kidpressingbuttons Posted March 21, 2015 Posted March 21, 2015 Just took delivery of ruckus at my primary, we are very large with 700 pupils + nursery, we got 30 aps, zone director and 3 years warrantee and firmware upgrades with 2 hp procurve Poe switches and it came in at around £14k. Talk to Net Ctrl they do some very good deals!
jamin100 Posted March 21, 2015 Posted March 21, 2015 That's great although it would of probably cost £6k for the unifi route
XiJ Posted March 21, 2015 Posted March 21, 2015 I would certainly recommend unifi. We've installed a few in primaries and we've had no trouble at all. Install and forget. The ability to expand and upgrade is great too. And the price is unbeatable IMO
Steve21 Posted March 21, 2015 Posted March 21, 2015 Any secondary's running unifi? Notice it seems to be all smaller sites, just wondering how nicely it works on side of things like BYOD/capture portal etc Steve
Chris_ Posted March 21, 2015 Posted March 21, 2015 Any secondary's running unifi? Notice it seems to be all smaller sites, just wondering how nicely it works on side of things like BYOD/capture portal etc Steve We're running UniFi in a secondary school, a mix of standard UAP's, Pro's , and AC units. Works well along with our Smoothwall box to provide BYOD radius authentication. 1
synaesthesia Posted March 22, 2015 Posted March 22, 2015 We are fully Unifi (Standard) in our secondary. BYOD generally, we don't bother with captive portal but may enable that in the near future. I'm itching to play with RADIUS authentication along with our Lightspeed setup but would probably rather keep them separate for the time being. It works extremely well, coverage is excellent, controller runs on it's own little ubuntu VM, they don't bat an eyelid. Not far under 30 APs cover both our sites almost entirely. The only reason we'd see fit to change out for anything else is if someone up high ever decides that 1:1 devices would be a good idea (lmao). Well under £1500 (self installed) for a faultless wireless system. 2
localzuk Posted March 22, 2015 Posted March 22, 2015 For those using Unifi, does it still not manage the power levels automatically, from the controller (rather than random APs changing their own TX power)?
njc235 Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 Interesting that not a single mention of potential multi cell issues with 802.11ac. Especially with wave 2 just about to be ratified. Discuss...
stodge1000 Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 Unifi every time fantastic pieces of kit! We are a large secondary and would have anything else now.
themightymrp Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 For those using Unifi, does it still not manage the power levels automatically, from the controller (rather than random APs changing their own TX power)? I'm not sure if it manages the power from the controller or not to be honest? Each AP has an option like that shown below:
localzuk Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 Yeah. That isn't controller based power management, meaning you end up having to sort out the power levels yourself if you've got any form of dense environment or a "noisy" environment at all. That alone would stop me using it - it quite frankly isn't an enterprise quality managed wireless system. I don't want to do anything at all on individual APs. Also, do you have to set the channels yourself also? Or do they automatically change according to the environment?
themightymrp Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 They have automatic channel finding when they first boot up but I manually set mine. The reason being, after a power cut all of the units are obviously booting at the same time. Due to a known issue with their system it causes ALL units to pick channel 1 :-/ Not good!!
localzuk Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 They have automatic channel finding when they first boot up but I manually set mine. The reason being, after a power cut all of the units are obviously booting at the same time. Due to a known issue with their system it causes ALL units to pick channel 1 :-/ Not good!! Wow! That's pretty awful!!
sparkeh Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 Yeah. That isn't controller based power management, meaning you end up having to sort out the power levels yourself if you've got any form of dense environment or a "noisy" environment at all. That alone would stop me using it - it quite frankly isn't an enterprise quality managed wireless system. I don't want to do anything at all on individual APs. Also, do you have to set the channels yourself also? Or do they automatically change according to the environment? Ditto. We have a noisy environment and our Ruckus controller manages the APs' power levels and channels brilliantly. Couldn't imagine not have that.
e4e Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 I have just installed Ruckus in 2 large primary schools. Which before the upgrade we had between 20 and 25 netgear ap's. Installed Ruckus and the quantity of AP's were reduced and cant fault the install. If you would like the contact of who I used pm me and can send you the details over.
