Although Retail Ventures was impressed by ReefEdge's high availability and security subsystems, the multisite architecture was the most compelling benefit. Central management was deemed critical, and the available command-line interface facilitated development of custom scripts. In addition, the zero-configuration architecture has proved to be a big advantage, both in initial system rollout and in ongoing support.
Although the Retail Ventures network doesn't provide as high a level of management integration as some we've seen, it lets the company support a range of wireless technologies while maintaining a single overall security model. This is important because such a setup makes it much easier to integrate new store chains, which often use different wireless equipment, into the wireless architecture without the need for immediate forklift upgrades.
Key lessons learned in this deployment covered both technology and management. On the technical side, Retail Ventures tried to maximize its flexibility using a modular design based on industry standards wherever possible. Moore also found that designing a system that minimized configuration and management costs was key to driving acceptable ROI. Retail Ventures played it safe by going with Cisco for APs, but Moore says the risk in partnering with ReefEdge has paid off because the vendor has been attentive to his needs, something a larger supplier might not have been able to do.
DAVE MOLTA is a NETWORK COMPUTING senior technology editor. He is also assistant dean for technology at the School of Information Studies and director of the Center for Emerging Network Technologies at Syracuse University. Write to him at [email protected].
Organization: Ariba
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