Aruba, Meru or Ruckus

[manick]

HI all,

 

I am after your thoughts. Our principal is pushing for a complete overall of our wireless network (installed on ad-hoc basis and not now fit for purpose). I am considering Meru (am impressed with what I've seen so far), Ruckus and Aruba.

 

We are a school with 1600 users total (staff and students).

We will be wanting to get to as close as 100% coverage as we can get (about 90 classrooms, coverage of sports field and courtyard), the builidng is around a courtyard (almost hexagonal shape).

We will be wanting to allow students to use their own handheld devices (netbooks, smartphones, laptops), we will want this to somehow be managed by the wireless so that it only allows them access to the internet and they won't be able to touch the network.

Also it will allow the schools own equipment, netbooks, laptops etc, to connect to the network (using the same access points).

We need the equipment to be able to deal with high user density.

We will be ensuring that all of our switches are 1gb to be able to cope with the traffic.

 

That's all I can think of at the moment, with this in mind, what are people's thoughts, what do people have installed (of these 3) at the moment and what are the pros and cons of each, what problems could you foresee with my requirements?

 

Cheers

 

Manick

[featured_spectre]

After upsetting Meru and Aruba...I say Ruckus. They did not like my report one bit, but it was as brutally honest as it could be!! Speak to Net Ctrl or CP-Ltd for ruckus quotes

[zag]

We had a complete new install of Aruba about a year and a half ago.

 

I can safely say it is by far the best investment we have made in school ICT.

 

I've literally not touched it since the install and it simply works, at full speed with no problems. Full N signal in every area of the school. Its awesome

 

I trialed Meru and Aruba but preferred the aruba interface and it had some great reviews on here.

 

As you have already mentioned make sure your switches are gigabit if you want "n" wireless.

 

Cost about 20k for 32 AP's installed and setup with all networking and POE included.

 

EDIT: yes you can setup Different rules for different devices.

Edited January 20, 2011 by zag

[Domino]

Get loan equipment in and test it as much as possible.

 

If they won't give you loan equipment, they obviously don't have much faith in it ;-)

 

Personally I've found the Ruckus kit to provide unrivalled performance, at a great price. Install, configure and forget is probably the best endorsement I could give it.

[Aggy]

 

Please don't post commecially in another sponsors forum Aggy.

Edited January 20, 2011 by Dos_Box

[AyatollahPies]

After upsetting Meru and Aruba...I say Ruckus. They did not like my report one bit, but it was as brutally honest as it could be!! Speak to Net Ctrl or CP-Ltd for ruckus quotes

 

+1 to what this man said.

[featured_spectre]

http://www.edugeek.net/attachments/forums/our-advertisers/5664d1265542186-ruckus-quote-please-wireless-research.docx Took a while to find...read that before doing any decision!

[manick]

Made interesting reading Nephilim, is that your report?

[plexer]

Interesting to read and as I'm not sure of what HP kit you had I cannot be 100% but in my experience of HP wireless the statement about only one AP per switch is tosh.

 

Ben

[Theblacksheep]

Interesting to read and as I'm not sure of what HP kit you had I cannot be 100% but in my experience of HP wireless the statement about only one AP per switch is tosh.

 

Ben

 

We have HP, its managed by a central unit on a blade switch, more than one AP per switch and this can be linked to procurve manager (with wirelss add ons). Bit crappy tho.

[nicholab]

I believe to manage some system properly you need management system which can cost up to £7,000 on top of the hardware. That is the case with are £65,000 HP system which does not work a 100% due to not having this system.

[featured_spectre]

Yes that is my report, but bare in mind it is nearly 3 years old now!!!

 

Just remember that yes the technologies have advanced, however they have advanced the same for each company

[Domino]

I believe to manage some system properly you need management system which can cost up to £7,000 on top of the hardware.

 

buh? Like whose? Even a CIsco WCS licence for 50 units won't run you that much...