themightymrp Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 Wow! That's pretty awful!! Agreed, its the one thing I don't like. I found out the hard way: https://community.ubnt.com/t5/UniFi-Wireless/Does-Unifi-AP-auto-channel-really-work/td-p/741562
synaesthesia Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 Still, does that one little thing write of the circa £10k saving? Really? For a primary that isn't 1:1 I really can't see why that would be an issue.
localzuk Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 Still, does that one little thing write of the circa £10k saving? Really? For a primary that isn't 1:1 I really can't see why that would be an issue. Not really a "little thing", its the fundamental basis for a managed wireless system - it is what "managed" means. £10k saving is questionable. Sure, you save on the hardware but what about the time taken managing the system? What about when the requirements of the system change and your client count multiplies by 10? What about when something changes in the environment making interference a problem, but ever changing? That £10k suddenly will seem like a good amount to spend for a system that Just Works instead.
themightymrp Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 No not at all! We use it here in a Secondary and I can live with that tiny niggle in order to save massive amounts of cash! I still like the Unifi stuff overall. Apparently, the power management and channel selection improvements are 'on the roadmap' so hopefully at some point they won't be an issue anymore. I also love that the controller is software based and can even be run from a cloud based server i.e. Azure if you link it to your network via a VPN. You can even run it from a Raspberry Pi I believe?
synaesthesia Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 Will have to agree to disagree on that one. Sometimes you just don't have £10k, either physically or morally. There's absolutely no extra work needed here in our secondary, plug and play. Nothing else to it. OK we're only running 30 points but that is full, sitewide coverage for a split site larger than most. Full coverage from Ruckus, we worked out, would have just about cost £25,000. So for us in particular, we save over £23,500 and it does indeed just work. Swings and roundabouts of course, as you said yourself not everything is suitable for everywhere.
sparkeh Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 Still, does that one little thing write of the circa £10k saving? Really? For a primary that isn't 1:1 I really can't see why that would be an issue. I don't think that you can really call AP channel selection and power levels a small thing. I think the best advice we can give is outline the pros and cons of different systems honestly. Eg, we are a primary, admittedly a large one, surrounded by houses on all sides, seemingly each is broadcasting its own wlan. Not having that functionality would be a complete nightmare and make our own wlan unmanageable. Our Ruckus controller works really hard to maintain a good wireless service and does a bloody good job if it and very much worth the extra money.
localzuk Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 (edited) Dunno where you got that Ruckus pricing from. You need fewer APs with Ruckus - we'd need 30+ for, say, Aruba, but Ruckus covers the site in 15. Our system cost far less than £25k. I don't think that you can really call AP channel selection and power levels a small thing. I think the best advice we can give is outline the pros and cons of different systems honestly. Eg, we are a primary, admittedly a large one, surrounded by houses on all sides, seemingly each is broadcasting its own wlan. Not having that functionality would be a complete nightmare and make our own wlan unmanageable. Our Ruckus controller works really hard to maintain a good wireless service and does a bloody good job if it and very much worth the extra money. Indeed. In range of our site, there are currently 26 rogue devices in range, all turning on and off randomly. Our system is constantly adjusting to handle that. If it didn't, our wireless simply wouldn't work! Edited March 23, 2015 by localzuk
sparkeh Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 Dunno where you got that Ruckus pricing from. You need fewer APs with Ruckus - we'd need 30+ for, say, Aruba, but Ruckus covers the site in 15. Our system cost far less than £25k. Plus catch one their two for one AP sales and the cost comes down greatly
snagrat Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 Plus catch one their two for one AP sales and the cost comes down greatly Which they always run so no reason to miss it
AdamzB Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 UniFi is just pseudo managed wireless. Ruckus is in a different league. Take a look at this wireless report, think it speaks volumes regarding UniFi performance. http://www.wlanpros.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Wi-Fi-Stress-Test-Report-Overview1.pdf Having used both in large schools I can state that Ruckus should be top of your list. Under my use the most I could get from a UniFi Pro was 150Mbps Same laptop on a Ruckus system and I got full 300Mbps Under stress a UniFi AP gave up serving clients after 15 connections, the Ruckus AP would have 32+ and worked flawlessly. Also it has to be said just because a school is a Primary it has to use basic low rent tech. Most Primaries I have seen are doing far more interesting things with tech than any Secondary. 3
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