Soulfish Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 We're currently looking at managed wireless systems for a new school. Unfortunately the building hasn't been completed yet, but we need to select a managed wireless system. I've used Ruckus before and found it quite good, but I was wondering what everyone thought of Extricom? Has anyone got any experience of them, and if their "blanket wireless" system actually works? It's whats currently being suggested by the network infrastructure company. On a related note has anyone tried Ruckus and Extricom? Or even Extricom against Xirrus, meru or aruba? The hardwired nature of the Extricom solution isn't a problem for us because of how the buildings been cabled, but we need to select the best solution for us.
zag Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 Use aruba here, no problems at all, works as it should.
plexer Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 Sorry to be blunt but there are 66 results for extricom as you can imagine managed wireless has had a lot of threads on edugeek. Ben
Soulfish Posted March 30, 2011 Author Posted March 30, 2011 Sorry to be blunt but there are 66 results for extricom as you can imagine managed wireless has had a lot of threads on edugeek. Ben And I imagine they'll be a lot more. I did look at the majority of those threads, but I was looking for actual current users of the system and if anyone had direct experience of both Extricom and other vendors and how they found them.
featured_spectre Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 Extricom is being used at a school near us, I will see if they are happy to talk to you, or even if you have some questions you can PM them too me and I can get back to you 1
Soulfish Posted March 30, 2011 Author Posted March 30, 2011 Extricom is being used at a school near us, I will see if they are happy to talk to you, or even if you have some questions you can PM them too me and I can get back to you Cheers that would be useful - I'll drop you a PM . Out of interest did you have meru or extricom in your wifi shootout you did a while back? Any thoughts on Meru? From what I've seen they're similar technology wise to extricom - both are based around the single channel idea. Really need to speak to people that are successfully doing high-levels of wifi usage/roaming to see what solutions they've used and how they've worked for them
m25man Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 I have installed and used Extricom in a number of environments and found it to be an excellent - albeit expensive solution. You really do need to do your homework and thoroughly understand the principles of cell, pico cell and blanket based wifi in order to determine if one technology is going to be better for your needs than another. There is plenty of unhelpful "my one's better than your one" banter on this forum and just because one NM has chosen to adopt one vendors solution does not mean it is suitable nor fit for anothers. All current systems are dogged with issues due to legacy support requirements, power restrictions, bandwidth limitations, interference and general ignorance and lack of knowledge on both the part of the vendors and their prospective clients. Wireless as an ethernet medium is still evolving and will continue to do so, millions of taxpayers ££'s have been wasted on doomed wifi projects in schools up and down the country whilst others have embraced it and won! IMOHO, the Extricom's blanket system has only one feature that makes it better than the rest, for one purpose and that is roaming. If you have no requirements for roaming Voip handsets across your campus or hospital, then it's no better or worse than most of the other offerings from the other vendors... The more powerful the cpu in your controller the more expensive your system will be, as they all battle to offload the overheads of encryption/decryption from the AP onto the management appliance. I have been installing and supporting 802.11 since it was first released and I still remain vendor agnostic. The right wifi system for you is the one that best meets your specific needs in your specific environment and of all the challenges, interference will be the hardest to overcome. I reckon I could put a single AP on a pole in the Arizona desert and service 50 laptops within a half mile radius.... Put the same AP in a classroom in an inner city school and you could have trouble associating a few clients. Managed WiFi systems simply make it easier to deal with the inherent issues that have and will continue to dog wireless installations and for many here the choice of wireless system will be made on a financial basis only not a technical one! 1
john Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 When I was having a google for info on Extricom vs other brands (for stuff outside Edugeek) I came across this - Meru, Extricom sue over patents | Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal interesting, fine its last year but I bet its still being sorted out to go further. I think its a case of go with what you know, you know the Ruckus kit inside and out I had a demo of Extricom and it was interesting but just didn't have the feel to me, the IP Phone roaming was exceptional but Ruckus support Wifi VOIP nicely as well so its going to be one of those interesting things that whatever you do you will go blast I should have had something else. With all that shiny Cisco you have, not thought about slapping the Cisco APs up and just using that for ease of management and systems?
krolen Posted March 31, 2011 Posted March 31, 2011 Ruckus for us has been one of the best things we have ever put in at school. Not a single problem since its install. !
