Ruckus, Aruba or Meru

[LukeC]

sorry miss read your post

Millgate

[stef]

We've had a Meru wireless network in for the last 18 months which is working well. Got 150+ APs (AP320s) load balanced across two MC4100s. Supporting 1000 or so devices. Using E(z)RF to monitor which is a nice piece of kit also.
Feel free to get in touch if you want any more info. Bolton way if you fancy a visit.

[LukeC]

stef

Thanks stef it would be interesting to see but we have a few suppliers visiting at first, so it would prob be after xmas if we get authorisation by our school. How much were each access point if you dont mind divulging that info.

[stef]

Sorry I've no idea. I wasn't in on the pricing of the solution.

[armadillo]

Hi, we use 802.11B/G wireless (32 APs in total) and mostly Buffalo APs, not managed and just stand alone. We also have a couple of US Rrobotics, three HP Procurve and four Level Ones. Now I need to add wireless coverage onto a new building in the shcool (big secondary with one main building block and 7 other building around it) and I was wandering if it’s worth spending more and get a managed and centralised solution, like you guys, and cover the whole school.

Now the question is, would the existing APs work with a managed solution and how easy is it to mix and match?

Thanks in advance for your answers and help.

[glennda]

Now the question is, would the existing APs work with a managed solution and how easy is it to mix and match?

Most probably not, Most wireless vendors tend to work in slightly different ways, some are managed controller, some aren't. I use a Cisco system here which i inherited, unfortunately it was never designed properly so laptops never took off here, and where therefore dropped in favour of hard wired desktops.

[morganw]

Ruckus for my choice and a good number of edugeek users as it just seems to work and is reliable. The channel "issue" that nephilm mentioned shouldn;t be an issue as the controller handles those "issues" and in our place where some APs can see each other I have not seen any issues at all things just work fine and look after themselves.

I had a Ruckus system at my last job. In my experience the automatic channel and power setting doesn't work if you have a high density of APs. Every AP would change it's channel, power, or both every 10 minutes which would disconnect client devices and generally make everything perform poorly (if at all). In the end the only advice given to me by the reseller (who was also handling support in this instance) was to manually set the channel and power on every device which made me question whether the system was worth the money, in my opinion it wasn't. In my new job I've encountered another school with similar issues with Ruckus equipment constantly changing channel.

Personally I would look at Meru to get everything on one channel - even if it costs more.

[Chris_Cook]

If you are using wireless on that scale, then a managed solution is almost certainly going to be better. You could install a managed system in the new building, with a long term plan to replace the older aps at a later date. You would want to get a controller that can cope with/is licensed for all the aps you might replace in the future. The existing APs would just work as they are now, ie unmanaged, but if you used the same encryption, ssid and code then I think the laptops should work on both systems with out any change.

I think most resellers will do an on site demo, which is well worth doing.

[bossman]

I've actually been looking at both the Xirrus and Aerohive solutions as both these systems use intelligent AP's rather than relying on VLAN's configured on backbone switch gear. They also don't use a controller server unit which can be part of the bottleneck on the network, they both have layer 3 routing and switching built in and the Xirrus has interchangeable wireless cells which can run dual frequency 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz.

@Soulfish has Aerohive in alongside another solution which I forget now, I am sure he will come along soon and give us the low-down.

Have had Meru and Ruckus resellers on the phone and will surely give them a chance to show me how they can perform for our school.

[nephilim]

Bossman, I will dig out my report format if you like, you can write up a report for us lol

[bossman]

Bossman, I will dig out my report format if you like, you can write up a report for us lol

When the school goes Academy next February I will have a better idea of which system I will use and yes I will write up a report for you if you so require no problem

If you didn't live so far away you could have had a position with us, replacing @webman is not going to be easy!

