off list. Meaning the cost of the products is usually have of the list price.
Again, for business, the cost and cost savings associated with a centralized or cloud based AP management can be significant.
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ZeDestructor - Tuesday, May 19, 2015 - link
Why are decent centrally-managed multi-AP setups so expensive :(Magictoaster - Tuesday, May 19, 2015 - link
Honestly, they are not that expensive. If you were very cost conscious you could look at offerings from OpenMesh/Cloudtrax. There is no license cost for their cloud controller, you just by the hardware.When looking at higher end solutions (Meraki, Cisco, Motorola, Air Tight, AeroHive, Ruckus, etc) you have to factor in a few considerations. First, the hardware is substantially better quality than consumer grade hardware. My company primarily deploys Meraki hardware, and we have deployed literally thousands of APs, and we have seen maybe 1-2 out of box failures, and maybe 1-2 in field failures over the last 3-4 years. In additional to the very low failure rates, the amount of resources that are required to maintain an enterprise size deployment is drastically reduced. If you had independently managed APs, you would require IT resources at almost every office. With cloud managed solutions, that can be reduced a single IT person at a central office. Considering your average IT (CCNA) worker makes a 50K-80K salary, you are really coming out ahead.
Finally, you are probably looking at MSRP. Most companies will not end up paying that cost. They will by from a re-seller, and the re-seller will make between 8 and 20 points of margin on the sale. The re-seller is buying from a distributor at 40-60% off list. Meaning the cost of the products is usually have of the list price.
Again, for business, the cost and cost savings associated with a centralized or cloud based AP management can be significant.