Standalone Ruckus APs

[SimpleSi]

Anyone tried using Ruckus APs in a simple standalone mode.

 

I'm debating doing this in a school where they are going to be getting 20 netbooks (and they already have 15 curric laptops) so it would be easy to envisage 30 clients in one class at once.

 

Now my oring plan was to have say 1 Buffalo AP in Class6 - and 1 in Class 5 either side of a dividing wall with 2 different SSIDs and set half the clients to connect to one SSID and half to the other

 

(And then repeat this exercise in Class4/3 and Class1/2 and Foundation can have 2 to themselves.

 

Cost about £450.

 

But maybe I could run 4 Ruckus APs as standlaone devices like the Buffaloes and just have one per paired class.

 

More expensive initially but maybe not too much to swing past the head.

 

Thoughts people.

 

regards

 

Simon

[bob_uk2k]

Hi Si,

 

They work just as well as standalone APs, you get all the internal technology and if you had just one it wouldn't make a lot of sense to have a controller however if you go 3 -4 access point you really need to have a controller in the middle who will manage the access points, control users centrally report to you.

 

If access points operate on their own they don't know about each other only that there is another guy on the same ssid.

 

You won't have any challenging of users on the network by 802.1x, captive portal pages etc.

 

Robert

[SimpleSi]

Ta for info.

 

Can you get Aggy to PM me a price for 4 please

 

(email to swalters at euxton dot lancs dot ac dot uk )

 

regards

 

Simon

[SimpleSi]

I believe the 2942 will do me BTW - don't need 5Ghz

 

regards

 

Simon

[bob_uk2k]

Hi Si,

 

She's all over at as always.

 

As I say you can run them all standalone but you do loose quite a lot of benefits of the central controller as you would with any non domestic wireless solution that has "fat" access points. The controller is there in all of them for a good reason.

 

It's also uncommon in my experience to have anyone run more than one access point without a controller as what you save on the controller is lost on the administration overhead.

 

Rob

[SimpleSi]

Well from my point of view - its going to cost me £450 to have 8 non-manged 15 clients/AP setup with 8x admin or I can spend double and get 4 Non-manged Ruckus APs that handle 30 clients each with 4x admin.

 

Obviously very nice to have a ZoneDirector as well and have close to zilch admin costs but tricky to get that point across to the head of a small primary school

 

regards

 

Simon

PS Already had a quote for someone else BTW- making final proposal to head on Monday