Wireless Network Vendor Report

[featured_spectre]

As you all know, I did a wireless networking vendor report (roughly) 3 years ago, and I am looking to do another one to give all vendors a fair test.

 

If it helps, here is a run down of my place

• Urban school, built in the 60s, every wall is steel mesh lined and solid concrete (and I do mean, EVERY wall).
  
• Over 90 rogue AP's within 200m radius of our school, all of which gets picked up by laptops etc (albeit very weak).
  
• Satellite uplinks to 8 other school on WAN which can induce some interference
  
• Permanent police presence less than 500m from our building (stationed at a firestation) and they use mobile satellites, portable airwave tetra repeaters, and surveillance vans a lot!

 

We are looking at running Ruckus N in the future (upgrading what we have now), but a fair test will go out to other vendors. I make it known now, that they will not be picked as the bosses are exceedingly happy with what we have, and want to upgrade on it, however I want to update my wireless test results.

 

So far on the list is is as follows

• Aerohive
  
• Aruba
  
• Cisco
  
• Extricom
  
• HP
  
• Linksys
  
• Meraki
  
• Meru
  
• Motorola
  
• Netgear
  
• Ruckus
  
• Xirrus

 

If there are any other vendors you would like up on here, please give me a heads up and I will add them too the list. My aim is to have a full test done by the end of Summer term, after which, the results will be emailed to the UK Directors of each company so they can see how they compare in an environment like mine (which tbh I think is as bad as it gets!)

 

Cheers

 

Neph

Edited April 21, 2011 by featured_spectre

[featured_spectre]

Format for the test results

 

• Date of test
  
• Vendor Name
  
• Managed box Model Number
  
• Wireless Access Point Model Number
  
• Cost of Equipment (Managed Box + 10 APs + 3 year warranty + 3 year updates)
  
• Location of Access point (which will be our Science Prep Room, as it has the densest concentration of steel mesh lined walls)
  
• Test equipment - We will add the equipment to our network, and connect up 30 laptops with 5mb staff profiles, and see how well it copes with iplayer, and move the equipment at varying locations 10m, 25m, 35m, 55m, 75m, 100m. and post up signal strengths using inSSIDer.
  
• Ease of use with the management console (and a picture of it, if vendor will allow the dashboard and admin page to be posted up)

 

As stated, this is going to go to the UK Directors of each company so if there are other companies or vendors people think I should test, please tell me

[GrumbleDook]

I'll drop you over a report format on Tuesday which will also help analyse risk against educational options (eg bring your own kit)

[featured_spectre]

no worries, thank you .

 

Trapeze has been added to the list, will contact them shortly.

[featured_spectre]

Had emails from 10 companies...they don't want pictures of their dashboard or admin pages on the report or posted elsewhere, so it looks like its descriptions of how easy to use they are etc that will be available.

[Soulfish]

Could you do a test on 2.4 vs 5ghz performance? And if you could get multiple APs a roaming test would be great

[featured_spectre]

Arrangement so far is 2 APs, management console, and APs have to be abgn capable.

[IanT]

I've used HP Wireless Solutions in my current role and last job.

 

HP ProCurve 760 Mobility Controller & HP ProCurve MSM422 Access Point

 

Solid as a rock!

[featured_spectre]

Well Ian this is what the testing is all about. I am going to give it a completely fair test. I may have ruckus already in the building, but for purpose of testing, we are switching off the system so that we dont have interference from our own system. This is primarily being done for our feeders, but everyone seemed to like my last report, so I am doing another one lol

[IanT]

I posted this in the WRONG! thread! sorry!

[cbox]

Hi Neph

 

We have a 3Com Unified Switch with 24 APs deployed here. I am hoping to deploy the newer 3Com WX3024 shortly with RADIUS so that we can have increased security and N- speeds. The system works very well for us, but I have not tried others. You have HP on your list already and I think they have taken over 3Coms wireless catalogue during the merger rather than keeping their own (I think).

 

We have a very good vendor for our networking gear- James Curry at SwitchShop. He may be able to help with test gear as he has been very good to us in this regard.

