Managed network with HEAVY wifi component : Refs?

[contink]

I'm in the process of developing a specification and plan for a school that has a massive space problem which means that laptops are going to be the only way to resolve IT lessons for classes.

 

The infrastructure at present consists of some 3com wired switches and a number of 3com WAP 7250 providing AP access. In the past the school has had a mix of 11b and 11g laptops so you can imagine how that worked out.

 

The system slowed to a crawl and sadly the server has not been up to much either.

 

Anyway to get to the point we're looking at around 60 units using 11g at minimum with some of those (around 40) 11n capable laptops. Until now I've worked with unmanaged switches and small scale WAPs but this sort of scale seems to demand a managed approach. Essentially, I'm starting from scratch here and need to know where to find out the basics as well as more information on the options out there. So any suggestions or resources?

[Ric_]

Check out Bluesocket and Cisco - they were the best when I bought my BlueSocket.

 

Consider 802.11a too - this is ratified and not as prone to interference as 802.11b/g. You will also find many business-grade notebooks come with 802.11a/b/g cards too. I believe that the 7250 AP supports 802.11a anyway (and with a BlueSocket system these can be integrated into your managed network).

 

Of course, personally, I hate wireless and it causes a lot of trouble. I have found the easiest way is to use thin clients to reduce the bandwidth problems too.

 

Have you also considered some of the space-saving desk ideas (e.g. Isis Concepts' Flipscreens)? Stick a thin client INSIDE each of these and very little space is used up. The computers can then be folded away when not in use too.

 

If you want to get in touch,m I'll chat about my decision-making process with the BlueSocket (in comparison to Cisco, 3COM and HP).

[georgebush]

Something along the lines of Cisco Aironet 1200s would probally be a good idea for the WAPs, rock solid some of ours have uptimes of near 1.5 years and even thats probally down to power cuts and the fact I dont think they're not much older than that. Its the one part of our network I couldnt lay a single fault at, it simply works flawlessy even in a room with 4 APs and 40 laptops its rapid and dependable. Pricy though

[GrumbleDook]

If you are going down the Cisco route then the 3750 switch with integrated WLAN controller is a good start to a stackable core switch. Go for the 50 unit box (manages up to 50 APs) and use the Aironet 1000 series light APs. It truly is plug and play for APs once the controller is configured.

 

Speak to Tom at ONI for more details

[contink]

Quick question... Just how many AP's would you recommend for the setup.

 

At present there's 5 of the 3Com units installed at various points around the school... Coverage is supposedly pretty good all told... Oh and worth noting this is a PFI school so it's one of those "oooh pick our contractors and pay stupid money for an extra network socket!" cr*p.

 

Would there be any mileage to be had from mounting AP's on the actual laptop trolleys? I suspect it's a no because teachers will forget about plugging network cables in but thought I'd ask...

[contink]

If you are going down the Cisco route then the 3750 switch with integrated WLAN controller is a good start to a stackable core switch. Go for the 50 unit box (manages up to 50 APs) and use the Aironet 1000 series light APs. It truly is plug and play for APs once the controller is configured.

 

Speak to Tom at ONI for more details

Worth bearing in mind this is for a primary school with 13 classes not a secondary so that might be a liddle on the overkill side..

 

Given the school size would you have a diff' recommendation?

[GrumbleDook]

Go for the 25 AP controller at a push then ... that is why I said about the integrated unit ... you get a core switch *and* WLAN controller.

 

30 laptops should ideally have access to any one of 4 APs (remember with Cisco you can use 4 channels!) but will probably only need to use 2.

 

It also depends on usage. Will there be much media intensive work? Large files running from servers? A lot of access to external learning platforms?

[contink]

Go for the 25 AP controller at a push then ... that is why I said about the integrated unit ... you get a core switch *and* WLAN controller.

 

30 laptops should ideally have access to any one of 4 APs (remember with Cisco you can use 4 channels!) but will probably only need to use 2.

