Apple Airport Express's or Extremes

[dbarry722]

Hi folks..

 

We are having an apple Wifi system installed into our school and I have a query.

 

Should we be going for Apple Airport Express's or Extremes? At the moment we have nealy 100 iPads but we intend to introduce iPads to class groups in the near future.

 

Based on specs, my preference is for Extremes and I'm not convinced that express's are the way to go in our school which has over 800 pupils and 100 staff plus, we also wish to introduce BYOD.

 

My view is that the Express's are only really network extenders and that any major load on them will grind the network to a halt. We also use video on the iPads quite a bit and this is one reason I'd like Extremes so that I can stream off the videos to a removeable drive and making use of the 1GB transfer. I don't think the 10/100 network connection on the Express will be suffice for multiple iPad transfers.

 

Any advice greatly appreciated

 

Declan

Edited March 18, 2015 by dbarry722

[Iain.Faulkner]

I have no fact to base this on, however I was told that the Airport Express was only designed to handle up to around 10 devices at any one time....like I say, I have no evidence and have done no research on this, it is simply what I was told by an Apple reseller.

 

Having said that, we put our 10 iPads through it and it handles it perfectly fine.

[dbarry722]

I have no fact to base this on, however I was told that the Airport Express was only designed to handle up to around 10 devices at any one time....like I say, I have no evidence and have done no research on this, it is simply what I was told by an Apple reseller.

 

Having said that, we put our 10 iPads through it and it handles it perfectly fine.

 

Hi Iain..

 

It seems that the newer version of the airport Express now handles 50 users as well. My concern is that they are still only 10/100 and with the amount of video work that classes will do on the iPads I need to be able to stream them off as the iPads are only 16Gb versions. If only using Express's I envisage a bottleneck in transfers. In my opinion, having the Airport Extreme give us the Gigabit Port connections across the network this easing congestion.

 

I may be wrong hence why asking for advice.

 

Declan

[Davit2005]

Have you thought about any of the LinkSys Business range of AP's like the AC1200 or the AC1750. I'm only have experience at home (but it replaced a AirPort Extreme). Can't comment on wide scale usage but if you can't afford a managed wireless setup they are similar priced plus have the advantage of multiple SSID's and SSID to vLAN mapping, PoE etc.

 

Maybe do a bit of research on them see what you come up with, there may be other suitable alternatives. I use it with iPAD, iPhone, MacBook, AppleTV at home and do a lot of streaming

Edited March 18, 2015 by Davit2005

[Norphy]

Many here will see me as a massive Apple fanboy but my initial reaction to this question was pretty much ":censored:, neither".

 

I realise there would be a massive difference in cost but if you're looking at supporting that many devices, you should be looking at a proper managed wireless system from the Like of Aruba, Ruckus or Meraki. I like the airport extreme from a consumer point of view but I'd never use one in your situation.

[dbarry722]

Many here will see me as a massive Apple fanboy but my initial reaction to this question was pretty much ":censored:, neither".

 

I realise there would be a massive difference in cost but if you're looking at supporting that many devices, you should be looking at a proper managed wireless system from the Like of Aruba, Ruckus or Meraki. I like the airport extreme from a consumer point of view but I'd never use one in your situation.

 

Hi Norphy..

 

Can you elaborate. We are at a big disadvantage over here in Northern Ireland as we constraint by education guidelines, funding and guided by 'People in the business'.

 

Why would you not advocate the Airport Extremes?

 

The company that are installing our system have basically put in a router, a Mac Mini and 45 Airport Express's and that has cost us just short of 10K. We have a big query over original order as the express's are not what we were told was being installed. As I'm not big into Apple, I spoke to other schools who said to go for the extremes if possible. We have a another managed wifi system in the school but it is breaking my heart with all the restrictions imposed on it and I have no control. Its a case of 'that what you've got' which is why we are going down the route of our own wireless network specifically for the iPad's. This new system uses a Dynatek router and comes with the web filtering package included.

 

I have to watch what I say as the relevant firm may be monitoring this discussion forum

 

Declan

Edited March 18, 2015 by dbarry722

[BKGarry]

One Second.

 

You already have a wireless enabled site, you may have issues here with the crossover of channels between the two and this may cause you more issues than advantages. What is your current Wifi network and Filtering, as most allow you to put a MAC Filter SSID for the iPads to their own vlan and then those IPs go into the filtering system. We have been doing that here since 2011 with iPads and have never had an issue with them.

 

I would say it is worth pushing to have the "managed" wifi allow you to use your iPads with them, as you may end up with a bigger headache trying to run something else.

[Brimstone]

Hi Norphy..

 

Can you elaborate. We are at a big disadvantage over here in Northern Ireland as we constraint by education guidelines, funding and guided by 'People in the business'.

 

Why would you not advocate the Airport Extremes?

