I must admit, I thought to myself “why are HPE pushing an Office Connect access point? Isn’t this just going to take business away from Aruba and confuse the issue?”
Not for the first time, I’ll admit I was wrong. I’ve written previously about how smartphones have raised everyone’s expectations about what we should be able to do in the workplace. If we can run our lives from our phones, why not our businesses from our laptops, tablets and phones, wherever we are?
Aruba Instant and its associated products does this perfectly for SMBs and distributed enterprise who have a level of general IT staff available. Arguably, it makes wirelines connectivity faster, more resilient and secure than wired connections. The full scope of enterprise level technology scaled and costed for SMB use.
However, what about true small businesses? Under 100 users, but no retained IT staff on hand to set up and manage the infrastructure. They have the same level of expectation from modern technology advances, but until now, their wishes have been largely ignored.
1) Ease of use
2) Quality and reliability
3) Security
Set up is intuitive and can be set-up in under three minutes by someone with no technical experience, via a smartphone app. The same app can be used to monitor and manage OC20 networks (it clusters up to eight access points) from wherever, as long as there’s an internet connection. If the OC20 is powered by an Office Connect 1920S switch, that can be monitored by the app as well.
HPE won’t confirm or deny this, but it is clear to me that the OC20 uses the same hardware as an Aruba Instant 207, it’s the software that’s different. I know this because I’ve put them side by side and studied them (some people pass the time with extreme sports, others watch box sets, but those of us in-the-know sit and look at access points!). This means that the OC20 has enterprise grade hardware at small business prices.
Uniquely, the OC20 features website and application filtering that is kept completely up to date with the latest reputations. Malicious websites, adult content etc. can be blocked on employee networks, guest networks, or both. This gives ongoing, comprehensive, online protection.
So, the OC20 is class leading, cost effective and fully justifies its existence!
Try it for yourselves by requesting demo kit from Westcoast. Email us at enterprisebdm@westcoast.co.uk
When you get the kit, see if you can beat my time for setting it up, on this short video. There’s a £250 prize for the fastest time submitted. Just simply share your video on Linkedin or Twitter with the hashtag #OC20Challenge
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