HP Switches + WiFi in a new 6th form block?

[SteveCSE]

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.

 

I think the antenna setup makes the biggest difference in the actual device, whether this be the wireless card or the actual design of the laptop. There is such a big difference between devices with supposedly the same wireless radio. I heard Ruckus use Atheros in there AP's?

[john]

I think Netgear lisenced the design from Ruckus for these units, correct me if im wrong though...

Correct, I do believe from a conversation I had with Ruckus about a year or so ago now about Ruckus in SOHO they did say that the Netgear Rangemax stuff with the "dome" in the middle of it with the blue LEDs that go round it to make it UFO look-a-like have Ruckus technology aerials in it. But not the same as there APs, they are very much cut back and limited than what you would get if you bought the main APs

[Tallwood_6]

Yes Netgear use the technology under licence from Ruckus after they Rckus filled a lawsuit against them a year or so ago and forced to pay Ruckus Royalities after infrindging patents.

I'd imagine that Ruckus probably do use some atheros chipsets along with a whole host other others including, HP, Cisco, Colubris, Trapeze etc.

[legaleagle1]

Hi,

 

To answer the origional question, the HP kit is fine. I use HP switches and wireless without issue.

 

To clear up a wireless question for certain - The HP stuff is totally centralised. You set up a profile and the AP's adopt to the general profile (or whichever profile you wish). You can also prevent this happening if you want. It will also be fine with 30+ laptops no problem. we have 250+, and have 300Mbs connections all over the school for N laptops. It does everything you would ever wish. We have multiple wireless networks, and use the HP stuff to forward http traffic through to our proxy so we dont have to get our guest users to add proxy settings etc. We also use the access lists to prevent students accessing parts of the network we dont want them to.

 

It basically does everything I want it too, and Im sure other wireless solutions do too, but to answer the question directly - your HP stuff will do all you want it to and work fine.

 

To enter into a more wider debate I also have experience of the Meru system, which is also good and well worth a look, though has less functionality than the HP stuff in my opinion. The cell based stuff makes config very simple although you could argue that if the wireless solution supports 30+ laptops then is the single cell method necessary?

 

I dont know anything about the Rukus system, but I see there are plenty enough people on here to tell you about that!

[nicholab]

I have the msm 750 and the 48x 422 ap's we had HP 3rd line support involved and I would not recomend it!! Wireless requires a strong supplier relationship I would suggest getting 3 compaines to quote for a set amount of kit and then chose the one to partner with. Ruckus GUI is much better design and more responsive than the HP. Bottom line you need your wireless to just work I have spent to much time with my team chasing suppliers!!!

 

I have also e-mailed a user in the states supporting 1500 N-band apple notebooks he has use cisco wireless as well and said there nothing the ruckus did not do!!!

 

Harrow school uses Ruckus!!

 

My personel view is use Ruckus if you can!!

[MarkPower]

Yes Netgear use the technology under licence from Ruckus after they Rckus filled a lawsuit against them a year or so ago and forced to pay Ruckus Royalities after infrindging patents.

I'd imagine that Ruckus probably do use some atheros chipsets along with a whole host other others including, HP, Cisco, Colubris, Trapeze etc.

 

Yes you ate correct the Ruckus chipset is Atheros and again is the same as Cisco, Trapeze etc, the only difference which is the big one.....Ruckus have written the patented technology for the beam forming which is all done on top of the chipset enabling them to corner the market with something very different and very succesful.

[SteveCSE]

Sounds like you had some really bad supplier experiences, not really the kits fault, checking the suppliers experience and getting 3 quotes is always advisable definitely. What were the problems that required you having to be directly in touch with HP third line support?

 

Do you use Ruckus at your site?

[Geoff]

To go back 6 pages to what I originally specced. I have discovered a flaw in my original plan. For the 2610-24/12 PWR switch to provide enough power for 9 APs it would need hooking up to an external power supply as it can only supply 126W from the internal supply.

 

http://cdn.procurve.com/training/Manuals/PoE%20PlanningGuide-Jun2009-59918574.pdf

 

Thus I would of needed a ProCurve 600 external power supply.

 

dabs.com - HP ProCurve 600 Redundant Ex PSU (J8168A)

 

However as the ruckus kit (the way I'm leaning now) requires less APs, that also means less power. Thus I can 'get away' with just the internal PoE power supply of the 2610-24/12 PWR.

 

Just a heads up for anyone thinking along similar lines

[nicholab]

I did have 3 quotes from suppliers but dessision was taken out of my hands.

[Ric_]

@Geoff: Did you also look at the 2600-8-PWR from HP? 8 PoE ports which should reduce cost. PoE injecotrs are only about £20 each so you could supplement with one or two of them if needed.

[SteveCSE]

To go back 6 pages to what I originally specced. I have discovered a flaw in my original plan. For the 2610-24/12 PWR switch to provide enough power for 9 APs it would need hooking up to an external power supply as it can only supply 126W from the internal supply.

 

http://cdn.procurve.com/training/Manuals/PoE%20PlanningGuide-Jun2009-59918574.pdf

 

Thus I would of needed a ProCurve 600 external power supply.

