# Need Advice from Network Managers - Managed Wireless



## RCoon (Apr 24, 2014)

I have approximately a year to decide on a wireless network system for the grammar school I work in. Currently we're utilising a basic system of around 20 independent AP's from 3COM, that have been as useful as chocolate teapots for the last few years. Over this time, we've got to the stage where we're having to restart the AP's at least twice a day. They were initially implemented in order to merely provide wireless coverage as a primary goal, for the insignificant amount of wireless devices we had. We're now at the stage where we have 1200 students and in excess of 150 staff. Staff have access to our internal wireless, but students are asking for net connection, which we refuse to offer in terms of internal access without filtering. What we intend to do is set up an external wireless system for guests, that follows our standard internet filtering (provided by Smoothwall, we're perfectly happy with this filtering method). Our current set up is simply not viable for such density of users, or the required bandwidth. It's so unreliable, we simply can't offer it to anyone in good faith, because it reflects badly on us. We haven't been given funding for a wireless project until recently, the Head teacher has decided to fund us in 2015 to get a proper, future proof, effective and most importantly reliable solution to work for us for the foreseeable future.

We have narrowed our ideas down to 6 companies: Ruckus, Meru, UniFi, Aruba, Aerohive, and Meraki. We're looking for sheer density in specific areas, of the school, where BYOD will be taking precedent. These areas will be the 6th form (16-18 year olds for our American readers), where projects will be on the higher bandwidth side of things, and we're looking at peaks of up to 200 users spread across 2 rooms next to each other, known as the common room(the social space where they tend to do work outside of class hours). Standard coverage for the rest of the building would be ideal, we're looking at approximately 10-20 devices that will actually be utilised in the entire sixth form building during lessons, excluding the common room area where main the device density is. For this general coverage area, we're looking for solid, reliable, not necessarily fast connection. We don't want to have to touch this wireless system once it's up and running. It just needs to work, and deal with roaming users and connection by itself (On this note, Aerohive's webinar covered a great deal about roaming users and handover of connection between wireless AP's, and this was particularly interesting to us). In the high density areas, we're looking for absolute connection, and support for over 50 devices per AP. We're happy to put up to 4 AP's between these 2 or 3 rooms to provide the density requirements, but we need that connection to have enough bandwidth for those users, and ensure the AP's aren't fighting over each other for the devices connection. Proper aggregation protocols and hand overs will be implicit to this area, because we don't want users to drop or get slowed down too much because of the density of mobile devices. Nearly 100% of our sixth form students own an iOS or Android phone which they have in school with them, and a smaller percentage actually bring in their laptops despite not having wireless available to them.

To that end, we're looking for 802.11AC as well as the obvious G and N on the 2.4Ghz band and 5Ghz band. We don't require AC right now, but we're looking to do this job right in the first place, and not have to touch it for a while. Meraki's webinar seemed to go on about their cloud based solution providing filtering, we're not interested in that in the slightest, we're only after a solid wireless connectivity platform that is self maintaining on the firmware/software side of things. Any extra gubbins that require technician hours to maintain are a downside to the system. We have better systems in place than these alternatives a managed wireless system can offer, so we simply aren't interested.

We have a whole new Art and Drama block being built, and while the devices may not be so dense or high in bandwidth requirement, something that has briefly been touched on is video camera streaming. We've had a couple of students asking if they can stream videos from the video camera equipment over to a computer instead of having to copy over the data or use a cable into a projector. While this isn't a main priority, I think it would be something to look into out of future interest. The rest of that entire building will be purely about coverage, as we don't foresee much density requirement for Art or Drama.

Two areas in particular are the Foreign Languages and English blocks, which are both identical in terms of the way they've been built. They're duplicate buildings, with two floors, and 3 classrooms on the lower floor and 4 classrooms on the upper floor. In these buildings we have 1 wireless point on the upper floor, smack bang in the middle of the block to cover the entire block (again, coverage is the priority here, as density is not something we foresee). The wireless in some of these rooms is pretty poor, occasionally students loan laptops and in the corners the signal is non-existent. In these areas we are looking for absolute solid coverage and connection, with zero black zones.

We have 2 IT rooms parallel to each other, where device density and bandwidth requirement will be much higher. A fair few students will be using wireless devices, and the teachers in these lessons have wireless devices which they use in certain lessons (android tablets etc). This will possibly be one of the higher wireless priority rooms compared to the rest of the main building.
Our art block is directly below our Science block(one of the largest departments in the school), and only has 3 of our relatively poor 3COM AP's covering this entire area. This is also an area similar to the MFL and English block, that could certainly use some solid coverage with little to no black spots, but device density here is minimal.

Following from the cloud based management, we're not so keen. These solutions provide hardware that only works based upon a subscription. We don't want useless hardware after 5 years because the management system that resides over it is not being used any more. If we choose to switch the management system to an alternative controller, whether it be physical or cloud based, we want our hardware to work. A prime example of this was a hospital a few years ago in Britain. They had a cloud based system, and good quality AP's. When they decided to stop paying their cloud management subscription and opt for a more price competitive alternative, that company then actively transmitted interference on the AP's they weren't managing any more, because the AP's talk directly to that company when connected in any way to the internet. You may wonder if these AP's were contracted to be only used on that management system, but they weren't, the hospital was within their right to use the hardware on an alternative management system.

