Mixing WIFI Vendors

[Simcfc73]

Hi,

 

We have 25 Ruckus APs around school which seemes to work fine but I want to extend the coverage to a couple of outbuildings. My controller just does 25 and I really dont have the cash to add more licenses but we were kindly donated some Cisco AIR-LAP1131AG-E-K9 units with a controller so fancy using these.

 

I havent delved into the ins and outs of them yet but, has anyone setup a mixed WIFI network that plays nice with each other.

 

Our Ruckus has VLANs setup for BYOD through a portal logon page so somethign similar is needed.

 

The controller sounds like a aircraft carrier but was told if I wanted to use them independantly I needed to image them.

[AlanD]

Why use captive portal for BYOD? The trouble with captive portal is that apps and the like don't work until they use the browser and logon. And, assuming you have captive portal for school devices too - you probably only allow the authorisation for an hour (or less before they logon again). For BYOD, I would say it makes more sense to use Enterprise WPA with a Radius authentication, because their devices just work without needing to go through repeated logons.

 

I don't think any WiFi vendor makes any effort to be "compatible" or share data with any other so they are not going to share data, but I don't think that matters especially if you keep the access points in separate blocks of the school. Yes with Captive portal it might need another logon as they move between classes - but if you insist on captive portals then this might happen anyway.