<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">I am looking for a open source wireless networking solution. I have an organization that is going to have 450 wireless users of which half of these users will be online at a time. I am looking for a solution to control the access points, and provide some measure of security. Any suggested would be helpful. I have looked at Aruba,Foundry and IronPoint...all of these solutions are way out of budget. <br><br>--- On <b>Fri, 9/5/08, hbbs@comcast.net <i><hbbs@comcast.net></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;">From: hbbs@comcast.net <hbbs@comcast.net><br>Subject: [ale] Server Hardware<br>To: ale@ale.org<br>Date: Friday, September 5, 2008, 1:38 PM<br><br><pre>In more recent years, I've advocated buying servers from manufacturers who<br>use high-quality standard-issue motherboards
to include the same manufacturers<br>who make the motherboards themselves as opposed to the typical Dell/HP/IBM<br>sourcing that's so prevalent in industry.<br><br>My experience has been that even though the Dell/HP/IBM warranty, support, and<br>field service are supposed to be the big compelling draw and are supposed to<br>justify the cost, in reality:<br><br>* Field service is often slow, ineffectual, and/or incapable of making sound<br>technical evaluations of situations yet won't take your word for anything<br>* Parts - from cooling fans to motherboards - are not typical COTS items, so<br>you're dependent on the manufacturer and/or field support for even the<br>slightest issue<br>* Shoddy workmanship, poor QA, and shipping damage run rampant<br><br>On the other hand, manufacturers that integrate and produce servers out of COTS<br>still give you a decent enough warranty but leave you able to source parts from<br>where you feel like it for the sake of
expediency or post-sale modification, and<br>you can easily buy and store extra power supplies, RAM, mobos, drive sleds, and<br>power supplies so that a server that has gone dead and won't POST can be<br>brought back to life by on-hand staff in a few minutes' time. <br><br>1. Is this valid today? Was it ever?<br>2. What manufacturers have you had a good history with? What vendors sell<br>their products? <br><br>I personally bought a Supermicro SuperServer from HL Computer locally a while<br>back, and once I replaced its dodgy power supply it's been fine, running<br>without a reboot up at QTS for over 500 days. HL does not ordinarily carry such<br>equipment so I'd like to find a vendor who has a good history of selling<br>this sort of equipment.<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Ale mailing list<br>Ale@ale.org<br>http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale<br></pre></blockquote></td></tr></table><br>