Haptic Posted July 22, 2009 Posted July 22, 2009 lol not trying to step on your toes bud, just had something to add from the HP point of view. no worries fella, this is a great forum and as a supplier you and I'm sure members here would benefit from your input, just be sure to pm the staff and look into sponsorship fella;)
localzuk Posted July 22, 2009 Posted July 22, 2009 (edited) I'll support Steve here on this too, as he's one of our regular suppliers of HP stuff Price for HP vs Ruckus for me lately the 2 are neck and neck - it's all down to features, support and capability - and if Ruckus weren't running their deal, HP would be cheaper. I'll second Simon's comment on sponsorship too - a quick glance on here will show you how many people use the forums for finding suppliers so it could be a boon for CSE to join up Nice to see more of my regular suppliers turning up on here. Still not made up our minds though here... Edited July 22, 2009 by localzuk
Tallwood_6 Posted July 22, 2009 Posted July 22, 2009 Price HP vs Ruckus AP for AP isn't the only consideration if the HP AP's dont offer the same kind of coverage and speed untimately you will end up paying more. What also hasnt been said is the Ruckus kit is very very straightforward to setup and manage. If CSE is confident in its claims then it will give you some demo kit to run side by side with some ruckus, aruba, meru etc. 2
SteveCSE Posted July 22, 2009 Posted July 22, 2009 Price HP vs Ruckus AP for AP isn't the only consideration if the HP AP's dont offer the same kind of coverage and speed untimately you will end up paying more. What also hasnt been said is the Ruckus kit is very very straightforward to setup and manage. If CSE is confident in its claims then it will give you some demo kit to run side by side with some ruckus, aruba, meru etc. Absolutely demo kit can be arranged. Pricewise it was project cost like for like that I was referring to rather than particular components. We haven't had any issues with range compared to other products and definately Speed isn't an issue. There are other happy HP users that have posted in this forum, it's a well estrablished wireless solution. Correct planning and implementation also play an important part to the overall sucess of the network.
featured_spectre Posted July 22, 2009 Posted July 22, 2009 Correct planning and implementation also play an important part to the overall sucess of the network. Could not agree more, however ruckus is straight forward and easy to impliment, its so easy! Other brands (such as HP, meru, aruba etc) you have to set up the APs individually, where as the zone director does the work for the ruckus!
DMcCoy Posted July 22, 2009 Posted July 22, 2009 Could not agree more, however ruckus is straight forward and easy to impliment, its so easy! Other brands (such as HP, meru, aruba etc) you have to set up the APs individually, where as the zone director does the work for the ruckus! No you don't! Nearly ALL manufacturers have managed solutions where all you do is plug APs in (as I currently do with our HP wireless edge service module - and very happy I am with it too!)
featured_spectre Posted July 22, 2009 Posted July 22, 2009 I happily stand corrected, however the kits that were shown to us as "managed solutions" involved us manually setting each AP. And that was solutions from the afore mentioned companies.
localzuk Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 I happily stand corrected, however the kits that were shown to us as "managed solutions" involved us manually setting each AP. And that was solutions from the afore mentioned companies. As far as I'm aware, the HP (colubris stuff) is now plug and play. ie. you configure the switch, plug in an AP and you're pretty much done (other than, from what I've been told, putting it into a group on the system).
Tallwood_6 Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 When i say the Ruckus is very very easy to setup i mean the inital setup takes about 5 minutes and the interface is very user friendly and far from intimidating for those with a limited skill set. I did trial out other solutions before hand aruba in particular i had for a month and yes once all setup it is plug and play on the AP front but config took much longer and want nearly as user friendly. This is something worth bareing in mind if like me you have a couple of other techs that are using the interface as time is money.
Geoff Posted July 23, 2009 Author Posted July 23, 2009 Right. PM's and plans off to the various suppliers who have contacted me. LET BATTLE COMMENCE!! 1
Michael Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 To be honest my only concern with Ruckus kit, is if the range is much better than your typical access point, this could 'in theory' create problems, especially with inner city schools. Scan for wireless networks and you'll find quite a few in the area. Two access points broadcasting on the same channel in close proximity is extremely problematic.
