Aruba Instant IAP-105 (wireless access point)

All and all a fantastic priced appropriately product from Aruba Networks.

We needed to come up with a better than Cisco/Symbol Fat AP solution with some of the higher-end controller based features like RADIUS, seamless roaming, Wireless Intrusion Protection, content filtering and role based access. All with the ability to grow in to a controller based architecture when the technical need required - Aruba Instant was it. I can expand my wireless gradually as needed and not have to worry about licensing, controllers or redundancy. It's all built in and that's awesome on a tight budget.

I've been able to scale with up to 100 users on a 10 IAP network with no complaints of roaming problems or performance. And that's with a mix of Macs, Windows and iTouches. I've never had to call TAC at all for any issues. Upgrades take minutes and can be performed by anyone on my staff. Not just the Network Engineers.

With the new IAP-13X coming out, there's even more reason to love this product line. A fantastic product from a great company. Instant APs are a great fit.

Let me start off with Tech Support's official 'line' on roaming. This is a quote from an email: "Eventually it is unto the client whether to stick to the AP or move to the nearer AP (while roaming) which has good signal strength. The "sticky client issue" is usually noticed when the client has the "older driver version". Unto me, seriously? How about roaming is supposed to be seamless. That's like asking a cell phone user to select the next cell tower when leaving the range of the tower currently handling his/her service.
Essentially what they are saying is that to 'roam' between AP's requires user intervention, e.g., you have to select the next AP with the strongest signal. Seriously?! (Updating the W7 driver provided no benefit. )
Well, in fact, that info from tech support is faulty, and the bit about the AP with the strongest signal actually mislead my trouble-shooting efforts. The IAP-105s perform wireless hand-off (roaming) pretty well once you figure out that (1) they must have their time synchronized (doesn't always work even if you've assigned an NTP server in the configuration)- change the NTP IP to something different and reboot all units, and (2) when working with Windows 2008 R2 Network Policy Server (RADIUS), the 'new' AP you add to the network *needs* to host the virtual controller before it will authenticate a user session. Once you allow the new unit to host the VC, both RADIUS authentication and hand-off will happen. Do not know if this is isolated to Windows NPS as an external RADIUS server, or if this is common across all external RADIUS servers.
About hand-off: There is a bit of user intervention required, but not as defined by Aruba tech support. The user needs to refresh their browser window or surf to a new page; once done, the connection to the AP with the strongest signal establishes itself.

If you're in the US, be sure to order the IAP-105-US. My sales rep initially sent me info on the IAP-105, so of course I thought that was the item I needed; this unit IS NOT intended for US use; there is a setup screen that asks for country code and US is not available.Tech support was completely unaware of this and had me performing all manner of crazy tests on ALL FOUR units I'd purchased. Further, they got all difficult when I requested an RMA because, (1) the units weren't "bad" and (2) because I'd opened them all... at tech support's request (in writing).
Simply being familiar with the model number would have resolved this issue immediately and prevented me from being directed to open and test all four units.

All-in all, a decent AP with extremely impressive signal strength, but ultimately undone by a tech support department that, quite honestly, is clueless.