Managed Wireless

[gibbo_ap]

We are Currently looking into a Managed Wireless Solution, and after doing some research myself (which has involved the search button lol) i have come seeking your advice and experience.

 

We are looking into;

• Trapize - Awaiting info and researching still
  
• Aruba - Have hear this is pricy
  
• Ruckus -Have heard they use directional APs to cover large areas, which would spread the bandwidth over multiple rooms, less access point = less cost, but lower bandwidth
  
• HP - Not heard much yet are a friend at a different school is currently having this installed.
  

 

 

My questions are;

• how do these compare in price?
  
• how do you find (esp with ruckus) coectig a whole class of laptops, ie speed, reliability etc?
  
• Any one have anything to say about HP?
  

 

thanks in advance

[john]

Search for forums for Ruckus, plenty of happy customers on here of that hardware. Give Mark Power / his team a ring at Net Ctrl on 01473 281211 and they will be happy to help i'm sure.

[featured_spectre]

Ruckus is a good deal better than any other solution I have come across. Simon at CP is also a good contact! If you rin 0845 249 1779 and ask for Simon then you are in good hands.

[Dom_]

[*]how do you find (esp with ruckus) coectig a whole class of laptops, ie speed, reliability etc?

 

We use ruckus here, and have a laptop trolley (30 laptops) and about 10 staff laptops running through one access point, they run just through this one point as they do when all cabled in, logging in 30 @ the same time is amazingly smooth too. We've had no issues since it was installed 3 months ago, and it took me about 10 minutes to configure.

 

I can't comment on any other solutions, but ruckus is GREAT!

[jamin100]

another + 1 for Ruckus and Mark from Net-Ctrl.

 

I installed our kit yesterday and its excellent!

We've had 60 laptops connecting at the same time in a very small location which is in the middle of 2 access points.

 

Not one laptop dropped the connection and every connection was extremely stable!

[sidewinder]

Its odd, Ive never seen Ruckus advertised anywhere else, never heard of it, apart from the tons of happy customers on edugeek

 

We've got Aruba, certainly pricey but it does work very well. Laptop connection problems have been virtually eliminated

[Domino]

[*]Ruckus -Have heard they use directional APs to cover large areas, which would spread the bandwidth over multiple rooms, less access point = less cost, but lower bandwidth

 

Less bandwidth? not quite...

 

You'll find a ruckus controllers signal to be much more stable - providing a almost ethernet standard of signal to any client in range - due to the snazzy internal antennaes

 

I'd say get some demo kit - mark and stuart from net-ctrl helped me out, sorted us with demos etc.

 

Couldn't be happier with it at my last place - looking at putting it in here now...

[MarkPower]

We are Currently looking into a Managed Wireless Solution, and after doing some research myself (which has involved the search button lol) i have come seeking your advice and experience.

 

We are looking into;

• Trapize - Awaiting info and researching still
  
• Aruba - Have hear this is pricy
  
• Ruckus -Have heard they use directional APs to cover large areas, which would spread the bandwidth over multiple rooms, less access point = less cost, but lower bandwidth
  
• HP - Not heard much yet are a friend at a different school is currently having this installed.
  

 

 

My questions are;

• how do these compare in price?
  
• how do you find (esp with ruckus) coectig a whole class of laptops, ie speed, reliability etc?
  
• Any one have anything to say about HP?
  

 

thanks in advance

 

As mentioned in my PM to you more than happy to help when you have the time, and will be happy to find some eval kit asap so you can see for yourself how good it is.

 

Cheers

 

Mark

[dirtydog]

Almost finished installing our Ruckus (about time eh Mark!) and so far very pleased with it. Just having central control is excellent and getting users on the wireless for the whole site in one go has gone well.

[MarkPower]

Almost finished installing our Ruckus (about time eh Mark!) and so far very pleased with it. Just having central control is excellent and getting users on the wireless for the whole site in one go has gone well.

 

Good stuff yes about time is correct :-) enjoy using it and always happy to help if you need me.

 

Cheers

 

Mark

[TSCL]

 

Please read the reply to your post in the 'New Users' forum.

 

Dos_Box

Edited April 22, 2009 by TSCL
typo

[wrights]

I've deployed HP wireless solutions before. We were using 210 access points with a modular controller in a Procurve 5108xl.

 

It works extremely well and is very easy to configure but the licensing isn't cheap.

If you'd like to see a site running then I can probably arrange a demo where I used to work. The HP wireless solution was stable enough to support not only laptops but Mitel phones.

[EduTech]

Yes as everyone else has said, i would consider speaking (if not already) with Net Ctrl who will be able to advice you on Managed Wireless Solutions

 

We might be getting 120+ Laptops added to our load, so we need to ditch our Aruba Setup and go with something ALOT better

 

If Ruckus dont float your boat, another company i did see that were very good were Meru : Meru Networks | Home we recently had a demo of there kit and its also pretty good stuff!

 

I've only found Ruckus and Meru to be able to log on 30 laptops at the same time with no problems of 1 access point

 

James.

[stevenlong1985]

Hi

If you seen some of my other post about Ruckus on Edugeek, you know you cant go wrong with it, I can easily get 30 to 60+ wireless N laptops to login to one AP no problems! No drop outs no problems. Currently the school has 150x Asus EEE 1000h which they get used a lot now.

 

students can all log in between 30seconds to 2 mins depending on how many users are login on at one time but the problem doesn't rely on Ruckus wireless, the problems is my 1 DC server has never had so many users log in at one time and cant cope with the demand.

 

To insure fast login times you need to have

- small mandatory profiles

- short log on scripts

 

look in to your network layout and performance

 

- Having a 2gigabit from the server using Network teaming to a gigabit switch

- gigabit network connections to each AP

 

oh yeh get some PoE switches makes life easily when deploying APs

 

Good Luck

 

Steve long

[FragglePete]

Another 1 for Ruckus here. Been using it for a while now with a couple of laptop trolleys and it has eliminated the problems we were getting.

 

The school is about to start a major refurbishment program, so I'm looking to possible using the bridging capabilities of Ruckus to get the network to parts of the School were the networt is going to be ripped out of. Going to be a nightmare.

 

Pete

[fatnhairy]

Currently, we use Cisco 4400 series WLAN controller with Cisco 1131 APs.

 

Works a treat and dead easy to manage

[Lostsoul125]

As stated in the other thread, I would propose checking out Xirrus. Their services has been very promising and really we have no complaints at our end.

 

I wouldn't go with Cisco because they require so many APs, its really ridiculous. You need a vendor that can offer more with less, meaning give you more bandwidth, more coverage, and more range. Think about this way, the less devices and wires you need...the more you save.

 

I dont know about the UK, but over in the states we are in a recession, so saving is vital. But also note that you can save, and also have a great and outstanding service!