Wifi Choice (Xirrus or Aerohive)

[waya01]

Hi,

 

I'm trying to decide between Xirrus and Aerohive for our future wireless solution after moving away from Ubiquiti.

 

We have an old Xirrus XN4 array which has worked for years without trouble so I am happy to go Xirrus, and now they do access points, there is very little between the two companies.

 

Just wondered if anyone had issues with either of the solutions and/or reasons to go with one over the other?

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

Andy

[bossman]

@waya01:

 

Aerohive for us!

[Net-Ctrl]

Hi Andy, is there a reason you're not considering Ruckus at all?

 

We have 400+ very happy Ruckus education customers. If you'd like to discuss the solution in more details, please feel free to PM me.

 

Josh

[jamesreedersmith]

Why are you moving away from Ubiquiti? Just out of interest?

[Sagima]

Xirrus was one of the providers that we tested when we were looking for school-wide managed wifi but they were not good and the resellers spent ages trying to position their APs for best coverage and configuring the controller. Not tried/used them since though so they may be better now.

Quite happy with Ruckus but if it's between the two I'd go aerohive just due to my Xirrus wifi experience of three years ago.

[foofighterjim]

Have got Aerohive here, picked it over Ruckus. Main issue with the Ruckus system was the compatibility of Zero IT with Android devices and being told that improving this was not on the roadmap. Ruckus will cover your site with fewer AP's but you have to pay extra for warranty on them, with Aerohive it was all inclusive with the standard support.

[waya01]

Hi Josh,

 

Ruckus were coming out expensive and I have very limited budget, to the point of rolling out 10 APs per year. I don't want to spend a couple of thousand on a controller before I start buying access points.

 

Andy

[waya01]

Ubiquiti don't do simple things like forwarding accounting information to our Lightspeed server to stop users having to log in twice with their own devices. We had to implement a FreeRADIUS server to patch it up when all other manufacturers do it out of the box.

 

When contacted ubiquiti, they said they will look at it at some point.

[synaesthesia]

There's a reason they are a 10th the cost of everything else out there - any additional functionality to Ubiquiti gear will always be an added bonus and not having it is not a negative whatsoever.

[waya01]

True, but also 5 access points failing in two years hasn't helped. 4 of which just outside the warranty.

 

They forward everything except framed-ip-address attribute. Why they can't build that in I'm not sure. Maybe more an inconvenience than a negative.

[Net-Ctrl]

Ruckus were coming out expensive and I have very limited budget, to the point of rolling out 10 APs per year. I don't want to spend a couple of thousand on a controller before I start buying access points.

 

Would you be interested in us pitching a Ruckus project for your requirement, just so you have another option to consider? From our experience we don't normally come out any more expensive than Xirrus or Aerohive, plus there are a number of offers we can look to take advantage of for you.

[synaesthesia]

Sorry for going off topic slightly, were those standard or pro APs?

 

Also as above, give Ruckus a shot, it's great stuff.

[Jimmer3568]

We use Xirrus extensively. Put in just over 1 year ago; generally very happy. Couple of things to look out for:

1. You do need to be careful about where the points are positioned. As it's not a "one in every classroom" product. We general use 4840's (from memory) and one point covers 3 or 4 classrooms. If you don't get the positioning right, you can get areas where the signal isn't as strong as you'd like.

2. The management system "XMS" can be flaky. Allegedly, you can create a template (or profile) and roll it out to other points as you add them. However, don't always trust what XMS tells you; you'll probably end up managing the the arrays individually. Having said that, once set up, they'll just work. I have not had to look at our arrays for several months.

[gazlee]

We're entirely Xirrus here, mostly arrays and a few APs here and there, and we've been very happy with it so far. It was a staged roll-out building by building on our fairly large college campus, and we've got outdoor areas covered too with their rugged APs. We have a support contract with Xirrus themselves and they've always been fantastic at picking up the phone or getting replacement parts out next day.

As has been mentioned, you do need to be careful with the positioning of them in order to maximise coverage and client density, but if you're going through one of their authorised resellers they should do a site visit and map everything out for you.

 

One of the nice things the arrays offer is the ability to upgrade in future, we're currently looking at AC wireless and rather than buy and install all new arrays we can just buy new radio modules to fit inside them, which is much cheaper and easier. You can also add additional radios to an array if you need more capacity later on (assuming it has some free slots).

 

Gary

[manick]

My tuppence worth!

 

I've used Xirrus in the past and have inherited an Aerohive (managed in the cloud) installation. Xirrus wins hands down imo, Aerohive I'm finding useless. In my last role it was very close between Xirrus and Ruckus, but picked Xirrus for user density, it was first class. This was around 3 years ago and the units were XN4s (I believe things have changed now with Xirrus and they might not be so hot), it was expensive but it barely ever failed and we just let it do it's job. I find Aerohive very glitchy, this could be down to me, but I don't think so!

 

I think Ruckus would definitely be worth looking at, one of my old colleagues has installed it and rates it highly!

 

Cheers

 

Manick

[jonspurs]

I've researched and tested Xirrus and didn't like it. The interface is old school, and as someone said above, 'flaky'.

I would recommend Cisco Meraki...because it just works. Grab a free trial AP before you make a decision.