UniFi - How good is it?

[jamin100]

Im looking to replace my wireless infrastructure soon. We currently have a 4+ year old Ruckus network with around 30 AP's. This is starting to creak a bit.

We use VDI here so 75% of the wireless clients connect back to a hyper-v desktop and run the desktop from there. So demand is quite high.

 

The UniFi suppliers are stating that its as good as Ruckus / meraki etc at a fraction of the cost.

The Ruckus suppliers are slating it as cheap rubbish...

 

So which is it?

 

I have a few unifi AP's coming to test but thought id ask people on here who are using it what their opinions are . .

[MattDLEA]

Got my 3 AP's this morning so trying to test them out today

[IrritableTech]

I've put in unifi systems from 17 UAP-Pros in a larger primary school to a 2 UAP-Standard system in my own home. Bang for buck I think unifi are fantastic. In my high school, I have a 25 AP ruckus install.

 

However, it isn't a system that is a polished or as feature rich as the big names.

 

If you are doing much of your client control and security via a radius server - you should be able to do most of it on unifi. If you are using the advanced features of your ruckus controller you may find features are lacking on the unifi controller.

 

As for throughput - I've never been able to run a fair stress test within the different environments - I think day to day the Unifi UAP-Pros and the ZF7363's probably offer a similar connection, but I don't run VDI over either of them.

 

I know there are some Ruckus trade in deals going at the moment, have a look around the forums.

[Net-Ctrl]

hi @jamin100 as Irratable tech says there are some great Ruckus education bundles at the moment. Looking at what you currently have the bundle that fits is the Ruckus ZoneFlex 7372 Bundle 2 which gets you:

• 25 x ZoneFlex 7372 Access Points

• 1 x ZoneDirector 3050 Controller – Support up to 50 Access Points

• 5 Years Partner Watchdog Support

 

Price: £11,677.00

 

Make sure you mention this bundle to your current Ruckus supplier, if you don't have one please feel free to send me a PM and i can get one of the sales guys to ping some bits over.

 

From the feedback I have seen on here Unifi seems to do a good job with wireless, it's not a solution I know a great deal about personally though. I have seen on a lot of the third party testing documents that they have said they tend to not handle a great deal of traffic very well. If it was of interest I can send these through to you to have a read of.

[m25man]

 

The UniFi suppliers are stating that its as good as Ruckus / meraki etc at a fraction of the cost.

The Ruckus suppliers are slating it as cheap rubbish...

 

So which is it?

 

I have a few unifi AP's coming to test but thought id ask people on here who are using it what their opinions are . .

 

Ruckus suppliers will always say that as there is no profit to be made selling Unifi boxes.

Ruckus has nice profit margins and potential for upgrade sales and ongoing licensing fees.

 

Unifi works for most peoples needs but expect to have to do some work and make a few compromises, you cannot expect Unifi to do exactly the same as another system 5 times the price and that's all there is to it.

 

In much the same way do not expect a standard Unifi AP to work the same as a dual band .AC Unifi !

 

Unifi scales according to your needs and the controller needs to match, 10-20 APs will run quite happily on a shared box but when you start looking at hundreds of points and 1000s of users you need to assign some decent hardware to the job.

So it's not an entirely costless controller solution and this often gets overlooked when comparing solutions.

 

If they were "Cheap Rubbish" why are their radios everywhere above your heads strapped to lamp posts and masts providing back-haul P2P traffic for almost every Council, Police and Private systems for CCTV, Parking Meters, ANPR, WiFi bridges and hundreds of other Ethernet solutions?

 

Most of the brains behind the kit are ex Motorola, with the kit designed in California and made in China.

 

I guess that as Apple use a similar process they must be rubbish as well!

 

Buy one try it, if it doesn't do it for you spend your money on the expensive solution. You have very little to loose.

[Haptic]

I would try both solutions as a demo with the latest AP for each and decide yourself - we may be salesman but at the end of the day it never makes sense for us to sell you equipment that you don't like or you are going to have constant issues with. After all, we have to support it. It never makes for good or repeat business if we all take that approach in my opinion.

 

Hope it helps

 

 

Chris

[synaesthesia]

I would be inclined to suggest the latest and greatest Ruckus for big installs (1:1 use, massive BYOD etc) however we're extremely happy with our Unifi setup to the point we are awaiting delivery of more points to cover the entire site. VFM is absolutely awesome, because the cost of each point is pretty much what you'd pay for a midrange standalone AP (consumer grade). Reliable, quick, functional, does everything we need including captive portal, guest wifi, vlan handling etc.

