Xirrus is proud to be an Edugeek official Sponsor.......

[Xirrus]

Hi my name is Ben Wilson, I am the UK Country Manager for Xirrus.

 

I have over 10 years experience in designing, managing and deploying IT networks, and have personally deployed over a 1000 Wi-Fi networks in all manner of environments from critical high availability health care solutions to challenging environmental environments such as music festivals.

I have worked at all levels in the deployment chain – from Vendor to End User and everything in between including senior roles at TNS (now BTiNet) and CSI.

 

Xirrus is a proud sponsor of Edugeek. Xirrus, the only Wi-Fi "Power-Play", manufacturers the Wi-Fi Array that displaces both overlay Wi-Fi offerings and switched Ethernet to the desktop.

The Wi-Fi Array provides more than enough bandwidth, security, and control to replace switched Ethernet as a user’s primary network connection.

The Xirrus Wi-Fi Array delivers the most coverage, bandwidth, throughput, and user density in the industry, resulting in 75% fewer devices, cabling, switch ports, power, space, and installation time compared with any other Wi-Fi offering.

 

We provide real life active site surveys and back them up with coverage guarantees – taking the risk away from our customers!

 

Please feel free to ask any questions about our products or services

 

Thanks Ben!

Edited May 6, 2010 by Xirrus

[dhicks]

The Xirrus Wi-Fi Array delivers the most coverage, bandwidth, throughput, and user density in the industry

 

How?

 

--

David Hicks

[powdarrmonkey]

Xirrus, the only Wi-Fi "Power-Play", manufacturers the Wi-Fi Array that displaces both overlay Wi-Fi offerings and switched Ethernet to the desktop.

The Wi-Fi Array provides more than enough bandwidth, security, and control to replace switched Ethernet as a user’s primary network connection.

The Xirrus Wi-Fi Array delivers the most coverage, bandwidth, throughput, and user density in the industry, resulting in 75% fewer devices, cabling, switch ports, power, space, and installation time compared with any other Wi-Fi offering.

 

Those are pretty bold claims. Would you speak to the Edugeek Conference about your offering and how it works, and why it's better?

[Haptic]

Welcome Aboard Ben

[Hightower]

I would have checked your spelling and such before posting up..... first impressions and all that!

[webman]

Is Google not working today?

 

Xirrus: Switching Without Wires - Product Overview

http://www.xirrus.com/library/pdf/Xirrus_Product%20Brief_Array%20Architecture.pdf

Xirrus Wi-Fi Array | How To Do Things.com

 

Looks similar to Ruckus technology.

[SYNACK]

First off welcome to the forum.

 

How?

 

Having been to one of their presentations edIT Roadshow 2010 - Auckland - Blogs - EduGeek.net I can offer that they use mental amounts of radios in each AP along with hardware (FPGA/ASIC) implemeted encryption. I'm sure that the OP can explain better though.

Edited May 6, 2010 by SYNACK

[featured_spectre]

Ben, I shall email you a report that I have done. You might be interested to have a read as it covers you technology as well as other wireless technologies, and yours did not fair so well compared to others.

[Xirrus]

Hi David,

 

Firstly, please excuse if this sounds like a sales pitch, but this is the best way to describe our product. Also apologies for any typo's etc.

 

Our array is designed with 4,8 12, 16 or 24 radios, using directional antennas and integrated 2Gbps switch. These means that on a per device basis we deliver at least twice the range, four times the coverage and eight times the bandwidth of any other wifi device out there. Just ask our customers in the UK. For example Liverpool Womens Hospital were quoted in excess of 130 standard dual radio access points plus controllers to cover their hospital. We surveyed and gave them a guaranteed RSSI of -70 using just 27 of our Arrays. On average we reuqire 75% fewer devices, cale runs and swicth ports as well as offering savings on power. We also provide a free real life site survey and 100% coverage guarantee as well as Free Installation, Training and Post Site Survey Verification Alder Hey Childrens Hospital were looking at in excess of 1200 Ap's........we covered the site in just 200 of our Arrays saving them 1000 cable runs, switch ports etc etc

We have many examples in the UK of high user density: At Bristol Brunel Academy we replaced a failing controller/standard AP deployment which could not cope with 600 netbooks all logging on simultaneously every morning. We did this with just 23 of our XN4 arrays and are not even scratching the potential capacity as they plan to go to 900 users shortly in a 1:1 laptop initiative. Microsoft use a controller/Thin AP solution for their offices where they have small user numbers disparately spread across their offices. For user density areas where they have 1000's of users in the small area all demanding connectivity they use us (Microsoft Developer Conference - video interview with Microsoft available on Xirrus: Switching Without Wires). Many products can cope with just coverage, but capacity with multiple users is where we excel. We also have a distributed architecture as opposed to centralized one. This mean that like a switch network, we put the intelligence at the edge and remove the single point of failure of a controller, and also the bottleneck.

