Wireless Network - Which Vendor?

[chrisgoodrich]

Hi,

We currently have a Netgear Managed Wireless solution in our school which is not fit for purpose. Currently when 30 laptops are in use in one classroom in can take upto 15 or 20 minutes for them to login with a 3MB mandatory profile.

We are looking into alternative systems mainly Meru, Xirrus, Ruckus and Trapeze. What are your experiences with these products like? Will they manage high density quick enough? What would you recommend?

Thansk

Chris

[glennda]

There are many people on here who use ruckus (its probably the one i would go for but i'm stuck with a cisco system!) Contact Net-Ctrl on here they sell the stuff.

[CPLTD]

I'll drop you a PM and arrange to get a demo kit out to you- lets face it until you see it within your school and with your users its a bit of a minefield of marketing claims and stylised demonstrations.

Thanks,

Mark

[Steven_Cleaver]

I would also be tempted to look at Aruba used this at my last place and it was an excellent system with some really useful features, that I felt made it the best of the few systems I looked at including Netegear, HP, Meru, Xirrus, also as someone has mentioned Ruckus which a lot of people on the forum seem more than happy with but deffinately look at Aruba as an alternative.

[jamesfed]

Take a look at the Aerohive kit as well - worked out best for us because at the time it was one of the few Wi-Fi solutions that didn't need a controler to work (although you do still have one to perform updates and so on).
Works great with 802.1x (if thats what you are into) and coverage from their N class APs are great.

[Soulfish]

We're just looking at site coverage for a new build and we're talking to Ruckus, Aerohive, Meru and Extricom. I think all four have things they bring to the table, and all have their pros and cons. I think Aerohive have a very innovative product, being fairly new to market that looks like it works quite well. Ruckus I've used previously and is good value and has some features, while Meru and Extricom are both single channel architectures with their set of benefits. In some ways I do believe any of the four would work, some better than others, but it's trying to find the best fit for your environment which can only really be done with some real world testing.

[MatthewL]

We use Aruba and cannot fault it. Picking up some more AP's from the office tomorrow for networks to install, so simple to do and solid as a sock.

[MicrodigitUK]

Aruba is good but it has very similar problems to the Netgear system and that is all traffic has to tunnel back to the controller before it drops onto the network. And in dence environments this can be a big botal neck. P.s your netgear switch is just a rebranded Aruba 800 controller so on the plus side you would be at home with the GUI. Also you can evan load Aruba OS onto the netgear and manage Aruba ap's but not the new 802.11n ones.

[witch]

.......and solid as a sock.

When did you last do some washing!

[MatthewL]

Ooops lol, about 3 weeks ago I used the washer, first time I've managed it on my own LOL

[steveg]

Are you sure there is not interference or another problem with your existing network? 30 lots of 3mb doesnt sound like a lot to me, even when you factor in all the other data transfered during a logon. Whilst we don't have roaming profiles here, we do happily hang 30 netbooks off of one netgear ap on a managed system, and all access files off the network, go on the internet and print with very few problems. I know the netgear kit wont scale brilliantly, and the stuff like Ruckus is in a different league (got it at 2 schools) but you should be getting better performance from the netgear ap's than you currently are. Where I have the netear kit is only a small village primary School, but it copes with the 80 netbooks they have accross 6 classrooms.

Steve

[pantscat]

I looked at LOADS of vendors when I was buying my wireless system - I think the initial line up was HP, Motorola, Ruckus, Aruba, Meru, Xirrus and Cisco. Then through testing/product demos and discussions I narrowed it down to Motorola, Cisco, Aruba and Ruckus... then down to just Aruba and Ruckus.

In the end the Ruckus system "won" due to it's simplicity and slightly better coverage on my site here*. Cost-wise the two solutions were pretty similar, Ruckus being only slightly cheaper in the end.


* NB - Your mileage may vary... etc.

[WithoutMotive]

We've recently gone for (almost) full school coverage with a Meru system. A few problems but, overall, a good system and easy to manage.

[chrisgoodrich]

We've recently gone for (almost) full school coverage with a Meru system. A few problems but, overall, a good system and easy to manage.

Thank you all for our feedback.

How do your wireless systems cope with 30 + laptops logging on at the same time, how long does it take? What is the size of your roaming/mandatory profile?

[GrumbleDook]

One of the thing that amuses me in demonstrations from some wireless providers is how they will forget to mention that how you run your profiles and scripts can make more of a difference to login / logoff times ... they will say their product will fix slow speeds for you, but the network might not be where the problem lies. That is why it is often best to get test kit in for a few days and do your comparisons.