Ruckus Zone Director and additional access points

[smurfomatic]

Two years ago we had a new wireless network installed, with Ruckus APs and a Zone Director. This was done by a contractor, I was supposed to supervise this but "opted" for a ruptured appendix instead!

 

Now we are looking to expand the wireless network as we are doing renovations in part of the school. Is it as simple as buying a new Ruckus AP and plugging it into the network, or does it need to be pre-configured?

[pantscat]

As long as you've got enough licences on the Zone Director, and assuming it's all been configured correctly, it's just a case of plug and play to get it up and running.

[smurfomatic]

Thanks - that's great news. We have enough licences for another dozen APs and we're only planning to add a couple.

[snagrat]

The ZD may be configured to not allow auto approval do you may need to manually approve the new APs

[FN-GM]

The ZD may be configured to not allow auto approval do you may need to manually approve the new APs

 

This is a factor. Also if the Zone Director is in a separate brodcast domain than the AP's you will need to manually point the AP's to the controller.

[DMcCoy]

It may not be as simple as this. What model Zone Director is it?

 

The 3000 should be ok with everything

The 1100 will not support newer APs

The 1200 will not support older APs

 

Some AP combinations will be impossible if you have a 1100 or 1200 because they are not supported at the same time.

[nathan3388]

Plus depending on you zone director version is running because buying new one might not work with that version of firmware that you are running. Also if you upgrade your firmware to the new versions then the older access points sometimes don't work and recognise the zone director. just so you are aware of these problems to

[smurfomatic]

Thanks all for your messages. Auto approval is enabled, so that won't be an issue.

 

We have a ZD 3000 running 9.5 firmware, and the current APs are 7372. Obviously having all APs the same would be easier from an admin point of view, but if there are better models available then we'd look at getting those.

[Net-Ctrl]

Hello, do you still need some assistance with your upgrade path?

 

If so, please let me know and i can arrange for one of our techs to give you a call to discuss your options.

 

If you're adding new APs to your network they must run the same FW as the rest of your system. Is your current ZD in a support contract? Your 7372s are capable of running the latest version, 9.12, so you'd be fine to add any of the latest access points. You would just need to make sure you have support on your ZD and upgrade.

 

Alternatively, if you were looking to upgrade i'd suggest keeping hold of your ZD and just upgrading your APs.

 

Happy to answer any questions, or help however we can.

[pantscat]

Sorry guys - I over-simplified matters a little there!

 

I shouldn't make so many assumptions!

[ADMaster]

The other consideration is VLANs. The switch you connect the AP to must know about the vlans of the SSIDs it serves.

 

For the APs to discover the ZD just put in a DNS entry for zonedirector with its IP