How about we come and give you a product walkthrough and demonstration? If you visit our website (Xirrus: Switching Without Wires) you can see Tolly independently verified our coverage and density and the fact that our distributed architecture improves network performance and dramatically reduces overhead on your Wired Network.

 

If you would like to know more or would like me to arrange a product demo/walkthrough, please don't hesitate to contact me.

 

Ben

[Xirrus]

I would be pleased to speak at the Edugeek conference - no problem!

[featured_spectre]

As Ben has pointed out on the phone on my report, I was given false information by the 3rd party supplier (in regards to the Xirrus equipment) so I shall have to remove my current report and recommendations for the future references. My apologies for those that have read the report! Ben has also offered to do a full comparison test to get the report up to scratch! Edited May 6, 2010 by featured_spectre

[Xirrus]

Please do not confuse number of antennas with number of radios but an interesting comparison! We provide 4,8,12,16 or 24 radios in each device, giving more bandwidth and supporting more users.

[Xirrus]

Thanks Carl for the clrification - I'd be happy to do a comparison test on your site. Please check out the independent Tolly report on our website.

[Soulfish]

Having had a site survey from the guys at Xirrus this time last year I can safely say that the access points are a little mental - just the sheer number of radios + computing power that they shove in them. And they have pretty flashing lights .

 

I'm hoping at some point in the future to get a Xirrus array and a Ruckus AP and see how they compare

[webman]

And they have pretty flashing lights

 

I'm sold!

[dhicks]

Our array is designed with 4,8 12, 16 or 24 radios, using directional antennas and integrated 2Gbps switch.

 

Does that switch support standard (IEEE 802.3ad) link aggregation that we can use with our existing wired switches?

 

Do your access points support power over ethernet, or do they require a bit more power than that?

 

we deliver at least twice the range, four times the coverage and eight times the bandwidth of any other wifi device out there.

 

How do you provide increased range - do you simply increase the power of the radio transmitter? What, exactly, is "coverage"?

 

I can understand (I think) how an access point could use multiple radio attenae, pointing in different directions, to provide wireless coverage to devices in different directions. How does your system go about dealing with multiple devices all covered by one antennae - i.e. a classroom full of 30 laptops? Does your system make use of multiple non-overlapping wireless channels?

 

I assume you minimise interference between access points by having the access points sense other emitting devices and reduce the power of an attenae if they think it's going to intefere with another access point. Is that correct? If so, what happens in the area between the two access points - is there a "dead" zone where the signals from either access points won't quite reach?

 

We also provide a free real life site survey and 100% coverage guarantee

 

What, exactly, are the details of that guarantee?

 

We also have a distributed architecture as opposed to centralized one. This mean that like a switch network, we put the intelligence at the edge and remove the single point of failure of a controller, and also the bottleneck.

 

That certainly seems to make sense - and it also avoids us having any initial outlay on a central controller, we could simply buy access points as we can afford them. Is that correct? How much is an individual access point?

 

--

David Hicks

[torledo]

 

 

That certainly seems to make sense - and it also avoids us having any initial outlay on a central controller, we could simply buy access points as we can afford them. Is that correct? How much is an individual access point?

 

--

David Hicks

 

not sure what 'bottlenecks' are being referred to as far the controller based solutions on the market.

 

as for the initial outlay on controllers.....how about the initial outlay on AP's with upwards of 4 discrete radios within them ?

[Soulfish]

The quotes we've gotten for a Xirrus solution are similar to the quotes we've had for Ruckus based solutions so I think the outlays are similar

[Xirrus]

Hi David,

 

Great questions.