 

dabs.com - HP ProCurve 600 Redundant Ex PSU (J8168A)

 

However as the ruckus kit (the way I'm leaning now) requires less APs, that also means less power. Thus I can 'get away' with just the internal PoE power supply of the 2610-24/12 PWR.

 

Just a heads up for anyone thinking along similar lines

Hi Geoff,

 

I don't think you can say that with Ruckus you will need less WAP's in all scenarios, yes the intelligent antennae design may improve performance on a thin blanket coverage across a site, but has this been tested against the performance of all other vendors antennae arrays other than Cisco? Across all standards including draft N. In a dense population does this really matter as you will be flooding the area with wireless signal anyway to give more throughput.

 

Also you need to think about what you want to deliver, if it's N for a media rich experience, then connecting 9 or so WAP's to a 100Mbps Switch on a 1Gb backbone is probably not the way to go. If you want 30 laptops per classroom then you need to have enough backbone and throughput to enable this.

 

When it comes to large quantities of devices simultaneously connecting you need to think of the wireless as an extension of your data network. Would you daisy chain 9 switches off a single switch on a segment.

[SteveCSE]

I did have 3 quotes from suppliers but dessision was taken out of my hands.

I know you said that in your original post, I was agreeing with you

[nicholab]

Why not get the 2610-pwr-24 port as they are supporting 13 AP's in one location here. Also you will want a wireless vlan to reduce broadcasts on the wireless part of the network thus inproving performace. Power wise cisco require the most power of any AP that is about 18w!!!! One thing you can do with the HP is manage the power priority of the port!

[Ric_]

I don't think you can say that with Ruckus you will need less WAP's in all scenarios, yes the intelligent antennae design may improve performance on a thin blanket coverage across a site, but has this been tested against the performance of all other vendors antennae arrays other than Cisco? Across all standards including draft N. In a dense population does this really matter as you will be flooding the area with wireless signal anyway to give more throughput.

 

Likewise, you can't say vendor X won't require less - obviously Geoff's preliminary survey reports show that the Ruckus APs give better coverage. All APs vary depedning on antennae design, placement, power output, interference, etc.

 

Without knowing what Geoff intends to use the APs for, it's also impossible to say that he will need a dense placement. For all we know he ay only have 30 users in the whole block - from my experience, sixth form users tend to wander about and rarely spend their free periods beaverring away!

[SteveCSE]

Likewise, you can't say vendor X won't require less - obviously Geoff's preliminary survey reports show that the Ruckus APs give better coverage. All APs vary depedning on antennae design, placement, power output, interference, etc.

 

Without knowing what Geoff intends to use the APs for, it's also impossible to say that he will need a dense placement. For all we know he ay only have 30 users in the whole block - from my experience, sixth form users tend to wander about and rarely spend their free periods beaverring away!

This is exactly my point, I have been stating all through this thread that deployment and equipmnent depends on exactly what you want to use the wireless for, therefore it is dangerous to say that he will need less points using Ruckus and that it is dangerous to say that this vendors solution performs better than that vendors solution. As it really depends on what you are doing, and in most cases these solutions have not been tested properly against each other.

 

I didn't say that he will need a dense deployment just that in that scenario where a dense deployment is required for throughput then more AP's will be required accross the board and backbone needs to be considered in all these situations.

 

From this thread I didn't think Geoff had completed a wireless survey?

[Geoff]

Bits of the building are missing. Conducting a wireless survey at this point in time would be useless.

[mac_shinobi]

Bits of the building are missing. Conducting a wireless survey at this point in time would be useless.

 

Wait until its done and then get a wireless survey done and maybe get some ruckus kit out there on a trial and see how it performs and go from there because jumping in the dark some what currently ( could be wrong ) ?

[legaleagle1]

Hi Geoff,

 

If budget allows, have a look at the (J9146A) HP ProCurve 2910al-24G-PoE+ Switch which gives extra power.

 

Either way, watch out for the PoE. If you are going N standard wireless, on alot of vendors kit you will need a PoE+ port to run the AP's (new standard 802.3at as appose to the older 802af), as they draw more power, therfore you may need a PoE+ switch.

 

Again, I can only comment on the HP stuff. If you buy a dual radio AP, you only need a PoE+ port if you are running both radio's at N standard. If you are running your b/g laptops through one radio, and you N's through another, you are still fine with normal PoE.

 

Seriously....go N though....300Mbps to each laptop!....it's magical!

[Geoff]

Not my problem™.

 

See as the building hasn't been handed over to the school yet, it's up to the contracters to sort it out. If it's not up to the agreed building specifications (i.e. they fit kit that isn't suitable or it doesn't work) they are in trouble.

 

As it is I'm doing more work than i should by sending them what I think will work. But obviously it's in my best interests for them not to cock it up.

[Ric_]

Either way, watch out for the PoE. If you are going N standard wireless, on alot of vendors kit you will need a PoE+ port to run the AP's (new standard 802.3at as appose to the older 802af), as they draw more power, therfore you may need a PoE+ switch.

 

At one point the only N-kit to work properly with PoE was the BlueSocket APs.