[nicholab]

I believe Ruckus is the best for one factor wireless connectivitiy not authentication, management system and being part of your enterprise strategy.

[localzuk]

I'm another advocate of Ruckus. We covered our entire site with 11 APs, when a site survey for Aruba recommended 20+. Speed is superb, manageability is excellent. It has the ability to have different SSIDs, each with different rules etc... So I think it is ideal for what you want really.

[GrumbleDook]

The other thing I would recommend that you do when speaking with each company / supplier is to ensure that you get real world examples of usage for both technical and educational requirements. If you are wanting learners to bring their own technology then you might need to look at what ports you have open, how you will be able to weight school traffic ahead of 'user' traffic (unless you want all your VIth formers watch Top Gear during independent study time or leeching the latest films, resulting in virtually no access for the rest of the school to online resources!), how you will help teachers make the most of learners having their own kit (eg no flash stuff in case some have iPads / iPod Touches, different screen sizes and resolutions, some sites responding differently between regular and mobile versions, etc) and so on.

 

Also, will you be allowing learners access to school hosted resources? will this be files via webdav shares? remote desktop / terminal server solutions, etc? How will the networks be segregated? Different SSIDs going to different VLANs? Physically separate network? Some suppliers will demo kit to you using *their* kit ... ie their laptops, etc. Don't let them. Make sure you have a full range of devices (ask the kids to bring things in) to test with. Don't get bogged down by "time to log onto the network" when most improvements on this centre around profiles and GPOs being applied. Next week I am meeting with a company to get commissioned a summary of all the case studies and research on this area. it will be available under CC so I'll share on here (available mid-March).

[plexer]

I believe to manage some system properly you need management system which can cost up to £7,000 on top of the hardware. That is the case with are £65,000 HP system which does not work a 100% due to not having this system.

 

You have £65,000 worth of HP wireless installed and it's not managed? that doesn;t sound right to me. What system is it?

 

Ben

[nicholab]

It has a msm 760 controller with 422APs but apparently for the monitoring of the wireless environment you need some extra bits.

[plexer]

Ah see now monitoring of the wireless environment is comepletely different to centralised managed of the ap's which is what any controller solution gives you including the 760.

 

Ben

[mhowell]

Hi Manick,

Mark from Meru here. We'd be very happy to loan you some equipment so you can prove that what you're looking to do is achievable with Meru. Meru have many examples of schools achieving what you're looking to do already, and I'd be happy to supply local references privately.

Look forward to hearing from you.

[MatthewL]

Aruba here, we have it at some 50 sites and a few hundred access points now, solid as a rock cannot fault it.

[Perins]

Having trouble downloading your Ruckus document - any ideas or can you send direct?

[manick]

OK so far have had Ruckus, Aruba and Meru in (and Xirrus next week) they all have something to offer, however I'm looking for real world examples of people who have installed any of these technologies who have a high density of users. We are looking at around 85 classrooms with potentially 25-30 devices in half of the rooms at any one time room as an example. Is there anybodyon here who has this high level of wireless usage and is finding their solution does or doesn't work for whatever reason?

 

Many thanks

 

Manick

[zag]

All the systems should handle that fine. I can only speak for aruba but I've had 30 laptops running on one AP in a classroom day in day out for the last 2 years.

 

Certainly no problems with bandwidth like our old netgear "G" AP's

[broc]

A properly designed (& correctly installed) managed wireless network can meet your requirements.

 

Insist that potential suppliers provide you with reference sites that meet your criteria; numbers & types of devices in use are a good starting point.

 

Then visit the sites and see the wireless network in action. Loan equipment is fine in theory, but you will never be able to simulate a full size solution.

 

Consider what wireless technology your client devices are using too, and how well the vendors support their wireless equipment with drivers & updates. Having worked with Cisco, 3Com and Meru managed solutions I have found that devices with Intel wireless chipsets seem to be more reliable than other vendors. Getting the right drivers and settings can make or break wireless networks.