 

Useful intel... thanks.. At a guess this would probably mean at least doubling up on the AP's... I suspect some testing with a couple of units would be a good start. At least the school is a newish build so I don't have 4' thick walls to cope with.

 

It also depends on usage. Will there be much media intensive work? Large files running from servers? A lot of access to external learning platforms?

Worst case scenario I'm looking at things like Espresso real player video clips but in the main they'll be doing web browsing, office (word, excel... ) work and using apps deployed to the machines... I'm going to be avoiding, where possible, network install apps in favour of local ones.

 

The overall aim is to plan for 3 years+ with the budget so I'm assuming a worse case scenario in that respect..

 

Also worth noting I've a budget of £36k to cover everything including a new server, replacing switches, AP's, 40 laptops and RAM upgrades, oh and sorting out software licenses for old and new.. I think it's do-able but the infrastructure cost could take big bite.

[contink]

I had a bit of an "idea" last night that might be worth pursuing although I have some healthy doubts.

 

I was thinking of the amount of work required to get wireless AP's wired up around the school and with there only being two trolleys was wondering if perhaps I should go with mounting two AP's directly on the laptop trolleys themselves and then using a LAN over power plug to handle the connection to the LAN. That way staff are only ever plugging in two power plugs (they can handle that!) and we cut the number of new AP's required down to four instead of multiples to cover the whole school.

 

Thinking this through I can see a few potential problems:

1. Whether the LAN over power sockets actually work on the schools system (it's brand new ie: less than 6 years old) and the speed we can get

2. Possible channel clashes with existing AP's and/or with the other trolley if in same room or close by.

 

Does this sound do-able, has something similar been tried already?

[contink]

Oh and granted there are other network sockets around the school but their locations tend to be a little disingenious so the LAN over power solution would be a useful augmentation.

[SYNACK]

@contink

 

The speed over power points is not stunning, usually around 13mbits also it is a shared media like wireless and so even with two separate plugs it'll be sharing that abysmal bandwidth.

 

You should be able to use up to three wireless channels at once in close proximity without interference with standard equipment. CH 1,6,11 if I recall correctly are in isolated signal bands that don't effect each.

 

May bee a couple of network ports in each room for it to hook up to would suffice.

[PEO]

Ive setup 3 wireless areas with 3com on 11a. each area has 3 wireless ap, each supporting 10 laptops max. at the moment we only have on laptop trolley housing 30 laptops.

[contink]

Hmm...

 

I guess the only way to answer this question is to do some testing to see what the current setup coverage is like and then look into ways to improve the capacity and sharing the connection load.

[PEO]

I wouldn't go with b or g. to much interference. for good wireless coverage i managed to grab me self a scaled drawing of the school and worked out the best place to install the AP on the wall.

 

Fingers and toes all crossed i've never been called to go sort out a problem with them.

[contink]

I wouldn't go with b or g. to much interference. for good wireless coverage i managed to grab me self a scaled drawing of the school and worked out the best place to install the AP on the wall.

 

Fingers and toes all crossed i've never been called to go sort out a problem with them.

... TBH I hadn't considered going with a low speed network connection but then I suppose it makes sense if you've tweaked the setup to use minimal network traffic (no roaming profiles, etc..)

 

I think the coverage issue is going to be case of either getting a tester like the one that was being drooled over recently or just wandering around school with a laptop and for some basic signal strength testing.

[plexer]

If you are planning to go with a managed solution i.e aruba, bluesocket or cisco then I'm sure that the partners that will be providing the kit would do a site survey f.o.c.

 

Or at least given some scale drawings of the site run them through an rf planner to give an idea of where you need the access points.

 

The powerline type option probably wouldn't work with how the schools are wired unless the cabinet you want to connect back to is on the same ring.

 

My local cabler is charging around £75 per network point for high level ones for all my wall mounted WAP's

 

I'm also using poe for all the waps some of this is hp poe switches others are using 3com poe injectors.

 

I use Airwave AMP for my management solution.

 

Ben

[HodgeHi]

I've been using 1 airport extreme with 15 laptops using networked home accounts on both windows and OS X and so far not really had a problem with connection.

