Ruckus ZD3050 - Additional APs (or replacements)

[Steve21]

Evening All,

 

Long story but the old NM here started migrating from Extricom across to Ruckus ZD3050 but never finished so we're currently in middle of two networks interfering with eachother and causing no ends of problems.

 

Currently have 10 zf7962's out of the 50 available licenses, and just wondering what APs are supported by the controller as can't seem to find any lists with any of the current APs (Either I'm blind, or none seem supported haha)

 

Debating whether it's worth trying to find another 40 APs to move across to the one network, or where we have so few APs just binning it and looking at a new system

 

Thanks,

Steve

[spc-rocket]

Steve,

 

The 7962 are end of life i think and may not be supported by the latest 9.9 firmware. You may want to check the release notes for the latest firmware just incase you are running on 9.9.

 

Ash.

[Steve21]

Better check that, would hope they're still supported as currently running on 9.7 and working Else guess 50 APs needed lol.

 

Steve

[MicrodigitUK]

Hi Steve,

 

Sounds familiar, took so long to upgrade the Extricom that the replacement Ruckus APs went EOL. LOL

 

End of Life for the 7962 was announced March 1st, 2013. Per the EOL announcement, the 7962 will not be supported on software released after August 31st, 2014. So to keep the 10 APs running you can run 9.8 on the 3050 zone director (9.8 will continue to get patched until late 2015). But you can't run the latest 9.9 as you won't be able to control the 7962s.

 

To keep it in budget you can stay on 9.8 however it might be better to get a new set of APs so you can run 9.9 features on the ZD3050. I don't think you will need 50APs to get full site coverage with the new Ruckus APs! At least you can re use the zone director.

[Net-Ctrl]

Hi Steve,

 

As mentioned above it will depend on what firmware your ZoneDirector is running. The 3050 is able to support the latest firmware and APs.

 

Your 7962 APs last firmware is 9.8. If your ZD is still supported by Ruckus you will be able to upgrade to that code.

 

If you would like to discuss your deployment and the options available to you, please let me know.

 

We could carry out a survey of your site to calculate the required number of APs, and then look to refresh your APs with some of the latest models. There is currently a really good promotion on the Ruckus R500, 600 and 700 Aps.

[Steve21]

Thanks guys

 

Sadfully it's all out of support/contract etc as it was never kept in date before I joined, don't suppose you know if Ruckus let you bring it back into support or once it's gone is it lost?

@Net-Ctrl Always happy to have a chat about options Get the feeling the 50 limit may be an issue for proper coverage, but guess that may change with the ac APs. But if not guessing it'll be cheaper to replace the controller than pay for support/license upgrade at same time.

 

Thanks,

Steve

[Net-Ctrl]

Yes we can sort the support out for you, no problem at all. All we would need is your ZoneDirector serial number.

 

If you have some site plans available we could initially put them through our Ekahau predictive survey tool and give you a predicted AP count. We can then talk through your options and get some quotes over for you to look at, so you'd have a better idea of the cost implications, and go from there.

 

Ekahau allows us to create a virtual model of your predicted RF environment.

 

Once we have modelled the predicted RF environment of your site we place virtual access points in different location to then estimate your expected signal strength, signal-to-noise ratio and coverage. We will then adjust the AP count and locations in order to create a WLAN designed for your environment.

 

Feel free to send me a PM if you'd like us to take a look at it all for you, and I will get the balls rolling this side

[robjd]

Chat to your local Ruckus reseller (lots of them about). I wouldn't be surprised if you could negotiate a good deal if you say you are looking around at other wireless vendors as a whole new project.