We're not keen on cloud based AP management. It's just one more thing separating us from possible issues that could arrive in the future. As of this moment, cloud based systems to us, are not a solution, they are a problem. The reliability is not there, the option to quickly switch out a piece of faulty hardware isn't there, the control is not there, and the security, no matter how secure these companies claim their cloud based systems are, is simply not as good as having a physical device in our server room we know nobody can access besides us. Cloud based management is a ransom, not a service. While I understand things are moving that way, it's a preference. That being said, if the actual best system available, with the best possible service for our needs is cloud based, then we will cautiously consider it. Sometimes these things become the going standard and we just have to adapt.

UniFi interests us a lot. We're happy to put in some extra man hours to get the initial system set up, especially when it's open source and cheap, and allows us to hack and slash away at the set-up as we see fit. It's a very cost effective solution, and seems to be the most "DRM-Free" style of wireless we've seen. The only issue is we haven't heard reviews on the actual quality or performance of the physical AP's. If they're strong contenders on the hardware side, they're a likely winner in my eyes. Once set up though, we want these things to just work as I said above, no nonsense like having to change channels afterwards.

Ruckus have been the most raved about managed wireless service. Every IT worker we've spoken to so far has either had a Ruckus system and sung its praises, or purchased another system, visited a school with Ruckus, and then decided that was their next Christmas present on the list. From what I've heard on EduGeek, they're very reliable, and no nonsense. We're not the kind of people that follow the saying "nobody ever got fired for buying Cisco". While their offering, Meraki, is price competitive, after watching their webinar, they seemed to just advertise what wonderful things their cloud system could do, that essentially had nothing to do with the actual wireless connection. They didn't touch on AC, they didn't touch on any special technologies like handover, or any fancy automated systems they had under their belt. They waffled on about their switches. We don't care, we have good new switches, and we already have web filtering. We're happy to listen to the gritty technical details of the hardware, and do some research if we don't understand what we hear, but we're not looking for anything beyond a strong wireless system.

Aruba and Meru are two companies I've literally never heard of, but some guys on EduGeek mentioned their names on the subject, so we're looking into them too. After going through all the details of all six, we're eventually going to knock it down to two and get into the gritty details of the systems. From their we're happy to leave the two companies to battle it out for pricing.

Both Meraki and Aerohive are sending us one AP to test, we're hoping the other four companies will do the same. So far Meraki have been quite helpful and quick to set us up on their cloud service even though we don't have a wireless system to manage, which in itself is a benefit that I can honestly see. Of the two Aerohive actually told us the technical details we wanted to hear, but of course I'll be contacting each company individually in order to give them the chance to go into detail about what their system can promise us. In the event one of the companies does not offer us a demo system (just an AP, and a simple way to manage it), then they're struck from the list. We like to try before we buy. I've mentioned 802.11AC earlier, this is also a must. We won't be buying a managed wireless system without it. As a team we've always thought exceedingly long and hard about every project decision until both the reps and we are exhausted, and as such, we receive nothing but positive response from our end users. At the end of the day, if our users aren't happy with the system, we aren't. Our view is, if we hear nothing about it all year round, odds are the system is doing its job just fine. We have a year to decide, so we will exhaust every option until we're happy.

While talking directly to the reps from each company will give us the factual details we need, I'm looking to get actual in-use recommendations and advice. Any issues, gripes, and general banter about your managed wireless systems in the workplace would be greatly appreciated.


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## johnspack (Apr 24, 2014)

My network knowledge is nill,  but I think if you want the best security,  then pure n band with wpa2 ect protocols will be best.


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## RCoon (Apr 24, 2014)

johnspack said:


> My network knowledge is nill,  but I think if you want the best security,  then pure n band with wpa2 ect protocols will be best.


 
Not every device is N, and of course we'll be using security, as we already do. Our current AP's are wireless N, but relatively useless as they're simply "dumb" independent AP's. But of course the AC is incoming, and we'd like to be ready.


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## PHaS3 (Apr 24, 2014)

I am IT Manager at a school myself, and we implemented a BYOD policy in 2010. Over the years we have learned some lessons about WiFi standing up to the "brutality" of multiple devices. One of the major issues we had was access points dropping out when more than 10 iPads connected to them (resolved with new firmware and subsequent models of AP). But I digress, I would look at Ubiquiti's UniFi option. We unfortunately missed the boat on it and have individually configure Ubiquiti devices throughout our campus, but I can only say good things about the Ubiquiti APs in general. All our staff have iPads supplied by the school, and we use Airserver to allow the sharing of the iPad screen on projectors (also one in each class), which as you can imagine can put strain on insufficient APs, and have had no problems with the Ubiquiti devices. 

Pop me a pm if you want to chat more about your school network  always happy to help.