 

I have had 6 laptops running network account under OS X while video editing on iMovie too and creating Garageband files. This did slow down a little so i was told but not yet checked it out myself. But overall pretty pleased with them. It is also part of the mobile classroom and i have a network splitter in each classroom to take the AP.

 

Would like to run additional wiring to add sockets but at the moment not really worth it (we may be having a new school built soon).

 

APs can also be managed from the server (OS X and windows) but the only downside is they can't run PoE although there is supposed the be an educational one that can.

 

They can also create a WDS and run under b/g/n (draft) and a.

 

They also have a kensington lock on them so can be secured.

 

The WDS seems to be robust as well. I have a wireless bridge across a playground to the nursery and i use Remote Desktop to access them and manage them like that.

[contink]

Ok... had a chance to think about this some more and check that some of my basic network knowledge hadn't deserted me (aka: numpty check)

 

I'd like to turn this on its head and ask what the benefits would be of going the route of a managed wireless network. I think I can guess the response but to date I've really only put in fairly cheap and cheerful AP's of the Linksys, netgear variety for a very limited number of laptops.

 

Next up, we've sort of covered this but given that the wired network itself is capable of handling 54g speeds (it's a 10/100) is there really much point in considering upgrading the network switches themselves?

 

Finally... I'm fully aware that I'm out of my depth here so does anyone have any recommendations for suppliers/installers in the Yorkshire area that would be able to give quotes and an honest appraisal of requirements, possibly including an on-site survey?

[broc]

Would there be any mileage to be had from mounting AP's on the actual laptop trolleys? I suspect it's a no because teachers will forget about plugging network cables in but thought I'd ask...

 

Avoid this if you can. You would be amazed at how many ways a teacher can get this apparently simple process wrong at the start of a lesson when they have 30 students rattling around a classroom. We trained them, gave them laminated crib sheets attached to trolleys but it made no difference.

e.g.

 

network cable not plugged in (either or both ends)

no power to WAP, not plugged in, not switched on

laptops booted up & students logging on before WAP powered on

student unplugging power/network cable used by WAP

 

I am not having a go at teachers with the above comments; they have a tough job getting the students settled down, taking registration, trying to get them 'on-task' at the start of the lesson and the pressure they were under meant they frequently got it wrong.

Also you have issues with interference as you may not be able to maintain the channel seperation on the WAPS if they move around between rooms.

 

Part of the justification for switching over to a Managed Wireless solution was to reduce the frequency & duration of problems due to the WAPs on trolleys solution we have been using up until now. It worked fine with 2x 15 laptop trolleys but by the time we got to 8 we were having serious problems with requests for help almost every other lesson from somewhere in school. The prospect of another 80 laptops being added to the network via wireless was the final straw.

 

I looked at Cisco & Blue Socket but our budget wouldn't stretch that far. I ended up using 3Com WX2200 controller and 'thin' 2750 APs, I am rolling this out across the school at the moment. We will have 18 WAPs in our initial deployment, I hope to get another 8 or so to complete the job in the next budget year.

 

We paid for a wireless survey but did the network cabling, installation and setup ourselves. MY original plan had been to have it all done by someone else but the budget was so tight..... I have been on a steep learning curve with the likes of RADIUS!

 

The 2750 WAPs use PoE and we used a 3Com PoE switch in one area because the network cabinet was full but are using 3Com PoE injectors at £10 each elsewhere.

 

So far so good.

[plexer]

@Cotink The benifits as far as I can see are:

 

Centralised configuration, need to change the radius server address just do it once and push that out to each access point.

 

Firmware upgrades one scheduled job to upgrade all the firmware no need to do it on each access point.

 

Monitoring and auditing know that you access points are up and our compliant with your configuration.

 

Rogue detection and monitoring with alerts in one place.

 

Bandwidth monitoring and load balancing of clients where supported.

 

Most of the benifits relate to having this central control instead of having to connect to access points on an individual basis.

 

Ben