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I work for a large conference center which has numerous lodge rooms, conference facilities and 200+ cabins spread across 250 acres.

I connect many of the buildings and cabins together using a Motorola Canopy system and provide guest access using APs like Linksys, DLink and Meraki, which are all managed individually.

With 80 APs in place and 40+ APs planned for next year due to new construction and expansion the system has become impossible to proactively maintain. Therefore I am looking at a centrally managed system from Aruba, Motorola Symbol and Ruckus.

We are a non-profit, meaning money is a factor, and that might rule out Aruba (like Cisco) as a possibility. I am drawn to Motorola Symbol because of good experiences with their Canopy gear. Plus their equipment has descent functionality and is affordable. I have heard a lot of good things about Ruckus, like their BeamFlex technology and intuitive software to make deployment and maintenance easy, but I have not heard of anyone using them on a wide-scale deployment.

Please provide any experiences or thoughts you have about Motorola Symbol and Ruckus. And is there any other company I should consider?

Thanks!

You might be stuck with 2nd or 3rd tier products if cost is that big of an issue. I can't believe you have that many SOHO devices out...what a mess. 8-O You actually might have some success with Aruba. Their APs are pretty darn inexpensive and their controller has some nice guest features (certainly blows Cisco's guest features out of the water).

I have seen Symbols latest offer with their *latest* controller-based code and it looks pretty good. Their previous code was garbage. They did a nice job with their new code. Look at the fully loaded cost and features you get. If you're in a conference center you might be able to charge for it, no? If so, *easiest* way might be to outsource it and you have no CapEx. If you want your own, perhaps you can do a blended model or you can do your own. However, you would have to do your own billing/merchant account integration. Pronto Networks I've had experience with and that might work out well for you and you can also offload your helpdesk.

Hope that helps.

I have been doing some work with Motorola's new 7131's, and I have to say I do like them.

I know you have to think about costs and so on, however, what I see with these is future proofing- Moto is going to be a very serious contender and the 7131 are clearly designed to be around for some time.

You can be sure that future advances with WiFi will be taken care of.

I also think an intelligent design will allow you to deploy with far fewer devices than you think, which may help cut costs.

I've been following these guys for years and I've been less than impressed with them at times. They come up with some good ideas and concepts, but fail on the follow through. It just goes to show you because their market share is nearly nil anymore.

BTW, I'm pretty skeptical when people start throwing around the term "future proof" especially when it comes to WLANs. Don't let any wireless salesman pull the wool over your eyes.

That being said, I'm always open to be pleasantly surprised!

sjackman Escribi?3:

I've been following these guys for years and I've been less than impressed with them at times. They come up with some good ideas and concepts, but fail on the follow through. It just goes to show you because their market share is nearly nil anymore.

SJackman, I assume you're talking about Motorola Symbol and not Ruckus or Aruba, right?

Indeed. Thank you for clarifying. I'm only talking about Symbol in my last post. I've not dealt with Ruckus yet other than their little client/bridge. I was pretty impressed with the Ruckus unit, but I've not seen anything enterprise-level from them; they are a very new player.

I would not rule out Aruba though. Moto is likely not a bad choice depending on your requirements.

It seems like the new offerings from Meraki would assist in your deployment. Have you looked at the 200 mW outdoor? They have used Canopy as backhaul and the managment services in the Meraki are well suited for guest access. Plus you can't beat the price.

What is the reason that Meraki is no longer suitable? Just want to know the pros and cons from your view.

Needle Escribi?3:

It seems like the new offerings from Meraki would assist in your deployment. Have you looked at the 200 mW outdoor? They have used Canopy as backhaul and the managment services in the Meraki are well suited for guest access. Plus you can't beat the price.

What is the reason that Meraki is no longer suitable? Just want to know the pros and cons from your view.

Needle, I have used Meraki and like it as a product. You can't be the price for their outdoor, meshable AP either. It's actually why I started looking at a more centralized solution. With Meraki though I find it hard to manage certain things. Like if I have 3 Meraki devices in the same area and all have connections to the internet they will use the same channel unless I set them up in different 'networks' on the Meraki dashboard. It can be done, but becomes more cumbersome to do and monitor all your 'networks' especially as more and more units are added. I have suggested to them to create an overview page of all networks a person has created and more granular control of individual APs. Plus, in many cases I need to mount these units in a hallway and they are not aesthetically pleasing and they draw attention to guests (I have had some units 'walk off' because of this).

I also find use for additional features offered from the vendors mentioned such as role-based access and a captive portal.

I agree on the aesthetics. I put them in Terrawave ceiling tile enclosures whenever possible. I have an install coming up and I will post the pics once it is done.

Regarding multiple channels, what are you trying to do? are you trying to get more bandwidth or have multiple SSIDs? Do you feel that the captive portal feature is too restrictive with regards to design? Thanks!

Needle Escribi?3:

I agree on the aesthetics. I put them in Terrawave ceiling tile enclosures whenever possible. I have an install coming up and I will post the pics once it is done.

Regarding multiple channels, what are you trying to do? are you trying to get more bandwidth or have multiple SSIDs? Do you feel that the captive portal feature is too restrictive with regards to design? Thanks!

The Terrawave enclosure looks like a nice idea. I'll have to look around and see if there's other products like it for locations without drop-ceilings.

Some of our conference facilities hold a high amount of people and I therefore like to install multiple APs to cover the area and provide sufficient access for guest devices. So I use multiple channels to keep the devices from interfering with one another.

In regards to the Captive Portal. I believe you're talking about Meraki's splash page. Yes, I do feel it's restrictive and difficult to 'brand' like our company's website or other features like capturing guest data like email addresses for promotional newsletters or advertising current specials at our site.