Meraki vs Ruckus

[Wes]

From Meraki's website:

Stand-alone mode: Should your network ever be unable to communicate with Meraki’s Data Centers, your network will continue to provide basic service to your customers. Network management and user authorization capability resume automatically as soon as the connection is restored.

So authenticated users are okay it would seem but any new users will not be able to authenticate. So it would be problematic in education with classes changing every hour or so.

I know a certain LEA which have chosen Aerohive's wireless solution for all their BSF schools (these ones are built already!) because every student will use a laptop, day in day out. So you could have 900 students all wishing to authenticate at 9am. Aerohive can handle this as authentication is done at the AP, not via wireless controllers. Meraki would want to push all this traffic out through the internet and therefore through the core, to their servers. Every solution has it's place, I believe Meraki has some merits for sure.

[plexer]

What happens if the internet goes down and the access point can't access the cloud controller?

 

Ben

[Wes]

Channel and power optimisation requires constant updates from the cloud controller though right? So no internet, no auto RF/auto power?

[DevinAkin]

Meraki's solution is so feature-poor that it's a poor fit for a school of any size. No directory integration, no fast/secure roaming (called Opportunistic Key Caching), no policy (QoS, Firewall, etc) enforcement at the edge (in the AP), etc. Ruckus's solution is OK for mid-market, but for an enterprise, it too is feature-poor (some of the same issues as Meraki). Ruckus's beamforming causes the AP to be a downlink hidden node, which tanks throughput in dense client environments such as schools. Additionally, it's downlink range is cut approximately in half when data starts flowing due to them having to use omni antennas for reception (uplink). In 802.11 (Wi-Fi), you never know where the next transmission is going to come from, so you can't listen in any given direction. That means that they are constrained by their omni antennas. Their system is designed for downlink video delivery in the home, and for that, it's excellent. In the enterprise, where bandwidth use is symmetrical, it's extremely hard to perform a good survey and to get any more range than any other platform in the market. Aerohive's platform is a feature-rich as any on the market today, focusing on K-12 and universities. Our platform is free to try at aerohive.com/demo and aerohive.com/planner Note that Aerohive focuses on high client density, directory integration (AD, eDir, OD, and LDAP), and has integrated RADIUS so that you don't have to buy and maintain a RADIUS infrastructure. With no controller in the mix and no feature licenses, Aerohive is a perfect fit for education.

[Dos_Box]

Meraki's solution is so feature-poor that it's a poor fit for a school of any size. No directory integration, no fast/secure roaming (called Opportunistic Key Caching), no policy (QoS, Firewall, etc) enforcement at the edge (in the AP), etc. Ruckus's solution is OK for mid-market, but for an enterprise, it too is feature-poor (some of the same issues as Meraki). Ruckus's beamforming causes the AP to be a downlink hidden node, which tanks throughput in dense client environments such as schools. Additionally, it's downlink range is cut approximately in half when data starts flowing due to them having to use omni antennas for reception (uplink). In 802.11 (Wi-Fi), you never know where the next transmission is going to come from, so you can't listen in any given direction. That means that they are constrained by their omni antennas. Their system is designed for downlink video delivery in the home, and for that, it's excellent. In the enterprise, where bandwidth use is symmetrical, it's extremely hard to perform a good survey and to get any more range than any other platform in the market. Aerohive's platform is a feature-rich as any on the market today, focusing on K-12 and universities. Our platform is free to try at aerohive.com/demo and aerohive.com/planner Note that Aerohive focuses on high client density, directory integration (AD, eDir, OD, and LDAP), and has integrated RADIUS so that you don't have to buy and maintain a RADIUS infrastructure. With no controller in the mix and no feature licenses, Aerohive is a perfect fit for education.

 

How perculier. Many of our members have Ruckus (and indeed Meru + others) installs and ono have reported anythign like the issues you seem to describing. I'm sure after several years of Ruckus deployments we would have heard about it. You arn't an Aerohove reseller are you by anychance? I'll give you 24 hours to clarify the situaltion before dealign with your post as it is part of our policy not to allow unsubstanciated comment.

[DevinAkin]

Hi Dos_Box,

 

This is definitely not unsubstantiated, as I have done this testing myself over the last couple of months and have recently (this week) spoken to Motorola's QA dept who substantiated exactly the same. I work for Aerohive as Chief Wi-Fi Architect. Aerohive Networks, Inc. | Company | Management Team

 

Here is a case study (with associated press release) where customers chose Aerohive over Ruckus in particular in a K-12 environment:

Aerohive Networks, Inc. | Resources | Case Studies

Aerohive Networks, Inc. | Company | Press and Events | Press Releases

 

Ruckus's system is designed for in-home, downlink streaming video deployments, and they play quite nicely there. They have stated many times that they are focused on the carrier market who sells into the home and not focused on the enterprise market. Meraki is, in fact, aiming to be an SMB player, but not just in Wi-Fi. Instead of working toward large enterprise Wi-Fi, they are going toward cloud management of SMB Wi-Fi, SMB Ethernet, and other SMB plays. This came directly from their management staff to someone we hired who had interviewed with Meraki. Thanks.