Geoff Posted July 23, 2009 Author Posted July 23, 2009 Although we are close to several housing estates, the area is quite hilly. So it's not so bad. Also I've found the 802.11a band to be much less cluttered up than the 802.11b/g band. So we try and get machines that are capable of that.
Michael Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 You're right, it is seriously becoming cluttered up in populated areas. I think my record is around 20 different wireless networks from doing one scan. Some of them have hilarious names too!
Geoff Posted July 23, 2009 Author Posted July 23, 2009 Hopefully 802.11n will help. Although I have no practical experience of it.
Michael Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 Hopefully 802.11n will help. Yes it probably would actually. It still isn't as widely adopted I suppose due to prices, plus the majority of portable computers still come with 802.11g adapters. 802.11n is more comparable with Ethernet. However, (generally) 802.11n gear is compatible with 802.11g, but 802.11n signals have been known to cause interference with nearby 802.11g signals. 1
john Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 The Ruckus is intelligent so using its beamflex technology it will "bend" around stuff and activly change channels as needed to avoid others and problems it really is very clever. When we were demoing it here the other week it picked up about 14 "rogue" APs which were our current unmanaged solution as well as some across the river in the near by housing which shows its power! 3
SteveCSE Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 The Ruckus is intelligent so using its beamflex technology it will "bend" around stuff and activly change channels as needed to avoid others and problems it really is very clever. When we were demoing it here the other week it picked up about 14 "rogue" APs which were our current unmanaged solution as well as some across the river in the near by housing which shows its power! To take my HP hat off, most of the managed solutions (I would say all as can it me classed a managed solution if it doesn't) I have seen or read about have some sort of automatic channel reassignement to avoid interference or the single channel solutions obviously do things their own way. "Bending" radio signals around stuff sound interesting, the MIMO antenna arrays in any N kit should use this multipath to their advantage or it isn't an N solution. Rougue AP and intrusion detection again should be available on most managed solutions of any worth.
Tallwood_6 Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 Except the Ruckus AP's offer multipath, beamflex MIMO or whatever you wanna call it from the standard b/g AP upwards.
dirtydog Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 i think you can reduce the transmit power on the AP's too if you need to?
SteveCSE Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 Except the Ruckus AP's offer multipath, beamflex MIMO or whatever you wanna call it from the standard b/g AP upwards. I think these are different things. I'm not a Ruckus Expert but looking at the website the beamflex is a way of the internal antennae adjusting its output from the antenna array to produce more focussed directional 'beams', I’m still not sure of the bending thing though. It would appear that netgear use the same antenna array in the soho rangemax products. MIMO is specific to the N standard and is a way of using multiple radios and antennae to increase performance and throughput using multiple data paths. Surely N standard is the way to go on new deployments though anyway. At the end of the day its about real world use in education, every site is different, I've seen 90 netbooks simultaneously log on and connection speeds of up to 300Mbps across a whole site. I know happy Meru, HP, Ruckus, Aruba, Proxim and Netgear users. 1
Geoff Posted July 24, 2009 Author Posted July 24, 2009 Presumably it would also make a difference what clients you had. I imagine there's quite a difference (for example) between a top end Intel WiFi card and a cheap atheros one. So there is absolutely nothing the APs could do about that no matter how clever they are. 1
localzuk Posted July 24, 2009 Posted July 24, 2009 Presumably it would also make a difference what clients you had. I imagine there's quite a difference (for example) between a top end Intel WiFi card and a cheap atheros one. So there is absolutely nothing the APs could do about that no matter how clever they are. This is definitely true. Even down to how the aerials in the machines are positioned and the like. I've had 2 laptops - my Macbook Pro, and a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro v2085 (IIRC) next to each other 10m from an unmanaged AP, and the MBP had a high quality signal compared to the F-S one which barely connected. So, it varies wildly. Best client cards I've come across were Cisco Aironet ones with the external antenna. 1
dirtydog Posted July 24, 2009 Posted July 24, 2009 I’m still not sure of the bending thing though. It would appear that netgear use the same antenna array in the soho rangemax products. I think Netgear lisenced the design from Ruckus for these units, correct me if im wrong though... 1
Tallwood_6 Posted July 24, 2009 Posted July 24, 2009 Would stand to reason i thought it was a patented technology.
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