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## ne6togadno (Apr 24, 2014)

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...i-unifi-30-enterprise-wi-fi-platform-reviewed


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## remixedcat (Apr 24, 2014)

Cisco Meraki is really smooth and very nice

Here's a review I wrote on one of their routers: http://remixedcat.blogspot.com/2014/01/cisco-meraki-mx60w-review.html

Highly recommended.

Oh btw the wireless in the mx60w is even more powerful than amped is even

Amped rta15: 27dBm
Mx60w: 30dBm


I also own an mr12 ap and will be doing some tests soon.

I do not, however own the mx60w. It was a review unit.

Also if you have an MX and Mr APs you can setup a concentrator and do l3 roaming and handoff.

Or you can use a VM.


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## RCoon (Apr 25, 2014)

remixedcat said:


> Cisco Meraki is really smooth and very nice
> 
> Here's a review I wrote on one of their routers: http://remixedcat.blogspot.com/2014/01/cisco-meraki-mx60w-review.html
> 
> ...


 
Thanks Cat, much appreciated. Great review too!


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## remixedcat (Apr 25, 2014)

You're welcome. Thank you!!


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## brandonwh64 (Apr 25, 2014)

UniFi!! Their controller software is easy and simple to setup! They have new AC units with 1.3GBPS speeds. Just build a simple server (Hell an old P4 will do) and make sure its on the same range as the nodes and you can make maps of were the nodes are at as well as see statistics, who is connected, lock nodes down during no internet times, and MUCH MORE


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## RCoon (Apr 25, 2014)

brandonwh64 said:


> UniFi!! Their controller software is easy and simple to setup! They have new AC units with 1.3GBPS speeds. Just build a simple server (Hell an old P4 will do) and make sure its on the same range as the nodes and you can make maps of were the nodes are at as well as see statistics, who is connected, lock nodes down during no internet times, and MUCH MORE


 
I don't suppose you could give me a brief description of how you use it (case study sort of thing, buildings, density, users etc), need something semi-formal/useful to provide to governors(the people who decide to give me money and why they are giving a certain company the school's money).

Thanks


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## brandonwh64 (Apr 25, 2014)

RCoon said:


> I don't suppose you could give me a brief description of how you use it (case study sort of thing, buildings, density, users etc), need something semi-formal/useful to provide to governors(the people who decide to give me money and why they are giving a certain company the school's money).
> 
> Thanks



I can give you a small layout of a college we did using this product if that is helpful


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## RCoon (Apr 29, 2014)

Small update so far. Meraki's AP (The MR18) has arrived and we've been testing. Aerohive are the only people sending us an AC AP, and Aruba have been the most helpful and social so far, arranging a meeting next week and are sending us an AP to fiddle with. I've got high hopes for those guys. Not impressed with Meraki's cloud based management, the interface is less than stellar, and nothing is particularly well thought out in terms of settings. Seems like a bit of a mess, but it was relatively easy to set up. The virtual AP map where you upload a site plan is not so great, didn't bother with it. Meraki are also the only people who don't advertise max distance for their AP's. Everyone else does(they're probably woefully inaccurate).

As for the Meraki MR18, I've done a few field tests on the 802.11n band.

*3GB single file

Peak: 5ft away
Link Speed: 144Mbps
Peak Transfer: 8.71MBps
Network Utilization: 61.75%

Worst: 114ft away (1 breezeblock wall)
Link Speed: 6Mbps
Peak Transfer: 256KBps
Network Utilization: 30%

Further than ~115ft caused a disconnection from the wireless or unusable network connection.*


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## remixedcat (Apr 29, 2014)

Well I'm testing another enterprise brand and the test unit I have is DOA (bad firmware and possible hardware damage) so I got an RMA and a new unit on the way and gotta send this one back soon. Will reveal in my upcoming review. 

One company I don't recommend so far is barracuda networks, the rep spent most of the time talking bad about meraki and constantly asking for a credit card number and not even trying to tell me much at all about thier products! The guy was unprofessional and downright rude. I wanted an evaluation but he said that they would need a credit card and runt eh whole purchase through and then after 30 days "I can return it and get my money back" ... ummm that's not an eval that's a "30 day money back guarantee". there's a difference. eval holds the CC# and after the period if you don't return it then they charge.  Used car salesmen sound more warm and sincere and knowledgable then that rep did. Too bad I didn't get his name he was one of the worst reps I've dealt with and I've dealt with a lot.


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## RCoon (Apr 29, 2014)

remixedcat said:


> Well I'm testing another enterprise brand and the test unit I have is DOA (bad firmware and possible hardware damage) so I got an RMA and a new unit on the way and gotta send this one back soon. Will reveal in my upcoming review.
> 
> One company I don't recommend so far is barracuda networks, the rep spent most of the time talking bad about meraki and constantly asking for a credit card number and not even trying to tell me much at all about thier products! The guy was unprofessional and downright rude. I wanted an evaluation but he said that they would need a credit card and runt eh whole purchase through and then after 30 days "I can return it and get my money back" ... ummm that's not an eval that's a "30 day money back guarantee". there's a difference. eval holds the CC# and after the period if you don't return it then they charge.  Used car salesmen sound more warm and sincere and knowledgable then that rep did. Too bad I didn't get his name he was one of the worst reps I've dealt with and I've dealt with a lot.


