Hello Alta Labs Team,
First, I want to express my appreciation for the impressive work your team has done. The controller interface and access point performance reflect a high level of thoughtfulness, and I can see the potential for Alta Labs to become a serious contender in the prosumer small business and enterprise network space.
As I’ve continued testing your platform, one critical area has stood out that I believe needs attention for Alta Labs to scale effectively into larger or multi-site deployments: the presence of administrative logs and long-term historical performance data.
Administrative Logs
From a network management and operational accountability standpoint, not knowing who made a change, when it was made, or what was changed poses a significant risk. In production environments—particularly those with multiple administrators or MSP-level responsibilities—this becomes a core concern.
Whether due to a well-meaning technician making a mistake or a bad actor lying in wait, an undocumented change can compromise an entire site. Without audit logs that capture administrator logins, configuration edits, and site-level modifications, there’s no reliable way to enforce accountability or to trace the root cause of critical failures.
At present, this absence makes it difficult to confidently recommend Alta Labs even in prosumer or small business environments. Without basic administrative visibility, the platform leans closer to hobbyist or enthusiast-level home networking gear rather than a professional or semi-professional solution.
Historical Performance Data
Equally important is the lack of persistent historical data for both device and client performance. In real-world deployments, this kind of data is essential for:
- Identifying performance degradation over time
- Pinpointing recurring issues tied to specific APs, clients, or time periods
- Validating user complaints or operational slowdowns with quantifiable metrics
- Planning hardware upgrades based on real usage trends
- Providing client-facing reports showing reliability, uptime, and throughput
Currently, real-time views or short-term data snapshots are insufficient for deep analysis or trend reporting. Without long-term insight, support teams are left with guesswork instead of diagnostics—an issue that becomes more problematic as site count and network complexity increase.
Acknowledgment of Strengths
That said, I want to be clear: Alta Labs does have real selling points, and even without logging, there are features that make a compelling case for clients—particularly in smaller environments or pilot projects. Notable examples include:
- AltaPass for streamlined access management
- On-prem controller options for offline operation or added privacy
- Passpoint support, (including OpenRoaming and XNET integration) help strengthen its appeal.
These features absolutely help bridge the gap when introducing Alta Labs to clients, and in some cases, they can be enough to win the trust needed to move forward.
However, when deploying into small business or enterprise-level environments, there is a higher baseline of expectation—especially around management transparency and accountability. As MSPs, we are responsible for delivering not just performance, but traceability, reporting, and compliance. That makes administrative logs and historical data not just useful—but critical.
I share this feedback with full respect for the direction Alta Labs is taking. It’s clear the platform is built by people who care about design, usability, and innovation. I’ve already been impressed with how responsive your team is, and I trust that this level of transparency and collaboration will only strengthen the product over time.
Thank you again for your time and your continued work in advancing this platform.
To sum up the requested changes, they are as follows:
Administrative Logging:- Track who made changes, when, and what was changed.
- Include logs of user logins, configuration edits, and site modifications.
- Enable accountability and traceability in multi-admin or MSP environments.
Long-Term Historical Performance Data:- Retain device and client metrics over time.
- Support trend analysis and issue correlation (e.g., recurring dropouts, AP underperformance).
- Allow generation of client-facing reliability and usage reports.
- Aid in capacity planning and hardware upgrade decisions.