[localzuk]

Hmm... Aerohive employee promoting Aerohive and saying the competition isn't much cop, providing Aerohive documents as evidence. How unbiased is that?

[plexer]

No company would ever release a case study that didn't end up with the customer choosing said companies product so thats just smoke and mirrors.

 

Ben

[gshaw]

Hmmm this thread is becoming an epic battle of suppliers! It does strike me now as each supplier dropping in lots of wireless tech jargon but not so convinced about the real world implications of a lot of it, in theory based on what each have said about the others no-one would have a working wi-fi deployment at the moment!

 

Signed up for that Meraki webinar, might as well, got nothing to lose by having a look I guess...

[Wes]

Hmmm this thread is becoming an epic battle of suppliers! It does strike me now as each supplier dropping in lots of wireless tech jargon but not so convinced about the real world implications of a lot of it, in theory based on what each have said about the others no-one would have a working wi-fi deployment at the moment!

 

Signed up for that Meraki webinar, might as well, got nothing to lose by having a look I guess...

 

You hit the nail on the head. You should demo as many as possible. They will all do a job, some better than others. Which one fits comes down to many factors including cost, deployment scale, your requirement, your RF environment etc. But you can't deny, not having a controller to limit scalbility, pay for, support and license is a massive bonus. They will all demo for free.

[Wes]

No company would ever release a case study that didn't end up with the customer choosing said companies product so thats just smoke and mirrors.

 

Ben

 

I think you're getting smoke and mirrors confused with differences of opinion. Your phrase (to me at least) implies some sort of trickery or untruthfulness. Clearly there is a case to be made for each vendors solution, otherwise they just wouldn't be in business too long. Each solution has it's merits and the intention of a case study is to highlight those merits. Think of it more like an advert, which is exactly what it is. However in this case it's backed up by a real life customer, which is more than you get on TV!

[Chris_Cook]

Your phrase (to me at least) implies some sort of trickery or untruthfulness.

 

Because no ones ever lied whilst trying to sell something have they? Given the number of adverts these days which have small print, I take manufacturers adverts with a large pinch of salt. Especially when someone says that a competitors product is "feature poor", and then lists a load of "missing features" that our school is, at least as far as I'm aware, actually using on that very same product.

[gshaw]

and then lists a load of "missing features" that our school is, at least as far as I'm aware, actually using on that very same product.

 

I did get that feeling reading some of the posts on this thread actually!

[nicko17]

yes i gathered that aswell after reading this thread in my lunch break today lol........

 

One thing I would say is that I recently had a wireless system implemented at the school which I work for. I was initially looking at Meru, Xirrus and Meraki, and out of those three prefered Meraki due to its ease of deployment. A few weeks further i was contacted by someone at aerohive and was explained their approach to WLAN. Which tbh sound too good to be true to begin with. After meeting one of there representatives and reading some indepth information on their solution i found that it was in fact even better than i previously thought.

 

One main issue with all school at the moment is budget, Aerohive assured me that their solution provided scalability with no hidden costs....... They have no costly central controller that has a stepping costing structure. I initially purchased 6 ap and their management tool, which is simply software.... not to be confused with CONTROLLERS...

 

In recent months we have had more budget free up and have now lit up another 3 areas of the school adding more access points. It was as simple as plugging them into the switches and pushing the congigeration and we was off. One thing i would say regarding Meraki, after spending time reading countless whitepapers is that they still have a controller, its just cheaper as it is a cloud based version, so really no different in basic architecture to other vendors.

 

As someone has said before I would recommend looking into the technical abilities of each vendor and their solution and finiding the best solution that fits best for you. No one solution is the definitive one to have. For me yes it was Aerohive, for others maybe not. One thing i would recommend is perhaps going on there website and looking at one of their white papers, particully the economics and architechture wp!!! Definatly worth looking at the whole market.

 

Hope this is informative for you, defo look at Meraki and Aerohive though, im sure you will be impressed

[gshaw]

What's the ongoing cost with Aerohive? Any yearly maintence for software updates etc?

 

How did the price come out compared to Ruckus \ Meraki?

