Hi,
We're a Sophos partner trying to rollout XGS firewalls with Sophos APX broadcasters but hit a major issue where our orders for broadcasters are grinding to a halt. the APX 530 and APX 740 are out of stock according to Sophos with NO ETA.
Nice one Sophos, you make XGS 18.5 no longer support older broadcasters, forcing customers to upgrade and then you cant even supply them or even give an ETA.
I've esculated this within Sophos but everyone is giving us "there's no ETA."
So I'm hoping posting this will raise awareness and someone with common sense at Sophos will actually realise how much of a problem this is to partners and feedback so XGS can programmed to support older broadcasters for the time being. At the moment we're sat on multiple deployments and unable to go anywhere.
Why not using Central Wireless? All Access Points are supported there. No need to use the Wireless Controller on SFOS/UTM at all.
So actually there is a solution to this approach, it is Central Wireless…
The wireless segment has been heavily impacted by the current global component shortages and all vendors are experiencing longer lead times, not only for access points but also for the Wi-Fi chips and components included in other products, such as firewalls. We expect this situation to continue to be challenging over the coming months.
In case you’re not subscribed already, our Partner Blog is a great resource to keep you up-to-date with the most relevant issues and updates. This one in particular touches on the subject: https://partnernews.sophos.com/en-us/2022/04/products/wireless-lifecycle-and-ap-series-end-of-life-planning/
Best,
I understand the shortage of chips would impact the APX range but Sophos should have been forward thinking and enabled the older AP range to work on v18.5 going forward, even if its temporary. I now have 4 deployments dead in the water because of this, potentially losing 2 of them because of the lead time. I very much doubt I'm the only partner in this position