 
Might be worth checking Gartner's Magic Quadrant for reputable wireless companies, they seem a trustworthy source. Also check EduGeek, there's a lot on there about reputable Managed wireless providers. That's how we came up with the 6 companies. I must say props to Aruba, they've been the best in terms of providing the information we asked for, and the guy I spoke to wasn't pushy in the slightest, and instantly took my address for an eval AP to be sent. Haven't heard anything from Ruckus, Meru, or UniFi yet. Meraki don't talk much, and Aerohive's AP hasn't yet arrived.


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## remixedcat (Apr 29, 2014)

I'll see what other units I can get to test.


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 29, 2014)

Considering the amount of coverage you are looking for and the amount of clients served, I would suggest you go with a company who does this kind of thing every day. Pay a networking company to come in and set everything up the way you want it and then you guys can handle the day to day stuff. Your manager should know this.


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## RCoon (Apr 29, 2014)

Easy Rhino said:


> Considering the amount of coverage you are looking for and the amount of clients served, I would suggest you go with a company who does this kind of thing every day. Pay a networking company to come in and set everything up the way you want it and then you guys can handle the day to day stuff. Your manager should know this.


 
We intend to get a survey done, and gather recommendations on AP types and locations based on density and coverage. We're fully capable of drilling holes where we're told and patching in cables. Also we're not accustomed to getting ripped off by a company charging 200% profit margins to drill some holes. This is the way it is done, and has been done in the last 5 schools I've worked in.


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 29, 2014)

RCoon said:


> We intend to get a survey done, and gather recommendations on AP types and locations based on density and coverage. We're fully capable of drilling holes where we're told and patching in cables. Also we're not accustomed to getting ripped off by a company charging 200% profit margins to drill some holes. This is the way it is done, and has been done in the last 5 schools I've worked in.



i am not saying you are incapable of drilling some holes. but if you think all that goes into setting up a realiable,robust, and secure network for thousands of people is drilling some holes then you are in for a rude awakening. i mean as it currently stands you have a system of 20 APs you have to restart twice a day. whoever set that up needs to be fired. also, considering the very bad state your wifi network is in your management should be looking at going through a vendor. sorry to day.


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## RCoon (Apr 29, 2014)

Easy Rhino said:


> i am not saying you are incapable of drilling some holes. but if you think all that goes into setting up a realiable,robust, and secure network for thousands of people is drilling some holes then you are in for a rude awakening.


 
I have over a year to research and learn, hence the point of this thread, and all the tests I intend to do over the next year period. I am aware of what is involved. I mean no offense to you, but you're really not helping in this thread, you're just sounding a little condescending, which isn't like you. Maybe I'm just getting the wrong impression, but we usually get on pretty well. If I've got the wrong idea I do apologise, and I appreciate your concern if you think I'm in over my head, but I have a huge amount of research to do, and plenty of time to think about and do it.



Easy Rhino said:


> i mean as it currently stands you have a system of 20 APs you have to restart twice a day. whoever set that up needs to be fired.


He was 



Easy Rhino said:


> also, considering the very bad state your wifi network is in your management should be looking at going through a vendor. sorry to day.


I'm the person in charge of projects within the IT department, I've only been here a year and we've managed to get a few implemented. This is my next big project, and I get to spend about 70% of my time dedicated to it.


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## remixedcat (Apr 29, 2014)

Thing is RCoon is doing the right thing by testing the gear on the actual site and fully understanding the client. An outside person will inflate prices, and find ways to suck more money out of someone and a ALOT of them just push the highest price APs becuase they want to make more commission, etc. A school also doesn't need to cover the entire campus in high end 802.11ac units those can be deployed in strategic locations that need the extra B/W and the rest can be covered in cheaper to mid grade N APs. Seen a few hotels that do this as well as some hospitals.


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 29, 2014)

RCoon said:


> I have over a year to research and learn, hence the point of this thread, and all the tests I intend to do over the next year period. I am aware of what is involved. I mean no offense to you, but you're really not helping in this thread, you're just sounding a little condescending, which isn't like you. Maybe I'm just getting the wrong impression, but we usually get on pretty well. If I've got the wrong idea I do apologise, and I appreciate your concern if you think I'm in over my head, but I have a huge amount of research to do, and plenty of time to think about and do it.
> 
> 
> He was
> ...



Sorry I didn't mean to come off like an arse. I have seen a lot of people come through and ask for advice on big projects and they are completely clueless of the scope of the project. It does sound like you have been given plenty of time to research. My advice, which you are looking for, was for your employer to go through an outside vendor which usually costs more upfront but is less expensive years down the road. You did say you are getting a survey done so that will be immensely helpful. In six months if the project seems like it is getting over your head see if you can hire a consultant. After all, if it is going to take a full year to plan this out it is going quite a bit of time implementing and troubleshooting and finally managing and upgrading. This is just from my IT experience.


