SteveCSE

Hi chaddlad, I've included a link below to a PDF on our Asset Manager site, obviously we have a product that includes a system to allow you to do this automatically and if you would like to know more about that I would be happy to assist further. On the other hand the document includes lots of information about IT asset depreciation and the different methods of calculating it, so if you were just after some general information on how to calculate, that's all in there too and might prove useful. http://www.cseassetmanager.co.uk/resources/App%20Note%20-%20Asset%20Depreciation%20Reports%20v1-0.pdf

I've just asked one of my engineers who replied with the below, Can we ask, are you using a cloud based MDM? If so, it could be that when you supervise the devices with Apple Configurator, the profile that contains your WiFi settings aren’t being applied before the enrolment profile for you cloud MDM. Try supervising your devices with just your managed WiFi profile then applying all other profiles with an update afterwards.

Hi as others have said it does depend on some circumstances and is a bit of a minefield. There have been loads of instances reported where schools signed up to agreements that they shouldn't have due to their own lack of knowledge and also unfortunately some disreputable companies/people deliberately tying schools down to unsustainable terms etc. Ultimately unfortunately, you are dictated to by legislation. As a school you are not allowed to ‘borrow’ which means that you can only enter into an operating lease. What this means is the finance company has to take a residual investment in the kit. In monetary terms the 3 years that they will do often looks less that interest free, and flexible finance companies will work with you at the end of the 3 years to help you achieve what you want to achieve. In short, it is not the finance companies that cant do 5 years, it is the operating lease requirements that Schools have to adhere to. have sent you a PM.

This is exactly my point, I have been stating all through this thread that deployment and equipmnent depends on exactly what you want to use the wireless for, therefore it is dangerous to say that he will need less points using Ruckus and that it is dangerous to say that this vendors solution performs better than that vendors solution. As it really depends on what you are doing, and in most cases these solutions have not been tested properly against each other. I didn't say that he will need a dense deployment just that in that scenario where a dense deployment is required for throughput then more AP's will be required accross the board and backbone needs to be considered in all these situations. From this thread I didn't think Geoff had completed a wireless survey?

I know you said that in your original post, I was agreeing with you

Hi Geoff, I don't think you can say that with Ruckus you will need less WAP's in all scenarios, yes the intelligent antennae design may improve performance on a thin blanket coverage across a site, but has this been tested against the performance of all other vendors antennae arrays other than Cisco? Across all standards including draft N. In a dense population does this really matter as you will be flooding the area with wireless signal anyway to give more throughput. Also you need to think about what you want to deliver, if it's N for a media rich experience, then connecting 9 or so WAP's to a 100Mbps Switch on a 1Gb backbone is probably not the way to go. If you want 30 laptops per classroom then you need to have enough backbone and throughput to enable this. When it comes to large quantities of devices simultaneously connecting you need to think of the wireless as an extension of your data network. Would you daisy chain 9 switches off a single switch on a segment.

Sounds like you had some really bad supplier experiences, not really the kits fault, checking the suppliers experience and getting 3 quotes is always advisable definitely. What were the problems that required you having to be directly in touch with HP third line support? Do you use Ruckus at your site?

I think the antenna setup makes the biggest difference in the actual device, whether this be the wireless card or the actual design of the laptop. There is such a big difference between devices with supposedly the same wireless radio. I heard Ruckus use Atheros in there AP's?

I think these are different things. I'm not a Ruckus Expert but looking at the website the beamflex is a way of the internal antennae adjusting its output from the antenna array to produce more focussed directional 'beams', I’m still not sure of the bending thing though. It would appear that netgear use the same antenna array in the soho rangemax products. MIMO is specific to the N standard and is a way of using multiple radios and antennae to increase performance and throughput using multiple data paths. Surely N standard is the way to go on new deployments though anyway. At the end of the day its about real world use in education, every site is different, I've seen 90 netbooks simultaneously log on and connection speeds of up to 300Mbps across a whole site. I know happy Meru, HP, Ruckus, Aruba, Proxim and Netgear users.

To take my HP hat off, most of the managed solutions (I would say all as can it me classed a managed solution if it doesn't) I have seen or read about have some sort of automatic channel reassignement to avoid interference or the single channel solutions obviously do things their own way. "Bending" radio signals around stuff sound interesting, the MIMO antenna arrays in any N kit should use this multipath to their advantage or it isn't an N solution. Rougue AP and intrusion detection again should be available on most managed solutions of any worth.

Thanks guys have requested info on Sponsorship:)

Absolutely demo kit can be arranged. Pricewise it was project cost like for like that I was referring to rather than particular components. We haven't had any issues with range compared to other products and definately Speed isn't an issue. There are other happy HP users that have posted in this forum, it's a well estrablished wireless solution. Correct planning and implementation also play an important part to the overall sucess of the network.

lol not trying to step on your toes bud, just had something to add from the HP point of view.

Well what can I say, price has not been an issue where we have been quoting against Ruckus in the past. Maybe your Ruckus pricing is better I don't know.

Hi Simon, I don't really agree with this statement and as I was saying from quotes where we have been looking at a like for like deployment of a HP solution then price has been comparable. maybe those ruckus resellers had surveyed wrong I don't know who can say. Most of the time it comes down to capacity required rather than signal radius. But I'm not really looking to get into an argument with a ruckus reseller just answering responding to queries about HP posts listed. I will take your advice and PM staff here, however was responding to a direct request for a HP reseller to contact another member rather than general advertising of services. Take Care Steve