DalekSec Posted January 28, 2019 Posted January 28, 2019 Probably been asked her a few times! We're looking at a new WiFi solution, ours has been end of life for a year or so and the points aren't even AC! Currently have Ruckus but it looks like it's going to be too expensive to renewal it all. After speaking with Ruckus, Aruba and AeroHive at BETT gotta say Aruba looks the best, it's also appealing as we have HP switches which it can manage. We've trailed UniFi (which i love and have used it before and have my own setup at home), and as much as we want to go down that route it's not working correctly and it seems other people are having the same problem and there is no fix at current. Needing a quick turn around we don't have time to wait for a fix. Has anyone here used/using Aruba can you give me some insight.
Primus Posted January 28, 2019 Posted January 28, 2019 What's the issue with Unifi? Ours is working perfectly and has been since we installed it last summer.
DalekSec Posted January 28, 2019 Author Posted January 28, 2019 What's the issue with Unifi? Ours is working perfectly and has been since we installed it last summer. See: https://community.ubnt.com/t5/UniFi-Wireless/Duplicate-IP-addresses-in-Client-List/m-p/2629967#M355555 There are a lot of posts with the same problem.
Primus Posted January 28, 2019 Posted January 28, 2019 We don't use Radius assigned vLANs but when I did last summer as part of my initial testing I didn't see this. You could try testing an older version of the controller and AP firmware. Given the price difference I'd be looking at what I could do to allow us to still go with Unifi even if this affected how I wanted to run things. Our top price (including PoE switches) and circa 100 APs was £100k with Ruckus - granted that was indicative pricing with no discount - Unifi cost us less than £15k for the same number of switches and APs. Even after negotiation it was still substantially cheaper than Aruba, Meraki, Aerohive etc.
DalekSec Posted January 28, 2019 Author Posted January 28, 2019 I've done all the pricing and know UniFi is a lot cheaper and i prefer UniFi but if it doesn't work properly it's a no go. We've tried various configs and to no avail we have a budget of around £30k for 100 APs
Primus Posted January 28, 2019 Posted January 28, 2019 That thread is about issues with RADIUS assigned vLANs - what have you tried to fix the issue? For example could you have separate SSIDs for each vLAN?
DalekSec Posted January 28, 2019 Author Posted January 28, 2019 That thread is about issues with RADIUS assigned vLANs - what have you tried to fix the issue? For example could you have separate SSIDs for each vLAN? I appreciate you trying to help me with the UniFi setup. But i've been told to ignore it now from my Manager and the Director as they both can't find a fix either and neither can the UniFi support we spoke to. We've spent enough time looking at UniFi already so hence why i'm looking for alternatives. But to answer you question we have completely turned off radius and had one SSID and it still was causing the problem. We thought it could be a DNS problem so we turned off either one and tested along with a new DNS server. The only thing we haven't tried is a new NPS server but this is working fine with our current Ruckus and we don't want to have to invest any more time into this. (well our current ruckus is working fine altogether its just old!)
Primus Posted January 28, 2019 Posted January 28, 2019 I appreciate you trying to help me with the UniFi setup. But i've been told to ignore it now from my Manager and the Director as they both can't find a fix either and neither can the UniFi support we spoke to. We've spent enough time looking at UniFi already so hence why i'm looking for alternatives. But to answer you question we have completely turned off radius and had one SSID and it still was causing the problem. We thought it could be a DNS problem so we turned off either one and tested along with a new DNS server. The only thing we haven't tried is a new NPS server but this is working fine with our current Ruckus and we don't want to have to invest any more time into this. (well our current ruckus is working fine altogether its just old!) Ok no worries. We don't use RADIUS assigned vLANs but we do use NPS and RADIUS and have none of those issues at all.
Wave9_Lee Posted January 29, 2019 Posted January 29, 2019 Probably been asked her a few times! We're looking at a new WiFi solution, ours has been end of life for a year or so and the points aren't even AC! Currently have Ruckus but it looks like it's going to be too expensive to renewal it all. After speaking with Ruckus, Aruba and AeroHive at BETT gotta say Aruba looks the best, it's also appealing as we have HP switches which it can manage. We've trailed UniFi (which i love and have used it before and have my own setup at home), and as much as we want to go down that route it's not working correctly and it seems other people are having the same problem and there is no fix at current. Needing a quick turn around we don't have time to wait for a fix. Has anyone here used/using Aruba can you give me some insight. If you've not written off any other vendors totally - I can recommend Meraki and you might be surprised at the price!
DalekSec Posted January 29, 2019 Author Posted January 29, 2019 If you've not written off any other vendors totally - I can recommend Meraki and you might be surprised at the price! I think we (my manager) had a look and said it was too expensive and to not even look at them. But i am open to looking at them if the price is right!