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## RCoon (Apr 29, 2014)

Easy Rhino said:


> Sorry I didn't mean to come off like an arse. I have seen a lot of people come through and ask for advice on big projects and they are completely clueless of the scope of the project. It does sound like you have been given plenty of time to research. My advice, which you are looking for, was for your employer to go through an outside vendor which usually costs more upfront but is less expensive years down the road. You did say you are getting a survey done so that will be immensely helpful. In six months if the project seems like it is getting over your head see if you can hire a consultant. After all, if it is going to take a full year to plan this out it is going quite a bit of time implementing and troubleshooting and finally managing and upgrading. This is just from my IT experience.


 
At this stage my boss wants me to evaluate the 6 companies and what they have to offer, then in a few months time after I've tested their kit (and tested their customer service experience), we're going to knock it down to two companies, and ask them for their quotes, their gear, their costs, etc, and evaluate further from there. Once we have a winner in terms of services provided, we'll get the actual project done.


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## brandonwh64 (Apr 29, 2014)

sorry it took so long but here is the layout of the college UniFi setup we have.


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## remixedcat (Apr 29, 2014)

Thing is... How fast is ubiquity to respond when issues arise or you got to RMA something?? I hear they are forum support only is this correct??


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## RCoon (May 2, 2014)

Small update from after having run tests on the Aruba AP

*3GB single file

AP225 (.11N / AC)

Peak: 5ft / 5ft
Link speed - 780Mbps / 180Mbps
Peak transfer - 23.1MBps / 12.5MBps
Utilization - 30% / 75%

Worst: 60ft / 140ft
Link speed - 60Mbps / 26Mbps
Peak transfer - 4.64MBps / 2.6MBps
Utilization - 33% / 26%
Max Distance - 60ft / 140ft

Further than ~140ft caused a disconnection from the wireless or unusable network connection. When I was using an AC device, it would switch from AC to N at around 60ft, and as such gain a higher link speed up to around 300mbps, but it seemed to have some issue where when it switched to the N band but didn't go much farther.*

It's also worth noting the Aruba instant access management on the independent device is pretty awesome. The cloud management console is quite delayed though, and can take up to two minutes to display what just happened. Waiting on our retailer to provide us with a 90 day evaluation on the Aruba AirWave software so we can try that out as a management method on a virtual machine onsite.


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## remixedcat (May 2, 2014)

Is the instant access software as detailed as the Meraki?


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## RCoon (May 2, 2014)

remixedcat said:


> Is the instant access software as detailed as the Meraki?


 
Instant access is not as detailed the the Meraki cloud-based solution, as it's locally on the AP itself, but the Aruba Central (their cloud based solution) is on par with meraki's cloud. Same options, same data, but a different layout. Meraki's cloudbased management is far tighter in terms of timings, you can see updates to your wireless situation and data within 5 seconds, whereas Aruba Central is quite heavily delayed. I'll wait to get hold of the Aruba Software management solution and give some more feedback on the update timings.


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## remixedcat (May 2, 2014)

Does the stuff like VLANs and the captive portals act the same???


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## RCoon (May 2, 2014)

remixedcat said:


> Does the stuff like VLANs and the captive portals act the same???


 
IDD, the Meraki AP's also come with a clever little clip mount designed especially so you can literally slide the AP onto any existing suspended ceiling without having to drill holes. It does not however have the specific Layer filtering options Meraki has, but we're not looking for any kind of filtering, because we have a rather expensive hardware filter. Both the Meraki and Aruba AP's picked up 5 rogue access points, so that feature works well on both, considering I can't actually connect any devices to more than 3 different local AP's.

On a side note, the Meraki AP runs very slightly warmer, but that's not an issue in the slightest.


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## brandonwh64 (May 2, 2014)

remixedcat said:


> Thing is... How fast is ubiquity to respond when issues arise or you got to RMA something?? I hear they are forum support only is this correct??



They are pretty quick but we have a direct contact with them since we buy a lot of their equipment. Out of all the purchases we have done only one or two nodes had to be RMAed due to pesky college kids messing with them. When they were installed, they thought it was a good idea to mount the indoor nodes inside on a wall of the dorms which is easy access to drunk college kids LOL


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## remixedcat (Jun 9, 2014)

Update: here's how Aruba's 802.11AC AP225 performed: http://remixedcat.blogspot.com/2014/06/aruba-ap225-review.html


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## RCoon (Jun 9, 2014)

remixedcat said:


> Update: here's how Aruba's 802.11AC AP225 performed: http://remixedcat.blogspot.com/2014/06/aruba-ap225-review.html



Did some tests and had issues with the Aerohive AC AP. It's terrible, signal is very limited range, and their support is the worst I've seen. Haven't had time to post the detailed results, I'll get them done soon.


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## remixedcat (Jun 9, 2014)

Cool. Looking forward to the results from the aerohive. I'm gonna try to get one too.