 

The company that are installing our system have basically put in a router, a Mac Mini and 45 Airport Express's and that has cost us just short of 10K. We have a big query over original order as the express's are not what we were told was being installed. As I'm not big into Apple, I spoke to other schools who said to go for the extremes if possible. We have a another managed wifi system in the school but it is breaking my heart with all the restrictions imposed on it and I have no control. Its a case of 'that what you've got' which is why we are going down the route of our own wireless network specifically for the iPad's. This new system uses a Dynatek router and comes with the web filtering package included.

 

I have to watch what I say as the relevant firm may be monitoring this discussion forum

 

Declan

]

 

Declan.....

 

If your long term plan is to manage hundreds of devices across the wifi then Apple's Airport solution will just not do the job for you as these are designed for very small iPad deployments or home use only. They have no roaming capabilities or intelligence and the wifi will fall down badly when trying to access internet services and download apps.

 

I have just had one school with 280 iPads replace a number of Airport Extreme boxes with a proper managed wifi system as they just could not cope with the bandwidth requests coming in from each iPad

[hailstorm]

Ick, neither. The apple wireless APs don't support PoE and are not wall mountable. They end up being switched off at the wall. I've also had them cause a loopback on the network as someone has plugged two of the network ports on the rear into the wall. Apple resellers love to include these in iPad bundles just because its got the Apple sticker on them. I was particularly annoyed when one school had been sold apple wireless aps when they already had a PoE switch in place.

 

Wireless APs should be wall mounted up high where they can't be fiddled with.

 

Really would look at fully managed for a school of that size. Ruckus seems to be the more affordable option of the systems out there. If budget is tight then look at Ubiquiti UniFi.

[dbarry722]

Hmm.. Makes for an interesting conversation tomorrow with the company. Our existing wifi setup is managed and I've complained from day one. I had a conversation last week with our education board and made my views known in terms of supplying all the wifi ap's without a site visit, installing them in terms of connecting them to switches... Then leaving them on the floor/bench for me to fix to wall.

 

I don't know a big lot about wifi hence asking questions and based on what I am learning so far, i'm worried for the future.

 

Declan

[dbarry722]

One Second.

 

You already have a wireless enabled site, you may have issues here with the crossover of channels between the two and this may cause you more issues than advantages. What is your current Wifi network and Filtering, as most allow you to put a MAC Filter SSID for the iPads to their own vlan and then those IPs go into the filtering system. We have been doing that here since 2011 with iPads and have never had an issue with them.

 

I would say it is worth pushing to have the "managed" wifi allow you to use your iPads with them, as you may end up with a bigger headache trying to run something else.

 

They already do allow access but with the restrictions they have in place it makes using the ipads useless. Sites are Filtered (as expected) but getting access to certain sites is 'province wide' and what one school allows, others don't and this causes conflicts as schools can't manage their own filtering to suit.

 

Really frustrating.

 

Declan

Edited March 18, 2015 by dbarry722

[BKGarry]

I would hazard that you, and the other schools need to petition for school specific filtering. We have that here, we have an LEA broadband connection and they have the central servers but every school, primary or secondary, can control their own filtering levels.

 

I feel your pain, as I have been through a managed service contract (the evil BSF) and suspect that I have dealt with very similar restrictions to what you have. I would advise against trying to run two wireless networks withing the same building, as the conflicts could be more problems then the benefits you will receive from getting your own internet and seperate system.

[dbarry722]

I would hazard that you, and the other schools need to petition for school specific filtering. We have that here, we have an LEA broadband connection and they have the central servers but every school, primary or secondary, can control their own filtering levels.

 

I feel your pain, as I have been through a managed service contract (the evil BSF) and suspect that I have dealt with very similar restrictions to what you have. I would advise against trying to run two wireless networks withing the same building, as the conflicts could be more problems then the benefits you will receive from getting your own internet and seperate system.

 

Hi BKGarry..

 

Our managed service setup is such a long drawn out process where one setup doesn't fit all and this is where the problem lies. Everytime you go to do something on the iPad or computer, you get 75% of the way then hit a brick wall either in filtering or just no accesss due to restrictions.

 

Ah well, I'll see what happens tomorrow and take it from there.

 

Thanks everyone for the help. Gratefully appreciated.

 

Declan

[BKGarry]

All the best, I can only offer my opinion on this, I know all too well the one size doesn't fit all scenario.

 

You will have to let us know how you get on.

[jamesreedersmith]

They already do allow access but with the restrictions they have in place it makes using the ipads useless. Sites are Filtered (as expected) but getting access to certain sites is 'province wide' and what one school allows, others don't and this causes conflicts as schools can't manage their own filtering to suit.

 

Really frustrating.

 

Declan

 

So are you having a seperate internet feed as part of the new wireless as well?