psydii Posted January 29, 2019 Posted January 29, 2019 Call Lever and ask them for a multi-ap on a stick 3d survey and design*. Then then run a three/four-way competition for hte best equipment/price. Choose the best, then install them where Lever told you to. If you foresee 1:1 or similar numbers in the future and need less than 120 APs then the Aruba IAP315 is great. You get 2.4Ghz for legacy devices and guests, and 4x4 .ac 5Ghz for your modern managed devices. (the 4x4 ac radio allows mu-mimo to be significnantly more effectivive than on 3x3 APs) * design for VOiP, but during implementation/configuration compromise for capacity, 40/80Mhz Channels** -64dB min. ** Aruba IAP-315 behave well when set to 40/80Mhz. In low-ish density environments where there may be a high denisty of devices on two neighbouring (but not overlapping) channels your get 40/80Mhz but as denisty increases and channels overlap they dynamically shift to 20Mhz on a packet by packet basis. Unless things are really busy you mostly get the benefit of 80Mhz. 1
MicrodigitUK Posted January 29, 2019 Posted January 29, 2019 (edited) We have Aruba rolled out across our site for the past 5 years. 65 x AP-225s (802.11ac wave 1) 7 older AP-105s (801.11n) 1 x 7210 controller (Mater) 10GbE to core switch 1 x 3600 controller (failover) 4GbE LACP to core switch We have a Aruba-OS6 setup at the moment with 2 controller older one one acting as failover. Had no problems and just Keep up support on the controller so we can get software updates. Looking at changing the 3600 in the summer as it is now end of life and stopping us upgrading to Aruba-OS8 and implementing our AP licences on a " Mobility Master" VM insted of them being locked into the 7210 Master controller at the moment. Whole setup has been rock solid and can recommend the Aruba WiFi setup. Got all the AP-225s setup with LACP connections of 2GbE back to the HPE and Aruba switches supplying POE+ One note I would recommend a controller based setup for secondary school as you get the full feature set. The cheaper Instant setup with APs Like IAP-225 would be fine for a small deployment but not cut the mustered with a large site. Edited January 29, 2019 by MicrodigitUK 2
psydii Posted January 29, 2019 Posted January 29, 2019 I would counter the 'you need a controller' argument to say: its a nice to have but you don't **need** it. Certainly I have had to compromise on my ambition somewhat, but we are not suffering from being controllerless. You can get the benefit of the support and stability and performance of Arubu's experience with the IAPs + Central for a lot less than a controller based system. HP do have to know that they are bidding against Ruckus/etc. It does help if you have meraki/cisco in the mix (particlualry give the MEraki 10 year support currently available) in order for HP to put forward the best price.
DalekSec Posted January 29, 2019 Author Posted January 29, 2019 I would counter the 'you need a controller' argument to say: its a nice to have but you don't **need** it. Certainly I have had to compromise on my ambition somewhat, but we are not suffering from being controllerless. You can get the benefit of the support and stability and performance of Arubu's experience with the IAPs + Central for a lot less than a controller based system. HP do have to know that they are bidding against Ruckus/etc. It does help if you have meraki/cisco in the mix (particlualry give the MEraki 10 year support currently available) in order for HP to put forward the best price. HP are also doing 10 year support at the moment when you buy 2 years. It is a nice to have a controller but i still think for our use case we need one. Also with HP it manages the switches.
MatthewL Posted January 29, 2019 Posted January 29, 2019 I have used Aruba in a large multi site environment without any issues, if Ubiquiti didn't so what I needed Aruba would be next on my list.
Shadow_Walker Posted January 29, 2019 Posted January 29, 2019 Our trust is using IAP Aruba 315 series in most of it's schools now and they have been really good. PM me if you want what we paid last summer for our refresh.
k-strider Posted January 30, 2019 Posted January 30, 2019 Will you be able to do a 1 for 1 replacement with Aruba if you previously had Ruckus? only they seem to need less APs than other solutions on the market.. or will you do a full on site survey again
DalekSec Posted January 30, 2019 Author Posted January 30, 2019 Will you be able to do a 1 for 1 replacement with Aruba if you previously had Ruckus? only they seem to need less APs than other solutions on the market.. or will you do a full on site survey again Our Ruckus APs are currently still n and not even ac, anything ac/ax will be better than our current points i'd imagine! We'll have a site survey done if its free (or free if you buy the product)
k-strider Posted January 30, 2019 Posted January 30, 2019 i do need to start replacing some of mine (next financial year and the one after) we mostly have ZF7982 (29) but some R700s (3) R710 (1) and R610 (1) so a mix... I hope to change the ZF7982 over 2 years to ease the cost I got rid of my ZD 1200s and moved to cloud ruckus already in preparation. I appreciate they aren't the cheapest solution but they have been rock solid for 5 odd years... and still are even the ageing ZF7982 seem to be happy with our kids and their ipads we have over 400 clients connected most days
Net-Ctrl Posted January 30, 2019 Posted January 30, 2019 i do need to start replacing some of mine (next financial year and the one after) we mostly have ZF7982 (29) but some R700s (3) R710 (1) and R610 (1) so a mix... I hope to change the ZF7982 over 2 years to ease the cost I got rid of my ZD 1200s and moved to cloud ruckus already in preparation. I appreciate they aren't the cheapest solution but they have been rock solid for 5 odd years... and still are even the ageing ZF7982 seem to be happy with our kids and their ipads we have over 400 clients connected most days 7982s are still supported on the latest ZD FW 10.2, they're a pretty great AP and can handle a big load, so you wont have any issues with running through an eased transition with newer APs. The 1200 seems like it will be sticking around for some time, they have just increased its max AP count to 150 and with the ZD3ks going EOL, the 1200 will be their only ZD appliance left.
k-strider Posted January 30, 2019 Posted January 30, 2019 7982s are still supported on the latest ZD FW 10.2, they're a pretty great AP and can handle a big load, so you wont have any issues with running through an eased transition with newer APs. The 1200 seems like it will be sticking around for some time, they have just increased its max AP count to 150 and with the ZD3ks going EOL, the 1200 will be their only ZD appliance left. sorry i meant ZD1100 my bad... I had to migrate to virtual smartzone get my R710 and R610s onto the network... but yes that's my intention replace a few at a time, probably with R610s and just use R710s in large halls / sports halls where there is a potential to get a lot (100s) of clients hanging on one AP
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