Which wireless for BYOD?

[san_narula]

This is sound advice, and infact if you get a basic switch that can be managed you can do an active survey with the Meraki AP when not connected to the cloud controller. I have just completed a survey today in this way and it worked very well.

 

Can you please explain what do you mean by active survey?

[san_narula]

Please don't take this the wrong way, and I realise you might be well aware of this, but you keep talking about being hardware being "prepared for BYOD" and "BYOD ready" and I'd be careful with that term. You need to define with the people who are asking you to make this happen what exactly you're both talking about when you talk about "BYOD ready".

 

 

I agree with you. There are no set standards atm for a BYOD ready networking device. But I believe in general most BYOD ready devices give you better tools to control access and also have application and device level filtering. Correct me if I am wrong.

[Roberto]

The point is that just about every sales person will tell you that their wireless access points, internet filtering, vpn or other networking product is "BYOD ready". That phrase is a buzzword we can use with non-technical managers but it's got no place in a technical discussion of what products to buy to ensure your new system works how you want.

 

If you're expecting application and device level filtering you need to carefully specify not only that you want these items, but how you expect them to work. If its unacceptable to you that your wireless users mightneed to authenticate to connect to your wireless infrastructure then once again to access the internet then you need to design a solution and then specify appropriate tools that won't leave you in that position.

[geezersoft]

Active survey with Meraki AP, when connected to a switch and given an ip address from dhcp server does not need to see the internet or the rest of the network. So you can set up an AP in any possible location and then measure the signal and data rate in locations surrounding the AP. Relocate the AP to the next location with sufficient signal overlap and repeat until the survey is complete. Does that help?

[seawolf]

@san_narula - I recommend using a Ruckus WiFi system as it is very good value, easy to configure, and manage, has great performance, and good BYOD features. For BYOD though, I find that the capabilities of your Web Filter are much more important than those of the WiFi system.

 

Also, I would recommend that you run some new CAT6a FTP (foiled twisted pair) to your WiFi APs rather than using existing CAT5 cabling. Otherwise, the total throughput of each AP will be limited at 100Mb and then that is going to be split to multiple clients. I would also recommend bringing all of your APs back to a single CAT6 patch panel as that will make it easier to manage/identify your points and add additional ones later (and your current patch panels are probably CAT5 as well, which won't work). I recommend FTP as it is easier to run than standard CAT6 and is also shielded eliminating crosstalk and interference.

[wifispray]

The best option is Aerohive, closely followed by Meraki... From the testing I have done (for ease of deployment)....

[san_narula]

@san_narula - I recommend using a Ruckus WiFi system as it is very good value, easy to configure, and manage, has great performance, and good BYOD features. For BYOD though, I find that the capabilities of your Web Filter are much more important than those of the WiFi system.

 

Also, I would recommend that you run some new CAT6a FTP (foiled twisted pair) to your WiFi APs rather than using existing CAT5 cabling. Otherwise, the total throughput of each AP will be limited at 100Mb and then that is going to be split to multiple clients. I would also recommend bringing all of your APs back to a single CAT6 patch panel as that will make it easier to manage/identify your points and add additional ones later (and your current patch panels are probably CAT5 as well, which won't work). I recommend FTP as it is easier to run than standard CAT6 and is also shielded eliminating crosstalk and interference.

 

I have been given a free Aerohive AC AP so I am trialing that atm. Next on the list are Sophos and Ruckus. What did you look for when you evaluated them before purchasing? Most of them only provide it for about 4 weeks trial which can be extended but I find that is not enough time to find out if it will work well in your environment. I am waiting for AC to mature as most vendors are giving them at the same price as N. I have just bought a new UTM keeping BYOD in mind so managing the filtering is not a problem anymore.

 

I would like to do as you suggest regarding cabling but I have to use whatever is available due to limited budget. I should be able to get gigabit speeds in high density areas though as it was cabled less than 4 years ago.

[Oaktech]

Too much emphasis on the Wifi system rather than the BYOD management.

 

Before choosing a wifi vendor make sure that your underlying infrastructure is ready to support BYOD scenarios. Almost any Wifi vendors AP will bridge your client to your wired infrastructure you can do that for £50 or less but once connected how do you steer them through the minefield of Authentication, Subnets, Proxies, Firewalls and Filters...

 

You can spend 30k on a wifi system and still not be able to deliver BYOD as the rest of your network is ill prepared for it.