 

Firstly yes we do support 802.3ad link aggregation as well as active back up, mirroring and bridging across our dual Gig Ethernet ports.

There is a road map for our XN4 product to support 802.3at by the end of the year, but we supply our own Power over Gigabit Ethernet injectors (also used by other manufacturers) to support the power needed for multiple 802.11n radios currently on all of our devices. Not only does this mean the switch ports for your wireless will not need to be PoE (cost saving) but our increased coverage means you will require approx 75% fewer of them.

 

Total Emitted power from our radios is the same as any one else, however because we use high gain directional antennas, we can both "listen" and "talk" further. Increased coverage means useable signal strength. Our guarantee matches whatever the customer requirements are. if its for performance data then we guarantee an RSSI of -72dbm - if its for voice and data then we survey and guarantee to what is required, typically an RSSI value of between -65dbm and -68dbm dependent on client equipment. All of our antennas/radios overlap by 50% meaning there are no "dead spots", even in the unlikely event of a radio failing (we have a MTBF of over 8 years). Imagine our channel planning like trivial pursuit counter - because we are able to control the RF better, we are able to get more non interfering radios in the air. We are also able to load balance across radios and arrays meaning we can design to have multiple radios covering everywhere, allowing support of more simultaneous users and providing more available bandwidth. We use non-interfering channels utilizing the full spectrum of 2.4Ghz (802.11b/g/n) and 5Ghz (802.11a/n).

Our guarantee is simple. We will survey and tell you how many devices are needed for what you require (data, voice/data, RFID etc). If any more devices are need than we say, we will supply the units free of charge.

You are not restricted by a controller or licensing, therefore you can scale as quickly or as slowly as you require, meaning phased deployments are easier. We still do full centralised management for those who want it, giving you full monitoring, command and control of your wireless network, but without the bottleneck or reliability constraints of a controller.

Think of how the mobile phone business developed. When they first deployed cell technology they had single or dual radios with omni directional antennas as they had few users disparately spread out. As they have needed to increase coverage and capacity they have moved to multiple radio, high gain directional antenna system on their towerrs to provide more bandwidth, coverage and throughput. This is because in reality it is the only way to do this. Simply put, more radios = more bandwidth and more users. At the end of the day, if the RF isn't designed correctly, wireless will never work to its potential. Our product has been designed from the ground up to solve the issue of user density - that's why you will find us successfully deployed in the most user dense environments in the world, like education.

Total Cost of ownership is normally less than that of our competitors when everything is accounted for, but on a per device basis we would appear to be more expensive. When you take into account the saving on switches, cabling, professional services and the 100% guarantee, then we are normally much better value.

Would you like us to come and do a survey and show our capabilities?

 

Thanks

 

Ben

[Xirrus]

BTW Everyone - we started this forum with Xirrus are proud, when maybe it should have been Xirrus is proud. Apologies for this grammatical error for the many who (or should that be whom??) have emailed us to point it out.......we will change it. Apologies.

 

Ben

[featured_spectre]

I have to say Ben that you are a nice guy and your responses are nothing short of fantastic! It's nice to see someone who is proud of his companies product and is willing to do a like for like test to prove that the equipment is good! Not many companies do that and it shows that you have complete confidence in your products!! Are you guys at the BETT show next year?

[Xirrus]

We certainly are! It will be our 3rd year at the show and we will have a ground floor stand. I'll update this with details as they are available.

Many thanks for the positive comments. One thing I hope everyone will understand and appreciate about Xirrus is our transparency and the fact we always do the right thing by the customer.

More than happy to field any questions anyone has.

 

Ben

[AyatollahPies]

I'm rather fond of the Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector Tool, which is free.

[plexer]

I'm sold!

 

Only if they are blue.

 

Ben

[dhicks]

Thanks for your reply, it certainly sounds as though you actually know your way around your own product (I've talked to plenty of wireless vendors in the past who don't).

 

Total Cost of ownership is normally less than that of our competitors when everything is accounted for, but on a per device basis we would appear to be more expensive. When you take into account the saving on switches, cabling, professional services and the 100% guarantee, then we are normally much better value.

 

Right, but how much are your access points?

 

Would you like us to come and do a survey and show our capabilities?

 

I need some kind of vauge idea about how much your system costs before I can even talk to the bursar about it.

 

--

David Hicks