[nicko17]

One of the things i was very impressed with was the simplicity of pricing its a very easy concept with no hidden costs that pop up later.......

 

I am using their cloub based management tool which suits me due to its cost benefits with the quantity of AP's i have deployed. I literally purchased the access points and then the annual cost of 65 pounds to use the Aerohive hosted management tool in the cloud. This 65 also includes support aswell, i was informed that there were discounts for multiple year buys i beleive around 130 for three years... but i must check on this. This is all I pay. All updates are free and is done through the HiveManager. There are also other options available for your hive manager a VM version and a 1 u and 2 u appliance, these become more cost effective when deploying larger networks. If this is your chosen platform you also have to pay a one off cost per ap as a liscence to speak to the management tool, not much, around 50 i think. Lastly with the vm or appliance you have to have support which is around 40 i beleive but once again im not too sure as i dont have this, but i do remember being told that discounts are available for buying in multiple years........

 

One thing that I liked about aerohive was that i knew what my costs would be as knew that when i wanted to add more i knew exactly how much it would cost. In terms of comparisons with others meraki and aerohive are of a simular level but meraki has a contoller and is not very strong with its features. With ruckus you need to alsobuy a controller which is further outlay, but ap cost is simular to that of aerohives plus feature liscences for meshing roaming voip etc.....

 

i would say one thing have a look at the case studies on aerohives website they been doing great things with education both sides of the pond and maybe have a look at there demo's there worth a look, free planning tool with a topology report, give you an idea of what coverage you will get

 

 

sorry if it seems like a story does this help lol?

[plexer]

What is the cost of the aerohive ap's?

 

Ben

[nicko17]

i bought the hive 120's and paid around 550 pounds this is a 2x2 mimo dual radio .a/b/g/n. Also each AP has its own Radius server, Firewall, Dynamic Meshing and QoS capabilities, and theres no feature liscences everything comes in it.....

 

you can get a 3x3 mimo dual radio called the 320 i think.... but i didnt need this one all depends on your needs and requirements... do you have a WLAN then plexer, if so who are you using?

[MrJon]

I take a slightly different view on this – I feel that most of the technology is very similar and total cost is the main driver here. Be it Meraki, Aerohive, Ruckas, HP, Cisco, etc, etc a high proportion of cost will be the management. Clearly you guys have far too much time…. A simple to deploy, simple to manage solution is the way forward.

After all it all be obsolete in 3 years…. Buy the cheapest TCO platform… And take your time into consideration.

Incidentally, as the Education World rightly moves to the cloud, why are you trying to create a private network?

[nicko17]

I take a slightly different view on this – I feel that most of the technology is very similar and total cost is the main driver here. Be it Meraki, Aerohive, Ruckas, HP, Cisco, etc, etc a high proportion of cost will be the management. Clearly you guys have far too much time…. A simple to deploy, simple to manage solution is the way forward.

After all it all be obsolete in 3 years…. Buy the cheapest TCO platform… And take your time into consideration.

Incidentally, as the Education World rightly moves to the cloud, why are you trying to create a private network?

 

Well perhaps you havent looked at the technology in depth Aerohives is completely different, i previously had other system vendors who have a centra controller, aerohive do not have a controller, there access points are high end peices of technology with each ap having the processing capabilities and functionaility you would expenct from a controller. The APs i previously has were as good as paper weights when i had controller problems, the bloody thing didnt work. I just let my network run now all the intellegance is done in the AP no need for me to do anything happy days!!!!!

 

I have 30 laptops all log on at the same time with no issues what so ever!

 

I would say if your going to make statements suppport them with actual knowledge of the technology or some previous usage of it..... Aerohive wouldnt be where they are on the Gartner Magic quadrant if they were simular to other vendors

[localzuk]

Incidentally, as the Education World rightly moves to the cloud, why are you trying to create a private network?

 

Because 'the cloud' in education is many years off. Internet connectivity in schools is in no shape to move to cloud reliance. 1 lesson of lost ICT connectivity can mean the loss of an entire section of the curriculum in some subjects. That's time you can't get back.

 

I agree about TCO as the driver. Which is one of the reasons I chose Ruckus. The TCO is good and low.

[CyberNerd]

Because 'the cloud' in education is many years off.

 

It's working here, now.

[localzuk]

It's working here, now.

 

So you have all of your services hosted offsite? If so, well done, but you are not the norm.

[CyberNerd]

So you have all of your services hosted offsite? If so, well done, but you are not the norm.

 

well not everything, but its a fast growing area.

[localzuk]

well not everything, but its a fast growing area.

 

So you have 100% internet connectivity? I know most of us don't...