[jamin100]

Thanks - Got an AP to test this morning so have just put it in. Will try and evaluate how it copes next week once the students are back. @MattDLEA how are yours working for you?

[jamin100]

just for some more info, our daily throughput on our 30 AP RUCKUS install is around 70-100GB a day. We don't do BYOD and cant see it any time in the future either. Anyone know any suppliers that would let me try a RUCKUS 7372 to compare?

[MattDLEA]

@jamin100

We have 3 AP and they seam to work OK so we ordered another 6 which I'm planning on putting in tomorrow.

Hell of a lot cheeper than RUCKUS , MURU , etc that want £1million per AP then a years recurring licence

[Net-Ctrl]

@jamin100 i will speak to our sales team to see if they have some available for you if you like?

 

We have a few 7372 that we are able to lend to people to test, but it just depends if we have one spare.

[jamin100]

@jamin100 i will speak to our sales team to see if they have some available for you if you like?

 

We have a few 7372 that we are able to lend to people to test, but it just depends if we have one spare.

 

That would be great thanks

[Net-Ctrl]

Morning @jamin100 i have just spoken with Mark and Aggy in the sales team and they have got some 7372's available.

 

If you could send me a PM with the number you would like to borrow and some contact details and i will get one of them to phone/email you, whichever you prefer, to arrange the shipment.

[jamin100]

just to drag this thread up again.

we re testing both Ruckus and Unifi at the moment and im impressed with both.

 

few limitations with the unifi such as only allowing 4 SSID's but that could be a good thing in a way.

Ive ordered 6 unifi AP's as there cheap enough to buy to test properly. If however they continue to work as they are now then I can see us moving to UNIFI over the whole site.

 

Anyone else testing them?

[Tricky_Dicky]

Quick question about the Unifi stuff. Does the server software have to be constantly connected or is it just used for setup? I'm just thinking at home, if I had a couple of AP's, do I need a server running or can I set it up with a laptop running the software and then leave it to it?

[Jamman960]

for general use the controller can be turned off but it would be needed for guest access to continue funtioning

[IrritableTech]

Quick question about the Unifi stuff. Does the server software have to be constantly connected or is it just used for setup? I'm just thinking at home, if I had a couple of AP's, do I need a server running or can I set it up with a laptop running the software and then leave it to it?

 

As @Jamman960 says you only need the controller to set up and for a guest portal. I have three unifi's at home now, run the windows software on my laptop if I want to update something - which is rare.

@jamin100 - It's worth mentioning that the ruckus kit can only run 8 SSID's per access point, although that is twice as much as the unifi.

[TronXP]

We currently have 38 and we are doing our trial BYOD with them. Overall we are happy with them, with few issues. We are not brave enough to use the beta software in production, so we don't have the zero hand off ability on the unifi's, however this hasn't caused to much of an issue yet. If it continues the way its going at the moment we will probably be ordering another 30 units at easter time. You can't complain at the price. (We are using the PRO's).

[synaesthesia]

@Tricky_Dicky, no it only has to be there for setup and if you use it as a captive portal (guest access etc). You can turn it off and it'll still all work fine.

We're testing with good results, just rolled 12 AP's out to a primary school and it's nothing short of awesome.

[jamin100]

we have gone for the normal AP's. Is there much difference with the pro's?

[TronXP]

Pro does 2.4 and 5Ghz and normal only does 2.4

[m25man]

Its been said before, but the key differences are - Standard UAP uses a passive 24v PoE system and is not capable of being driven by a standard PoE Switch. You will need to utilise the supplied injectors.

They are Single Band and although advertised as being 300Mbps capable this is only if using 40Mhz channels which is not recommended in the crowded 2.4Ghz spectrum.

 

Apart from that they will quite happily service around 30 users per AP and are ideal for the lighter use scenarios such as Primary/Juniors. The price suits their budgets also.

 

The 24v Power issue can be solved by using the Ubiquiti Tough Switches, which is a neater solution than injectors and power leads everywhere.

 

The Ubiquiti Instant AF 48v to 24v adapters are another option if you already have 48v PoE Switches however I am still seeing overheating issues with these so have gone back to using injectors or Tough Switches instead.

[jamin100]

I'll have to look into the pros then, as 5ghz would be nice. Are they much more expensive?

I'm getting 3 normal AP's for £160

[Phildw]

I'll have to look into the pros then, as 5ghz would be nice. Are they much more expensive?

I'm getting 3 normal AP's for £160

 

Roughly 3x I think. I found a place doing 3 standard APs for £133 exc tax, and 3 Pros for £419 (Lin ITX). Found them thru the resellers section on the Ubiquiti site.

[jamin100]

@Phildw - any chance you could PM me the company info?