 

Kind regards

 

Chris

[snoerre]

We are using Aruba 800 controllelrs with Aruba a/b/g access points. ~2 years ago we added Netgear WFS709TP controller, as those are relabeled Aruba (with limited software) but with much lower costs. Unfortunately current Netgear wifi systems are no longer based upon Aruba...

[mrfreeze574]

Aruba Networks

 

Date: June 2011

Manufacturer: Aruba Networks

Controller: Aruba Networks 3000 Controller

WAP's: 1 Aruba AP-105 (we have tested more)

Cost: I can't give that! I can say that it is very decent pricing, at least for us (after discounts).

Location: Residence Halls (Steel meshed concrete walls), The WAP is located in the hallway and we are stationed in 5 rooms.

Test Equipment: 5 Laptops, 2 iPods, 1 iPad

Ease of use: Awesome

Comments: I found the Aruba controller very easy to use and feature rich. I would personally recommend Aruba. For the amount of data we were pulling and the distance we were located it handled very well.

 

Ruckus Wireless

 

Date: June 2011

Manufacturer: Ruckus Wireless

Controller: Ruckus ZoneDirector 3050

WAP's: 1 ZoneFlex 7363 (we have tested more)

Cost: I can't give that! They are by far the best in pricing that we worked with.

Location: Residence Halls (Steel meshed concrete walls), The WAP is located in the hallway and we are stationed in 5 rooms.

Test Equipment: 5 Laptops, 2 iPods, 1 iPad

Ease of use: Good

Comments: I found the Ruckus controller to work well and have some very unique features. I like the fact that the network can live on if the controller died (not great, but continue to work for those connected) and that all the traffic does not go straight through the controller. I did not personally notice great enhancements with the bandwidth shaping that they claim their controllers have.

[plexer]

The hp msm760 is rebadged colubris kit.

 

Ben

[snoerre]

Talking about HP

 

- There are the mentioned Colubris based ones: e.g. the MSM460 with 3x3:3 MIMO looks nice, plus e.g. E-MSM76zl controller

- And the H3C based devices: WA2620E with "only" 3x3:2 MIMO. HP A-WX5004 would be the controller.

 

It would be great if you could take a look at both.

[will_]

We have four NetGear WN802T access points in our primary school, and they've been one of the the most unreliable pieces of kit I have ever used. Two have been replaced (within two years) because they bricked themselves. All four regularly drop connections or crash completely until they are power cycled; one is so bad that I have it on a timeswitch to cycle every morning. They'd probably be great for a home user with one or two devices but with any more than that, they quickly become overwhelmed - staff meeting this evening with 8 laptops was enough to crash one unit 3 times. We've checked they're all running the latest firmware and have suffered the same problems with laptops and desktops made by HP and Dell (both of both). Avoid!

[featured_spectre]

Righty, I got a few suppliers done, dusted and written up. Quite a few pulled out and some refused since I made it clear the report would go to all vendors involved...they saw it as giving away trade secrets I suppose. I will publish it soon.

[TechSupp]

Yes got four at different schools. Found the older ones to be fine but found the newer white onces to be problematic. Using one school with an older one with 20+ netbooks reasonably well, but using the newer ones has proved very unstable. Would not use one again.

[Bud180]

Are these tests still running. I would like to see some results of Bluesocket?

 

Thanks

[SOCDavid]

Been using the Colubris (now HP) gear for quite a few years now and its proved very solid.

 

Got it integrated into our Cisco network and tied to AD via RADIUS (IAS)

 

Currently have 5 SSIDs to split college owned domain joined from college owned non-domain, privately owned laptops, smartphones (staff and students) plus guests.

 

All works nicely.

 

Cheers

David

"Reality is nothing but a shared perception"

[vikpaw]

Great idea.

Any more updates? Keen to see your report @nephilim , partial or otherwise. Especially cost/performance for CISCO compared to others.

[featured_spectre]

This was all on my work laptop which since being unemployed I have no access too. If I very a job in a school its being done again.

[vikpaw]

This was all on my work laptop which since being unemployed I have no access too. If I very a job in a school its being done again.

I thought that might have been the case. Shame.

Well, it doesn't have to be in an edutech environment, offer your services to some local businesses You could even do a some testing for some local shopping mall or something, and the companies involved may be more willing to help out, given they may gain corporate customers if they win, or at least some exposure.