Who has Ruckus ??

[FragglePete]

I've just taken delivery of some Ruckus kit. We've been trialling a Zone Director and a couple of G Access Points on each of our Laptop Trolleys for the past couple of months....

 

It's been said before, "it just works". These guys need an award!

 

Simply to set up, and we've had no problems whatsoever since introducing it. Even the teachers have started to remark on the stability of the laptop trolleys recently!

 

I like the fact that it's quite modular, so you can add AP's at any time (up to your licence limit). It is also sitting quite happily with our existing WiFi kit (standard HP stuff) which I will be replacing over time.

 

Just had a new Zone Director delivered with 4 AP's after persuading our business manager that this stuff was worth it. Got a good deal on buying 4 APs. We're just in the process of re-configuring our laptop trolleys. I like the fact that it's quite modular, so you can add AP's at any time (up to your licence limit), so will be adding more in the next financial year.

 

Only thing to remember is to use WPA-AES (or WPA2-AES) and not WPA-TKIP as each AP can only support 26 clients using TKIP.

 

I like the Guest Access feature which I will look at in the future, this enables you to set up a 'Guest' SSID with a portal that request a user name and password and then directs traffic only your Gateway and not the rest of your LAN. A lot of our organisations that use our hall out of hours have requested WiFi internet access and I've always said no. Once I work out how to set it up, we can offer that too.

 

HTH

 

Pete

[Quackers]

We run almost 200 Laptops of our D-Link 7100AP's with fantastic performance, have you configured them correctly as they are great. We cover the whole school with them.

[jamin100]

We run almost 200 Laptops of our D-Link 7100AP's with fantastic performance, have you configured them correctly as they are great. We cover the whole school with them.

 

Yep i've tried all sorts of configuration.

The best i found was to team them up in pairs and only allow 15 laptops to connect to those 2 AP's.

 

Still not good enough though

[Quackers]

Yep i've tried all sorts of configuration.

The best i found was to team them up in pairs and only allow 15 laptops to connect to those 2 AP's.

 

Still not good enough though

 

I think putting the AP in the trolley is a bad idea, one reason for example say you have 4 trolleys, with 2 AP on each one on G Band, so you have

 

Trolley 1 - Channel 1 & 6

Trolley 2 - Channel 6 & 11

Trolley 3 - Channel 1 & 11

Trolley 4 - Channel 1 & 11

 

What happens if you have 2 class rooms next to each other or close and one has trolley 1 and one has trolley 4? Your going to have poor performance because the two channel 1's will interfear with each other. If you had Trolley 3 and 2 Channel 11 will interfear and you will have poor performance again.

 

If you put an infrastructure in that covers the whole school you can set the channels so they are least likely to interfear.

 

We have all our AP's set like that broadcasting on G and A band, then on each trolley the first 50% are set to A band as the priority AP, then the rest as G band as the priority. With Super Mode turned on with A Band, and Supermode without Turbo turned on G band, and they perform like a dream, still quick with loads laptops in one area.

[FragglePete]

If you put an infrastructure in that covers the whole school you can set the channels so they are least likely to interfear.

 

We have all our AP's set like that broadcasting on G and A band, then on each trolley the first 50% are set to A band as the priority AP, then the rest as G band as the priority. With Super Mode turned on with A Band, and Supermode without Turbo turned on G band, and they perform like a dream, still quick with loads laptops in one area.

 

The Ruckus kit can support up to 100 devices per AP (as long as your using AES). Two classrooms next to each other, put AP somewhere in the middle.

 

Anyways, Ruckus uses this Beamflex thingy which directs (and bounces) an individual beam of RF to each individual device. One of it's unique features. I was shown the inards of one AP which has an impressive antenna array which has the ability to direct individual multiple (I forget the actually number, but it was in the thousands) signals. The do not radiate outwards in all directs, therefore no interference.

 

Look at me, sounding like a Salesman now! I'm some one who sells them would explain it better than I did.

 

Pete

[MarkPower]

Not a bad job at all with the explanation :-)

 

Even us salesmen dont say much about it when we have a nice comprehensive document as per the below to explain it

 

The first Major advantage of Ruckus Wireless is that it tackles the issue of Wifi interference , reach and dense and hostile environments by utilising a dynamic antenna system called Beamflex, see Fig below. This antenna system is made up of 12 individual high gain elements. The Beamflex Smart Antenna control software allows each of these 12 elements to be individually turned on and off to dynamically alter the antenna property in real time. With 12 elements, there are 4096 possible antenna combinations, providing an antenna diversity an order of magnitude greater than traditional MIMO devices and the ability to react real time to changing client and RF condition ensure stable and reliable client connections.

 

It is the dynamic alteration of the antenna configuration which allows the device to tune to the optimal antenna combination for each device using a sophisticated real time system which can alter polarity and direction to achieve best results to dynamically steer the signal around interference as it occurs and before data or voice performance is ever lost.

 

Also this system tunes out the noise around the environment by switching off antenna combinations which results in a greater signal to noise environment, adapting to the clients changing environment and movement dynamically.

 

Beamflex allows greater distance and at the same time denser environments whilst the dynamic antenna system does not radiate in 360 degrees every transmission, the Bemaflex system is great for long reach and dense building environments such as campus

 

Normal Omni antenna systems cannot change their posture to changing conditions and in dense environments bleed into other omni antenna systems

 

wow see what I mean

[MrJon]

These guys have just entered the UK and have good education credentials from the US Massachusetts Institute of Technology : Wifi Solution For Campuses - Meraki Wireless they are also very cost effective… you can start from a single AP that supports a,b,g,n for about £320 Its also the WiFi solution being used at this weeks IP Expo! Worth a look….

[Dos_Box]

May I ask who it is you work for? Your replies seem to imply you are a reseller and not an actual techy as you seem to fail to grasp some points our members make on the wireless threads.

[ezzauk]

We have been using Ruckus at our new site we installed ZoneDirector 1000 and we had 10 x ZoneFlex 7363. They have been work so good we are now installing a ZoneDirector 3000 and 50 more ZoneFlex 7363 at our other sites.

[TheFopp]

Just installing 25 Ruckus FZ7363 APs and a ZD1000 as we speak.... what a joy it is to setup! Putting it in to our boarding houses for the kids to use. Authenticating against AD sorted.

 

Its a thing of beauty!

[Haptic]

Pleased to hear its going smoothly for you TheFopp and I would agree, it is truly gorgeous!