kidpressingbuttons Posted August 11, 2017 Posted August 11, 2017 My project for this year is to redo the cabling for my entire site including purchasing new switches. The Ubiquiti line is looking very appealing as they are very well spec'd and cheap! Anyone currently using them? We will be looking at using the US-48-500w with 10gb fibre terminating back to the server room then into a ES-16-XG. I know there are some issues with DAC cables so will be using fibre and gbics.
Chockster Posted August 11, 2017 Posted August 11, 2017 We've just bought two of those and an non-poe 48 for our two new primary schools. First impressions are very good. We got a couple of cloudkeys to manage them, although the controller could have sat on one of the servers just as easily. I quite like the fact that I've got a webpage open here showing all the details of what's going on in two remote schools with very little work needed on our part. We've got 1gb fibre between two of them using a couple of old HP sfp modules we had lying around, but have ordered the 10gb ones partly because they were so cheap. We've gone for the wireless too but haven't really done much more than configure an AP for each school as a test. First impressions are also good. Fingers crossed for september... 1
kidpressingbuttons Posted August 11, 2017 Author Posted August 11, 2017 thanks for getting back to me! How quiet do you find them? Ive always stuck with HP in the past so im a little apprehensive...
Chr1sM Posted August 11, 2017 Posted August 11, 2017 Hi, I was a Network Manager but now work in another part of the educational world. We have been using Ubiquiti access points for a year or two now in our office. We liked the idea of a seamless connections moving between them. I'm afraid to say we found them unreliable. I think the main issue was their software. We went through various iterations of their software, maybe the newer software is better. It's hard for me to tell as I purchased new waps along the way so didn't have to rely on the Ubiquiti waps for important stuff. I think we put everyone's phones through the Ubiquiti and business stuff through the other waps. If you can I'd recommend having their controller running on a separate machine. I'm not sure if bringing the controller up/down led to some of our issues. In saying all this we are an IT company. If our network blips for 5s we know about it Maybe just be sure to run the controller as a service. Cheers, Chris
JackCPickup Posted August 11, 2017 Posted August 11, 2017 We've moved from selling Netgear and Ruckus w/ Zone Director to only selling Ubiquiti. Currently it's the best you'll get, better than everything <£3000 from Cisco and the smaller competitors. You can either get a Cloud Key to plug in to your network to manage it or run Unifi Cloud Controller on your own VM. You manage all WAPs, switches, gateways from this interface.
AJWhite1970 Posted August 11, 2017 Posted August 11, 2017 Just installing 2 x ES-16-XG's, 10 x US-48 and 8 x US-24-250W, plus we already have 50 AP's and are switching our IP CCTV cameras to UniFi Video. Add in a couple of Nano Beams for remote links and some mFi's for temperature monitoring and I think you can say we are very happy with Unifi kit. 10G to all our cabinets and manageable POE. The only downside I can see is layer 3 switching isn't fully featured. Oh and noise compared to HP? Almost totally silent.... 2
kidpressingbuttons Posted August 11, 2017 Author Posted August 11, 2017 Love unify video it's amazing and so cheap! I think you've all made up my mind. Ubiquiti it is!
Guest MD5T Posted August 11, 2017 Posted August 11, 2017 Just installing 2 x ES-16-XG's, 10 x US-48 and 8 x US-24-250W, plus we already have 50 AP's and are switching our IP CCTV cameras to UniFi Video. Add in a couple of Nano Beams for remote links and some mFi's for temperature monitoring and I think you can say we are very happy with Unifi kit. 10G to all our cabinets and manageable POE. The only downside I can see is layer 3 switching isn't fully featured. Oh and noise compared to HP? Almost totally silent.... Have you used them as core switches?
AJWhite1970 Posted August 11, 2017 Posted August 11, 2017 Yes, have the two XG's bonded together with a 2x10Gb LAG backbone as the core.
Guest MD5T Posted August 11, 2017 Posted August 11, 2017 Yes, have the two XG's bonded together with a 2x10Gb LAG backbone as the core. How are you doing your routing? These switches aren't fully layer 3? Thanks.
AJWhite1970 Posted August 11, 2017 Posted August 11, 2017 I'm not currently, gone back to a completely flat network while I have a think about the best way forward (and before everyone faints in shock, my student/guest wifi network is on a completely separate wired network with a heavily filtered pfsense firewall sat between the only physical link between the two networks...)