mac_shinobi Posted March 31, 2011 Posted March 31, 2011 not sure where it is but someone else may be able to find it easier / faster ( quicker ) then I can but am sure someone on edugeek in one of the threads / posts submitted / uploaded a pdf that compared all or a lot of the different ones from ruckus, meru, etc etc and posted findings in the pdf
featured_spectre Posted March 31, 2011 Posted March 31, 2011 That was mine but it was a word document, and it is now 3 years old, so a bit dated.
jamesreedersmith Posted March 31, 2011 Posted March 31, 2011 How about the various vendors that are about one here (or there reps?) contact dos_box and see if we can arrange a full up to date "shootout" of the various products in a like for like test and get an independent review of all the kits in a variety of real world scenarios (eg coverage of any area using 1,2 or 3 aps, number of clients per ap etc.) Im not suggesting Dox_box does the test but he may be able to coordinate. Just mt 2p
Soulfish Posted April 1, 2011 Author Posted April 1, 2011 I have installed and used Extricom in a number of environments and found it to be an excellent - albeit expensive solution. You really do need to do your homework and thoroughly understand the principles of cell, pico cell and blanket based wifi in order to determine if one technology is going to be better for your needs than another. There is plenty of unhelpful "my one's better than your one" banter on this forum and just because one NM has chosen to adopt one vendors solution does not mean it is suitable nor fit for anothers. IMOHO, the Extricom's blanket system has only one feature that makes it better than the rest, for one purpose and that is roaming. Thats the impression I was getting on Extricoms system. Great for roaming, but other than that it seems about the same as everyone else. Managed WiFi systems simply make it easier to deal with the inherent issues that have and will continue to dog wireless installations and for many here the choice of wireless system will be made on a financial basis only not a technical one! We're in quite a lucky position being a greenfield site. While financial concerns are certainly still important above all we want a solution that will work, which is why I'm trying to find out what experiences people have of high density wireless in inner city environments. If that means we don't opt for the cheapest solution then that's what we'll do, however we don't have unlimited budgets . Out of interest do you have any preferences when it comes to inner-city working and high densities? Feel free to PM if you prefer When I was having a google for info on Extricom vs other brands (for stuff outside Edugeek) I came across this - Meru, Extricom sue over patents | Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal interesting, fine its last year but I bet its still being sorted out to go further. I think its a case of go with what you know, you know the Ruckus kit inside and out I had a demo of Extricom and it was interesting but just didn't have the feel to me, the IP Phone roaming was exceptional but Ruckus support Wifi VOIP nicely as well so its going to be one of those interesting things that whatever you do you will go blast I should have had something else. With all that shiny Cisco you have, not thought about slapping the Cisco APs up and just using that for ease of management and systems? Cisco is just £££££££. Extricom quote I've been passed is actually alot lot less than I was expecting, but I need to sit down with them and figure out what they've actually specced it to since we want the system to support upto 1-2k devices! Ruckus is still an option, but its dependent on a few other things as well. How about the various vendors that are about one here (or there reps?) contact dos_box and see if we can arrange a full up to date "shootout" of the various products in a like for like test and get an independent review of all the kits in a variety of real world scenarios (eg coverage of any area using 1,2 or 3 aps, number of clients per ap etc.) Im not suggesting Dox_box does the test but he may be able to coordinate. Just mt 2p A wireless shootout would be great. Getting in Ruckus, Meru, Extricom, Xirrus, Aruba and whoever else into an environment of our choosing and seeing how it performs across lots of devices/ranges etc would be great. Just a lot of work.
paulfinlay Posted April 1, 2011 Posted April 1, 2011 Single channel systems like extricom and meru were developed to solve a roaming issue that doesn't actually exisit on any properly designed wifi network. 98% of WLANs out there are standard multichannel architectures, roaming works in MCAs - it's what wifi is built for afterall. Also consider what happens if you have a complicated problem with a SCA the only people that can help are generally the vendors themselves. I'd recommend you compare the likely school candidates, Ruckus, Aerohive, Xirrus (Cisco and Aruba are very expensive). Give them all a call they should be more than happy to setup a demo.
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now