 

We are seeing an upsurge of MDM Solutions being pushed as a post wifi install solution to these issues as after spending $$$$'s getting BYOD client on line they find they have nothing to control them with !

Look at the whole project not just the Wifi element and of course, I will second the Unifi option as a radio source.

 

^^ This.

[san_narula]

The best option is Aerohive, closely followed by Meraki... From the testing I have done (for ease of deployment)....

 

I agree with you about Meraki as I trialed it last year though I could not test it in production environment. But ease of deployment is not the only thing to consider. I have read in a professional review that Meraki hardware is nowhere as good as Cisco, Ruckus or Aerohive. It actually scored lowest in most of the tests(iirc). I have also found the pricing for Meraki to be too high and same for Aerohive but the later is much more flexible when it comes to configuration.

[Mr_Jiminy]

I agree with you about Meraki as I trialed it last year though I could not test it in production environment. But ease of deployment is not the only thing to consider. I have read in a professional review that Meraki hardware is nowhere as good as Cisco, Ruckus or Aerohive. It actually scored lowest in most of the tests(iirc). I have also found the pricing for Meraki to be too high and same for Aerohive but the later is much more flexible when it comes to configuration.

 

I second the above, I used to rate/ supply Meraki based on the MX SA's, however after experience of wishy washy after sales, we're now staying well clear.

[Marshall_IT]

Is say Ruckus or Aerohive, i use Ruckus but would be very tempted by Aerohive if i were to be installing from new now.

[synaesthesia]

For a small site I would agree with the UniFi recommendations. The money saved (which depending on the size of site, who's installing etc) will typically be at least £2k and could easily be a lot more. You could use that to make sure the infrastructure behind it is better suited. I question the requirements of going to a fully managed system - as good as Ruckus, Meraki etc are, are they really £saved better? IMO, no. There is no question of reputation either. Go for the pro's and you'll have damn near the same feature set, be nice and future-proof (as you ever can be with wireless), fully scalable and extremely flexible.

 

I have 3 systems I look after, our main installation in a secondary looks after guest and full wireless, and have the option to make use of vlans if we need (on the standard APs). My newest is a primary with guest and protected wireless, no vlans, but local networks are protected so guest users can't access anything in school. So easy to set up a monkey can do it. (Which is just as well with me holding the screwdriver!)

[Mr_Jiminy]

@san_narula I would also recommend bringing all of your APs back to a single CAT6 patch panel as that will make it easier to manage/identify your points and add additional ones later

 

Couldn't agree more with this... I've witnessed lots of messy installs by 'wireless specialists', mainly in education new builds. The mess coming after a lack of communication between the electricians and WS, resulting in patches for the WAP's being dotted all over the cabinet. Okay, so colour coordinated leads can be used, however the end result always looks untidy and takes longer to troubleshoot.

[Jobos]

Go for the pro's and you'll have damn near the same feature set, be nice and future-proof (as you ever can be with wireless), fully scalable and extremely flexible.

 

I've been looking at installing a new Ruckus system but UniFi seems to be half the price of Ruckus so I'm liking it more and more. The UAP-PRO is only slightly cheaper than the UAP-AC but UAP-AC has higher throughput in the 5GHz band. Can I ask why you recommended the PRO version over AC?

 

Ubiquiti Networks - UniFi® AP

[wifispray]

The best overall solution on the market for BYOD and Wi-Fi is Aerohive. With Aerohive you can create unto 10k private pre shared keys (Private PSK) per AP which makes guest/BYOD management very easy. You can then assign a user profile to each of the different user types (i.e. BYOD/Guest etc). As each AP has a layer 3-7 firewall built in it means that you can have a mixture of clients on the same SSID and segregate nicely. You then get a good view of all the applications running on the network as the firewall is able to see the different applications.

 

As recommend LAN3 are a good supplier in the UK that have come highly recommend before.

[NotSoFast]

We are delighted with Unifi but our needs are pretty simple. It has coped very happily with our 40 Chromebooks but we don't use byod at the moment.

[Roberto]

We've had good results with Aruba. It's not cheap, but we've implemented clearpass for BYOD management and been really impressed with it.

 

I can only echo the other comments about device management at least as important as the APs when trying to implement BYOD properly. APs are only the beginning of the story of a properly implemented wireless network, and while it's a part you need to get right, in many ways it's the least difficult part to get right.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Roberto