D-Link Expands its Unified Wireless Portfolio with New Wireless Controller Supporting up to 256 Access Points
D-Link today announced the Unified Wireless Controller (DWC-2000), a new centralized Wireless LAN manager designed specifically for education, hospitality and medium-to-large enterprises. The DWC-2000 can support up to 256 access points per controller, and up to 1,024 access points in a controller peer group, making it a cost-effective mobility solution suitable for medium and large scale deployments.
D-Link. Don’t those people make consumer grade kit for the home? You buy it at big box stores or Amazon at the lowest possible price and throw it away when it breaks, right? Well, perhaps that’s one perspective, but not the whole picture. I was introduced to D-Link’s business division recently. Specifically, D-Link has enterprise products with decent silicon in them and a reasonable amount of scale for the SME market. Is it amazing gear? Is it the best thing ever that you should run out and buy in bulk RIGHT NOW before there’s none left? I have no idea. I haven’t used D-Link kit in a serious production capacity before. But let me put it to you this way – have you had such good luck with either hardware or software quality from premium-branded networking gear that it rules out investigating vendors off the beaten path? No. You haven’t…and you won’t. That puts the D-Links of the world on an equal footing with more common choices, assuming a product offering with the scale and functionality you require.
The question isn’t, “Are they amazing?” The question is, “Are they good enough?” And yes, D-Link might be a “they” that is. They’re trying. They want your business. They have incentive to produce gear good enough to displace your favored incumbents. Stop using a networking vendor just because they are what you’re used to. That’s a busted idea, and very possibly a bad –even risky — spend. Every vendor should earn your business, even the ones you’ve trusted for years.
Read the entire press release here.