airCRM

[lligetfa]

I am also going to make a "guess" that the promise of a local install version is a stalling ploy to make people try the cloud base version and have people go OH I HAD NO IDEA and agree that now cloud is OK.

I fully agree that it is a ploy. The local version will drag on indefinitely, never to be seen, with promises on soon, SOON, VERY SOON. Of course you will never be able to call them out on it as they will be "working on it". LOL

It will drag on for so long that most will give up and use the cloud.

[sirhc]

Agreed. What is so sad here is we all "told" them what "we" want and they completely ignored us and kept saying there are reasons but as of today those "reasons" have not been discussed not even with the SU group........WHY?

The fact that these "reasons" have not been disclosed have been an insult and is causing more distrust!

Look people copied my shield kits (poorly) and the community stepped in and defended me. I never had the level of loyalty that UBNT "had" but they are pissing it away.

Some people are now actively looking for a reason to leave the UBNT wireless platform if possible where as a couple years ago people would never had thought of such a move.

I am still UBNT loyal and still promote their gear and resist making kits for other manufacturers and I have repeatedly refused requests to do this and what does UBNT (Robert) do to me.....kick me out and ban me!

Still I promote them and my wife keeps asking me "why". I guess because I still have hope and believe in loyalty but I am getting close to the point of finally giving up on them.....I am close!

[adairw]

I agree with all of the above comments also. I'd love to "look at the bright side", I'll believe it when I see it.
Making a local copy shouldn't be that hard. The hosted solution is probably running in AWS on linux. Pull it out, package it up and send it out!
Unless there is some way to discover my devices and pull them in the aCRM, I just can't see how this is something we will be able to use very easily?

[wtm]

Chris, I think you have come close to what CRM is, but my "view" of it goes even deeper. aCRM takes all the AirMax radios, and makes them like UniFi radios. THEY now have to call the controller to report their status. Unlike the AC2 was, where the controller called the radio. This makes the controller, and who owns it the controlee of the system. With AC2, I know what the controller is doing to my radios, and when. With CRM, I have no idea what my radios are doing or saying to the CRM!

My take was that eventually the GUI and CLI would be taken out of the radios, just like the Uni's (which are also going to the "Cloud"), and the only way you would be able to work on them was with the CRM "Cloud". This would also give UBNT direct access to every radio, to play with and test stuff. Not to mention have complete access to that radio for whatever they felt they wanted! Don't need a CLI or GUI in the radio, you have a lot more of the memory open to put in other programming in!
In light of their AC firmware disaster where you can't downgrade, what happens when you put in CRM firmware, that can't be downgraded, it ONLY works on the CRM? Do you scrap your entire system? I feel bad for the many that are now, not just trying out a few radios on this software, but are moving their entire system over to it.
Ubiquiti has already stated that at some point they may charge for using CRM. At that point, if you have firmware that you can't go back to say 5.5.4 on, you are at UBNT's mercy!
This will become more evident as UBNT brings out newer products, and those products ONLY work on the CRM.

I think the only way to force UBNT to provide the "local" controller to us, is for those that can, work on "Ground Control", or other software that will do what we need!
At the point that the UBNT firmware is installed, and can't be downgraded, it is too late ! (you will do what THEY dictate)

[rebelwireless]

I think you all have excellent points. I've been testing airCRM for a while on one tower. A couple things have jumped out at me. airCRM gives ubnt a disturbing level of view into your operation. I've turned in trouble tickets and ubnt replies back with a LOT of information I didn't give them. IOW, they are absolutely peering into the network (Luckily an isolated chunk for me).

The radios haven't yet lost anything in the GUI, but I can see them reducing efforts to maintain that UI and maybe in AirOS8 it will be very basic.

ubnt has gone completely silent on the local version. Nothing. Makes me seriously consider the argument that it will never happen.

airCRM pales in comparison to AC2. It's a very basic monitoring platform at best. Feature requests are seeing very little response or interest from ubnt.

I'm very much leaning towards believe that ubnt is trying to convert their product line into a cloud offering entirely to try to stay ahead of whomever might be the next ubnt. fact is that 802.11ac has some seriously good tech in it and ubnt just can't use all of it with AirMAX, and that leaves a lot of really great tech just sitting there in an inexpensive wifi chipset for someone else to come along and compete with.

[wtm]

Well, that very interesting to see that you are noticing that they are able to SEE into your network? Don't need your permission or password to do so evidently!

Just to be paranoid here, what happens in the future to a CALEA request. Do they contact you, or do they contact UBNT, who does it without your notice?
And hopefully UBNT wouldn't get that knock on the door from NSA requesting a password for everything!

Time to get that "Ground Control" off the ground, and going! I can see UBNT will eliminate SNMP from the device.
We need a local server that uses SSH to control and maintain everything. Not the other way around, that the device is the one calling.

[rebelwireless]

I'm not sure if the 'see' in, but they certainly have access to all the info the devices sent to them. I've been monitoring a mirrored port on one to see what exactly it's doing for local discovery, doesn't look like much. Looks like topology is inferred from ip and routes. I'll address it if I see them doing anything active from the device. Still very nervous about the product and what ubnt can/might do.

[wtm]

Might do a post with a problem, and then see if they do it?

[wtm]

If I remember correctly, there was a person who had done some scripting that had posted on the AC2 forum, he had his scripts use SNMP and was able to provide almost the same screen of what AC2 displays on it?

Basically that is all I need to use, and if it was via SNMP as the collector, then it could also do the newer UBNT devices. Something AC2 does not do!

Anyone have any information on that ?

[dnicholl]

Very glad to see this discussion.

My team has been working on an API for Ubiquiti AirMAX gear, for a custom application involving special automation of the AirMAX devices (automatic provisioning, configuration management, reporting, etc.). Our application is designed around dynamically changing the configuration of AP and Station to maximize total system throughput for backhaul situations (prioritizing total system throughput over individual availability). That said, the 'business logic' is contained in a separate module, and our intention is that modules could be developed to support different use cases.

I was initially disheartened when I saw Ubiquiti's announcement of AirCRM Control, but was re-invigorated when I saw that:
- It is cloud only
- There is no (evident) plan to release an API
- Available configuration parameters seem very 'light'
- There is basically zero chance of Ubiquiti incorporating support for non-Ubiquiti gear

If you are interested in working with us on developing this product, have a deployment scenario you'd like us to consider, or would like to know more, please contact me.

We're not there yet, but we're willing to share detail about our progress, and possibly incorporate your requirements for the right partner.

please use the contact us form at the bottom of objective.works if you are interested.