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## RCoon (Jul 3, 2014)

Update at last! Sadly not yet for the Aerohive.
This time it's for the Meru system. So far it's been a nightmare. The setup took a few days because the original engineer basically ballsed up the setup. After another engineer came in and fixed his issues, they still hadn't managed to get a few of the IPs correct, which we ended up fixing for them. After all that mess, which has been ongoing since last week on Thursday (it is now Thursday today), the guest wireless access still does not work properly, something which so far, only Aruba and Meraki seem to have gotten right.
The setup for Meru puts me off, but if an engineer can come in and fix the problem in one fell swoop, that's fine by me, so far though, I'm not happy.
But I'll drop the performance numbers, as they speak for themselves:

*3GB single file

Meru AP 832e (.11AC / .11N)

Peak: IT Office
Link speed - 866Mbps / 216Mbps
Peak transfer - 40.4MBps / 9.0MBps
Utilization - 44% / 55%

Worst: Quad / Entrance
Link speed - 13Mbps / 10Mbps
Peak transfer - 460KBps / 730KBps
Utilization - 18% / 40%

Max Distance - 52ft / 104ft*

Interestingly enough, the AC has no N failover. Once the AC device lost connection to the AC signal, it just cut out entirely instead of connecting to the N signal it can see (we know it can see it as far as 104ft), which showcased an interesting bug with the Intel 7260 Dual band AC adapter and Lenovo's E540 mouse trackpad. For some reason when it loses signal, the trackpad holds left click on whatever you last clicked on, rending the trackpad useless until you restart it.

Aerohive data incoming soon if I can get time. The Aerohive AP does not work with guest wireless either, and their support just didn't help us at all. However, the Aerohive AP has become the perfect bandaid for our network of dumb standalone AP's. Wherever we put it in place of one of our broken, it's a total champ, broadcasts to any device within a nice range, and just does its job for plain old wireless. Needless to say, even though we're not buying any Aerohive kit because of its inherent problems with VLANing, it's actually a good old blunt instrument to get a job done.


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## Steevo (Jul 4, 2014)

I too vote Ubiquity, a ISP used them for hard to reach areas with their bullet system and it was stable, fast, and well managed, I implemented them for a few stores and with point to  point wifi 2.8Ghz I was able to maintain a VPN with a heartbeat with upper 90% uptime. I am betting your AP issues is backplane bandwidth, the AP's are out of buffer and start dropping packets and flush their buffer before they get the response back and then just start seeing new traffic as DDOS essentially, or they fill the buffer waiting on the network and run out.


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## McSteel (Jul 4, 2014)

+1 for Ubiquity/UniFi system. Recently sprinkled around some indoor "dish" APs with some strategically placed outdoor ones for some wonderful results. The centralized control system is well thought out, and consistently and intelligently updated, with Ubiquity willing to go the extra mile for a significant customer and hurry up some implementations or innovate a new feature. The APs are Atheros-based and are rock-solid, each can handle 127 clients in theory, but in practice they're stable up to around 50 per physical radio. The outdoor ones are particularly impressive, boasting 28 dBm, but really outputting at least 30, and having two RP-SMA connectors (they come with 2x5 dBi antennae), when paired with some serious omni antennas (like 9+ dBi) they'll make you glow in the dark in their vicinity.

The guest access system is robust and allows pre-defined networks, vouchers and even integrated paypal payments. Seamless roaming and mesh networks are working flawlessly and pretty much automatically. Logging and administration is intuitive and easy, with only the requirements for the controller PC's hardware being a bit on the high side if you need constant control over your APs and you have more than 15 of them. Still, an i3 with 4 GB of RAM should be able to service 100 of them (with 50 clients each) without issue, with possibly a mini-box with a J1900-based mobo and Linux handling 50, no sweat.


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## RCoon (Jul 15, 2014)

Second to last update on AP tests, this time with the UniFi AP AC... AP! Now this thing is small, and it is very very thin. Not to mention this thing weighs about half as much. All in all very nice to look at. Also the controller software can be installed on damn near anything, and I had the whole thing setup quite literally in 10 minutes.

The controller has to have the same VLAN tags as the ports the AP's are plugged into, otherwise it won't find the AP's. As for the rest, same subnet and it finds the AP not problem.

When I was testing the AP, the fancy AC failover to N made it slightly difficult to determine which band was being used for my tests. eventually after half an hour I managed it. This is one of the few AP's however, where it seamlessly failed-over to the N from AC, not to mention when there was an AP in the viscinity of the laptop that provided better signal the UniFi AP seemed to force it to roam to that AP instead. Pretty smart behaviour which I had not seen from the other AP's, probably because those manufacturers don't like it when their are other AP's and treat them as rogues instead of working with them.

Either way, had a great time testing this AP, very cheap, and has about 80% of the power that the big manufacturers provide. Solid connection though.

