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What if a cloud-based solution exclusively provides management but not control? In essence, this indicates the control function must be on-premises somewhere, and you won’t have to search very hard to find it.
Even when it comes to cloud-managed networking solutions, the adage “all that glitters isn’t gold” holds. This is due to the fact that a typical network management solution has three subsystems or planes: control, management, and data. These can be used for cloud-based network administration as well.
When a cloud-based network management solution is promoted, vendors anticipate enterprise IT to inquire about whether the solution includes a cloud-based management plane – or both a management plane and a control plane. Why should IT make an effort to ask? IT must be concerned as there is a significant disparity.
Management, in our opinion, encompasses all network device management responsibilities performed by IT during the lifecycle of a network device. Some real-world examples from the Wi-Fi management world include:
- Creating a Wi-Fi network
- Assigning a Wi-Fi network (SSID) to an access point (AP) or a group of APs
- Setting day/time limits when a Wi-Fi network is visible and available to end users
- Wi-Fi AP firmware upgrades
- Collecting general network operation data
Similarly, control includes the following elements and more:
- Discovery of neighboring Wi-Fi APs
- Setting up a mesh configuration among Wi-Fi APs and mesh routing
- End-user device hand-off between APs
- All layer 3 routing and layer 2 switching actions
What happens when a solution only offers management in the cloud but no control in the cloud?
Essentially, this means the control function must be on-premises somewhere and you certainly don’t have to go looking very far. Most of the time, the control function is hosted inside of a Wi-Fi AP.
Each solution presents its own set of pros and cons. When considering a solution with management and control in the cloud, the system offers very high scalability as the creation and management of Wi-Fi AP meshes are performed in the cloud. Solutions with control and management in the cloud can scale up to thousands of APs with 50K+users. Meanwhile, solutions that only allow cloud management have limited scalability, which makes it somewhat unusable for the enterprise. Typically, solutions with the control plane on premises scale up to dozens of Aps and hundreds of users.
Regarding the efficiency of the network devices, having management-only in the cloud can signify that the Wi-Fi Aps are overloaded with one extra, yet very crucial, function of control while having both management and control in the cloud means that the Wi-Fi Aps are not overloaded with control function. Thus, the Wi-Fi APs are potentially able to serve a more significant number of end-user devices.
Finally, when It comes to loss of cloud connectivity, management-only gives IT the ability to change control parameters if cloud connectivity is lost. This is because the control planes reside within the network element (Wi-Fi AP). As solutions with management and control in the cloud, IT will not be able to change any control settings if cloud connectivity is lost. The last known configuration is still very much active, and the network remains operational. Therefore, if you are evaluating a cloud-based wired and wireless management solution, make sure to ask where the “control” resides. You’ll be glad you did.