Anyway good luck with your interviews and have a great Christmas with the family

[Soulfish]

I've actually been looking at both the Xirrus and Aerohive solutions as both these systems use intelligent AP's rather than relying on VLAN's configured on backbone switch gear. They also don't use a controller server unit which can be part of the bottleneck on the network, they both have layer 3 routing and switching built in and the Xirrus has interchangeable wireless cells which can run dual frequency 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz.

@Soulfish has Aerohive in alongside another solution which I forget now, I am sure he will come along soon and give us the low-down.

Have had Meru and Ruckus resellers on the phone and will surely give them a chance to show me how they can perform for our school.

We looked at Meru, Ruckus, Aruba, Aerohive, Cisco, Xirrus and Extricom before finally settling on Aerohive as our chosen solution. Their technology just seemed to click with me, and the performance has been great. We planned our deployment based on around 2-3000 simultaneous wireless devices within a very small area (central london school!). Currently we have a constant 100 devices connected without any issues.

[StuartWhite]

Morganw: More than likely an old code bug. This is not by design.

Ruckus have announced ChannelFly - Uses smart technology to choose the channel with the most repeatability and capacity as opposed to most other vendors approaches
Channel Changing Done Right - The Ruckus Room

If you examine the roots of each company you will see their strengths.

Aruba is the leader in wired security integration with Wi-Fi. Now, most would say that Aruba is the leader in Wi-Fi security but there is something to consider there; all Wi-Fi security is the same. It's been standardized since 2004 with 802.11i and all of us can only use the authentication and encryption that has been given to us by the IEEE and the Wi-Fi Alliance.

They offer a very strong firewall in their controller.

Ruckus's strength is in it's RF technology, also their roots. Better Signal is just the tip of the iceberg in what Ruckus's antenna technology will provide. In short, fewer APs, less co-channel interference and increased radio capacity.

Tom's hardware recently did an extensive article comparing Aruba, Ruckus, Cisco, Meraki and HP. They put the 7363 (Ruckus mid-entry AP) against the top end of the other vendors. While Ruckus didn't win every test, we were very pleased with the results.

Why Your Wi-Fi Sucks And How It Can Be Helped, Part 1 - Please Power Down

Meru is the leader in SCA, since no other vendor has really taken it on…Or as moved away from it. And there is a good reason for it.

In theory it works very well; zero hand off times for client, increased capacity from entire spectrum.
Things to consider here (especially in the 2.4GHz): Is there any capacity on the channel?

Only 3 non overlapping channels on the 2.4GHz makes it very difficult to avoid interference (802.11 or non 802.11).
If all APs are on the same channel and building 1 faces heavy interference on channel 1 then all APs need to change to continue with the SCA..
Well they have two choices, go to 6 or 11..You are probably not going to fix things..RF is an ever changing environment and the best approach is to tackle it at the PHY layer with dynamic RF beams.

[Wes]

hmmmm single channel. Meru has been doing this for quite a few years now, Extricom is the only other that uses single channel. I would question why no-one else has copied this. Usually when a wifi compnay brings through an innovation, it becomes adopted by the community pretty quickly. And do we really need to solve the roaming problem? It was solved in IEE 802.11r - solved as a standard. Meru is offering a proprietary solution to a non problem.
Also, WAPs using the same channel can either listen or talk - so if each WAP that can hear 10 other WAPs, then only 1 in 10 of the APs is doing anything at any one time. In 2.4Ghz this isn't so bas as there are only 3 useable channels anyhow, in 5Ghz however with 19 non overlapping channels, cell based technologies can give you more bandwidth than single channel.

[biggjb]

Hi Luke C,

In my experience of supporting both Meru and Ruckus, Meru is better for the future. If you are using a small amount of clients then ruckus is fine. However if you are planning for the future then Meru is the way forward. Not only can it cope with client density but if you need to extend your wireless network then due to the single cell technology it really is as simple as adding another AP (subject to the controller licencing) I am based in the North west and have a primary school in preston who has Meru. Please feel free to PM me for further details on how I can help