*3GB single file

UniFi AP AC (.11AC / .11N)

Peak: IT Office
Link speed - 400Mbps / 243Mbps
Peak transfer - 7.7MBps / 6.35MBps
Utilization - 20% / 45%

Worst:  Second Bench/ Quad Doors
Link speed - 6Mbps / 5Mbps
Peak transfer - 10KBps / 78KBps
Utilization - 10% / 15%

Max Distance - 48ft / 98ft*


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## remixedcat (Jul 15, 2014)

So it works fine with your guest VLANs??


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## RCoon (Jul 15, 2014)

remixedcat said:


> So it works fine with your guest VLANs??



Flawlessly, like I said, it literally took 10 minutes to set up and it's been working flawlessly ever since. Even the network map customisation and placement options are stupidly easy to use and set up. I can give an Alias to anything on the network, it tells me how it's connected with a rather interesting bubble.
Some screens:


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## remixedcat (Jul 15, 2014)

Cool. Not too bad for being pretty cheap.


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## RCoon (Jul 15, 2014)

remixedcat said:


> Cool. Not too bad for being pretty cheap.



They're cheap, and in brutal honesty the wireless is not quite as powerful as the others. The maximum reach of the N and AC is not as far as most others, and the speed of file transfer is below average on AC, and slightly above average on N. It's also worth nothing they have their own Zero Handsoff option, and once the AP's have been added to the controller, setup, and decided amongst themselves what is the best channel based on location, the controller can actually then be turned off, and they'll remember where they are and where the other AP's are, so the roaming and management basically carries on.


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## remixedcat (Jul 15, 2014)

Hmmm that's a pretty neat feature.


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## brandonwh64 (Jul 15, 2014)

Im glad you like the unifi setup rcoon! They make more powerful nodes but they are more expensive but for a small office area or building they work just great and very easily managed


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## RCoon (Nov 12, 2014)

Been a while, final product test. Piece of kit from Ruckus. It's their first midrange AP that offers AC on a budget, but still a decent performer, the R500. Weirdly the AC cuts out before we get to KB figures at a distance, it seems to failover rather than try to carry on with AC communications. Same with the N Band, it got as low as 11 (jumped to 5Mbps occasionally), but taking one more step (1ft) would cause it to lose connection.

*3GB Single File

Ruckus R500 (.11AC / .11N)

Peak: IT Office
Link speed - 650Mbps / 240Mbps
Peak transfer - 21.7MBps / 13.5MBps
Utilization - 31% / 52%

Worst: Second Bench/ Quad Doors
Link speed - 39Mbps / 11Mbps
Peak transfer - 10.4MBps / 247KBps
Utilization - 39% / 32%

Max Distance - 48ft / 98ft
*
As it happens, Aruba is the overall winner, however they are the most expensive option. We've decided against aruba as they would cost *four times* more than any other company. UniFi are the cheapest, and would cost half as much as the next competitor. Overall we're most impressed with Ruckus' price/performance ratio. Debating between them and UniFi.


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## remixedcat (Nov 12, 2014)

I'm having drama with my two aruba rap109s as well, unstable RF, windows filesharing issues, support basically made me brick one of them (I had to buy a console cable to TFTP a new OS image over to fix after a botched upgrade), and they have more frame errors then the Xirrus Arrays.

Not really gonna recommend aruba anymore.

BTW did you ever try Xirrus or Airtight?


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## RCoon (Nov 12, 2014)

remixedcat said:


> I'm having drama with my two aruba rap109s as well, unstable RF, windows filesharing issues, support basically made me brick one of them (I had to buy a console cable to TFTP a new OS image over), and they have more frame errors then the Xirrus Arrays.
> 
> Not really gonna recommend aruba anymore.
> 
> BTW did you ever try Xirrus or Airtight?



Never had to deal with firmware on anything except Ruckus kit. Took 2 hours and 7 tries to update the firmware, but once it did work, it worked within 5 minutes. Aruba are a real powerhouse, they topped all of my charts, but they're horribly expensive when it comes to enterprise solutions.

Never got a chance to try those, as we only had 6 on my list, and needed to narrow it down to 2 or 3.


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## remixedcat (Nov 12, 2014)

To have detailed logging you getta also have airwave and they quoted me at 8 grand for 20AP minimum and I was like "what about for just 2 or 3 APs and they were like "no" about it.


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## McSteel (Nov 12, 2014)

I myself would definitely go for UniFI, and probably would take the outdoor ones. Solid stability, easy to use and easily expandable. Then I'd put 8 dBi antennas on them. Because screw laws and regulations, 500 mW of WiFi will not be even 0.1% as harmful as standing in direct sunlight.


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## remixedcat (Nov 13, 2014)

Well I completed my airtight networks C75 review:
http://remixedcat.blogspot.com/2014/11/airtight-c75-review.html

So now you will know how airtight stacks up!


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## bpgt64 (Apr 8, 2015)

Kinda just picked up an R500 on Amazon for 475 US....Trying to get rid of my 2 access point setup and move to a single one.  We'll see how it goes.


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## remixedcat (Apr 8, 2015)

Tested a Cisco Meraki MR34, top of the line AP and here's my results!
http://remixedcat.blogspot.com/2015/02/cisco-meraki-mr34-review.html


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## bpgt64 (Apr 9, 2015)

How do you standardize your testing?  Is that a suite or just a set of commands from iperf or..


