“TP-Link’s Omada succeeds in unifying network management”
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With an important vertical integration, TP-Link is characterized by giving a quick response to the needs of companies. Its range of Omada solutions has also been a turning point for the company, since it provides IT departments with the possibility of deploying SDN networks with access to the cloud and managing them from a single platform in a simple way. To discuss the future of the company, its solutions and the needs that companies have, we spoke with Alvaro Ausín, Sales Director Enterprise Solutions BU of TP-Link.
Interview with Alvaro Ausín, Sales Director Enterprise Solutions BU
What is the importance that companies are giving to networks today? What are they demanding the most?
The most demanded at the moment are the business access points within our Omada family, but we must take into account the limitations of availability of switches in the market and that in an Omada installation with centralized management for every 24 or 48 access points EAPxx only one switch is needed. What is certain is that at the moment the business Wi-Fi network and more specifically within the AX standard is having a very considerable increase and not in terms of speed but of concurrent connections. For all this, the importance we give to this segment within Tp link it’s huge. We have a very ambitious plan to position ourselves as leaders in the SMB environment in two years, which requires a significant concentration of our resources to achieve it.
There are many wifi and network solution providers in the market, what do you propose Tp link different from the rest?
As far as the product is concerned, we offer a high-quality product, very advanced at a technical level but easy to centrally manage and configure. This differentiates us from a large part of the market, but I have always said that to see where our competitive advantage or our value offer lies, we must focus on our strategy, which translates into a series of values at the product and service level.
Tp link It is a company with a huge vertical integration, we are designers, manufacturers, marketers, promoters and SAT of our products. This gives us enormous control throughout this chain and allows us to respond quickly to market needs. Just as an example, all our technical support is in Spain, where we have both pre-sales and post-sales engineers who help the client throughout the design and development process of a project, even in the event of a possible problem these same engineers can talk to our directly with the product manager who designed the product, that is, reliability and speed are fully guaranteed.
What problems are companies encountering in offering their network services?
At the moment the basic general problem is the availability of the product, we can say that the demand in the business sector in Spain is experiencing very high growth as indicated by the main consultants, it is true that due to the pandemic it was reduced significantly. drastic, but we can say that towards the middle of last year the values were already normalized, so the growth trend has been maintained.
Unfortunately, we have a higher demand and globally a lower production capacity due to the shortage of chipsets. Tp link is no stranger to this situation and, despite the fact that our production capacity is greater than last year’s, our demand has increased so much that we are aware of the delays that occur when it comes to reaching certain projects, in especially when we talk about 48-port POE switches.
There is a lot of talk about Wi-Fi 6, do companies know what advantages it provides them? what does it offer Tp link in this aspect?
Wi-Fi 6 is a standard so Tp link what it does is offer it in its products just like we do with Wi-Fi 5. What we do is incorporate this standard into our OMADA business network solution and that is where it is interesting because it will allow us to develop a Wi-Fi network. Fi 6 in a centralized and very simple way, as well as being scalable and highly powerful.
We must not forget that where WiFi 6 makes sense is in the business environment and, as I said, not for speed but for stability and volume of concurrent connections. AC wave 2 (Wi-Fi 5) already gave us speeds similar to the AX standard (WiFi 6) but what we gained is that many more clients can connect to that network without it suffering.
I think that companies are already aware of the advantages that WiFi6 provides, in fact we have verified it over several months through the seminars and events that we have carried out. Very few professionals consult us about the advantages, they ask us much more about configuration aspects, if I can or cannot do a certain action, if the solution allows them, for example, to create captive portals, guest networks, if they can work in Mesh, etc… By the way, the answer to all these questions is yes.
One of the challenges, both for conventional networks and Wi-Fi networks, is the cybersecurity section. How do Wi-Fi environments affect or influence this section? What mistakes do companies usually make and what solutions does it provide? Tp link?
I think there is an error here when it comes to understanding the network as an independent element, whether it is wired or Wi-Fi. I think this is already a very old concept: now the network is composed of both wired and wireless elements and I don’t think that the wireless elements have to be more vulnerable than the wired ones. If not, let’s look at which attacks are the ones that most affect companies. How many of them come from having or not having an access point? What is certain is that there are basic issues to take into account such as not having an open network, having a guest network, encryption and security levels.
You have a solution, Omada, which is a comprehensive network tool via software through which you can easily manage the entire network environment, what advantages does it provide to the IT department? What is Omada’s differential factor?
Omada not only has a management tool via software, but is also available with a physical controller such as the OC200 and OC300 and even in the cloud. Any of the three options is valid and similar when managing the network. The advantage it offers is, as we have mentioned, the unification of the network, that is, I do not manage each isolated element one by one, I manage an entire network, I adopt equipment, I establish security parameters that are then transferred to the entire network. In other words: greater simplicity of management and installation, greater flexibility and capacity is scalability.
What are the forecasts for 2022 in terms of projects in the different verticals and Omada’s participation in them?
The forecast is to reach 12.5 million euros in company product in 2022.
