Hi guys,
I currently have a cisco 3850 switch at home with 4 aps associated to it. Cisco is moving away from the converged access deployment and i see the smart licensing as cost prohibitive as an ongoing home solution long term.
I am interested in switching to hp switches and aruba aps. Generally speaking i am looking for a multigig switch and a fairly high end ap with an interface greater than 1gb. I was looking at the hp jl076a switch and also the 515 aps. I noticed that the hp switches firmware seems to be generally available with no contract but the aps themselves do require a contract to download. Can anyone clarify the requirements for software downloads of both products? I am generally not in need of support just updates to the software.
Asside from generaly ap use i do have sip endpoints. from what i have read the instant ap functionality should work just fine.
Assuming a contract is needed for software downloads can anyone let me know how that generally works with aruba, i am a long time cisco person, no experience with aruba to date. I may end up going with unifi xgs once they introduce a rack mount 48port 10gbps poe switch but at the moment they only have a small 10gb poe switch. I would prefer to keep this on the enterprise type of products. I generally am willing to pay up front for the hardware but dont want to get tied into a high re-occuring cost. I know its all overkill for home use but generally speaking i use this as an opportunity to learn new products for work.