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## remixedcat (Apr 9, 2015)

I use PRTG for the graphs and monitoring and LAN Speed test for the traffic generation.


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## Nick Lowe (Jun 4, 2015)

RCoon said:


> Update at last! Sadly not yet for the Aerohive.
> Aerohive data incoming soon if I can get time. The Aerohive AP does not work with guest wireless either, and their support just didn't help us at all. However, the Aerohive AP has become the perfect bandaid for our network of dumb standalone AP's. Wherever we put it in place of one of our broken, it's a total champ, broadcasts to any device within a nice range, and just does its job for plain old wireless. Needless to say, even though we're not buying any Aerohive kit because of its inherent problems with VLANing, it's actually a good old blunt instrument to get a job done.



If you have time, would you mind explaining specifically what you mean by 'inherent problems with VLANing'?

Being candid and perhaps a bit cheeky, I honestly suspect that the issue that you had in this area is likely to have been one of configuration not an issue in the AP's firmware.

Aerohive's community forums are usually a good place to get a second opinion on any niggles:
https://community.aerohive.com/aerohive

Did you post there at all?


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## remixedcat (Jun 4, 2015)

Often with VLANs its touchy with a lot of aps and I did hear on spiceworks a lot of people have issues with aerohive and VLANs.


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## Nick Lowe (Jun 4, 2015)

remixedcat said:


> Often with VLANs its touchy with a lot of aps and I did hear on spiceworks a lot of people have issues with aerohive and VLANs.



That's typically where things are misconfigured though...

Can you be more specific?


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## remixedcat (Jun 5, 2015)

Do you work for Aerohive?


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## Nick Lowe (Jun 5, 2015)

remixedcat said:


> Do you work for Aerohive?



Nope, definitely not.

I have no hidden intentions here, just genuinely curious what wasn't working, what they were trying to do etc


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## remixedcat (Jun 5, 2015)

hahha ok...


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## RCoon (Jun 5, 2015)

Nick Lowe said:


> If you have time, would you mind explaining specifically what you mean by 'inherent problems with VLANing'?
> 
> Being candid and perhaps a bit cheeky, I honestly suspect that the issue that you had in this area is likely to have been one of configuration not an issue in the AP's firmware.
> 
> ...



No, didn't post there, because the VLANing that was potentially misconfigured, worked for all other 5 AP manufacturers, and works flawlessly for our entire network. Also, the fact that we have to spend a large amount of time figuring out these kinks, is a negative point towards Aerohive from the word go. When your competitors work within 10 minutes, and your company's configuration takes hours (and an on-site visit from an engineer who ALSO can't fix the problem), its probably time to rethink your configuration strategy.

We didn't go with Aerohive in the end because we dislike cloud based systems as a concept. We use office365 and frequently get disconnections at least once a month for 10 mins or so because a datacentre choked.

Their throughput was relatively average, and so was pricing. Aerohive never really attempted to compete, and frankly, they couldn't compete against the bare brute strength of Aruba, the cost efficiency of UniFi, or the sweet spot price/performance of Ruckus.


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## remixedcat (Jun 5, 2015)

Yeah if you go to my blog @Nick Lowe  Aruba and Cisco meraki were the top 2 in throughput followed by airtight networks, xirrus was king for RF management and configuration options, Meraki is the easiest and most stable. Cisco Meraki and Aruba were the easiest with vlans.


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## OneMoar (Jun 11, 2015)

cloud based network management is a stupid idea for too many reasons to list in this thread
and honestly growing a bit tired with with remixedcat pushing meraki in every single networking thread... I wonder how much cisco pays him ...
the unifi is most likely atheros AR7240 or broadcom BCM4706 cpu's both are mips and operate at about 400 to 600Mhz good for about  200MB/s total thoughput


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## RCoon (Jun 11, 2015)

OneMoar said:


> I wonder how much cisco pays him



They don't pay her anything 

And I believe the Unifi gear is indeed typically Broadcom based.


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## remixedcat (Jun 11, 2015)

well if you have to manage several locations it's much better as well as for initial provisioning with meraki. I do not work for Cisco.

and if you're serious about your biz you gotta be serious about your gear.

Also have you, personally tested as many brands/models of access points as me? @OneMoar 

annnnd not just used at a friend's house or a random restaurant or whatever these have to be in your control and you behind the wheel...


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## OneMoar (Jun 11, 2015)

remixedcat said:


> well if you have to manage several locations it's much better as well as for initial provisioning with meraki. I do not work for Cisco.
> 
> and if you're serious about your biz you gotta be serious about your gear.


Until you lose your link to cisco's licensing server then your entire network is useless. or your wan connection drops out and it tries to phone home.  DRM on a mission critical network .. HELLNO...


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## remixedcat (Jun 11, 2015)

well to a lot of people it's worth paying for.... it's basically paying someone else to host your controller so you don't have to purchase or lease your own servers and such. If you think of it that way you'd understand more.


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