Chockster Posted August 14, 2017 Posted August 14, 2017 thanks for getting back to me! How quiet do you find them? Ive always stuck with HP in the past so im a little apprehensive... We've got everything for the two new schools setup in our office at the moment, and the noise level is really good. They're not under much load at the moment though, so will report back.
wedemire Posted August 14, 2017 Posted August 14, 2017 If you're going to jump into the Unifi product line, you should stick to Unifi and not mix with an Edgeswitch so they play better together - same management. Ubiquiti does have a Unifi fiber switch, the US-16-XG. I've been using Unifi switches (and APs) for over two years and have them in 3 schools and haven't had a single problem with them. I have a 48P beside my desk right now for testing and the fans can get a little loud as my office warms up (around 70db). I turn it off when its not needed. I've used multiple options for controllers: VM on my work desktop, cloud key, and now dedicated AWS server. The cloud key was painfully slow and the Windows controller (java based) was awful. We switched to a free tier AWS server as we needed a cloud based multi-school controller and it's been great (and cheap). I haven't had to use support yet, so I can't comment on that.
Mark-wilde Posted August 17, 2017 Posted August 17, 2017 I have used ubnt Unifi switches, fs SFP modules and fiber cables, which saves me a lot. Till now, I have no issue with this setup.
chazzy2501 Posted August 17, 2017 Posted August 17, 2017 I've bitten the bullet, after nearly 2 years of using the UAP-ACs APs I was happy to get the switches as well. Seeing all my networking in a single webpage is nice! The 16-XG and some of the switches are bad at auto negotiation (with fiber) but they sell the 10gb fiber modules for £32 a pair! That was so cheap I just got it for every cab to see what my old OM1 could do! (about 6 worked at 10Gbp) They were also happy using my old 3com 1gbp modules...nice. I only wish they put sfp+ on some of the smaller switches.. 1
AJWhite1970 Posted August 24, 2017 Posted August 24, 2017 Finished the roll-out of the new Unifi core and switches yesterday, now got all 20 devices on one management screen which is cool. Three of the shorter OM1 fibre links happily working at 10G, all the OM3 links also at 10G, just got two buildings at 1Gb due to old fibre and long runs but that's next summers project. Oh and by mistake I discovered that the HP 1Gb modules work fine in Unifi switches... Next job, swap out the old IP CCTV cameras with the box of 20 Unifi Video cameras sat next to my desk and setup a couple of m-Fi's for temperature monitoring in the freezers in the kitchens
jslate1980 Posted August 24, 2017 Posted August 24, 2017 Finished the roll-out of the new Unifi core and switches yesterday, now got all 20 devices on one management screen which is cool. Three of the shorter OM1 fibre links happily working at 10G, all the OM3 links also at 10G, just got two buildings at 1Gb due to old fibre and long runs but that's next summers project. Oh and by mistake I discovered that the HP 1Gb modules work fine in Unifi switches... Next job, swap out the old IP CCTV cameras with the box of 20 Unifi Video cameras sat next to my desk and setup a couple of m-Fi's for temperature monitoring in the freezers in the kitchens What's the warranty on ubiquiti kit?
NB9457 Posted August 24, 2017 Posted August 24, 2017 What's the warranty on ubiquiti kit? One ear IIRC, but if you are worried about warranty and support, they now offer a servie called UniFi Elite. Personally, I wouldn't bother and it's so much cheaper than other competitors, you can just keep a few cold spares. Plus, people have been running the kit for years now without any problems. Heck, you could even keep a core switch spare for £500.
AJWhite1970 Posted August 24, 2017 Posted August 24, 2017 Exactly what I've done, I've got a core, a 48 port non POE and a 24 port 250W POE switch that I purchased as spares sat on a shelf Incase of emergency. At the low prices I paid for the entire site to convert over from HP switches it didn't make that much difference !!
Blue_Cookeh Posted August 24, 2017 Posted August 24, 2017 (edited) We have a mix of HP and Juniper switches, focusing on shifting over to Juniper. I'd have liked to try the UniFi switches but I feel like they need to mature a bit more. We've gone all in with the Ubiquiti APs (started out with UAPs four or five years ago, now moving to AP AC Lites) and have just rolled out a 20 camera UniFi CCTV system using a mixture of the G3 and G3 Dome cameras. Very very pleased so far! As with other access points in school environments, you need to tune them properly. Turn off B speeds if you can, turn down power levels and spread your APs out accordingly. If you do it properly these little beasts can handle anything you throw at them. I feel like the people that have problems might not have planned their rollout properly. Edited August 24, 2017 by Blue_Cookeh
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