OT: What are you using for wifi in an education setting?

[Nick_Gooch]

We currently use Xirrus for our wifi. We are 1-1 iPads and all teachers have laptops and iPads. We need to look at refreshing/upgrading our wireless. Xirrus is great but is also expensive. Now that they are recommending adding more arrays (alot more) the savings of having less cable pulls and switches doesn't cover the extra cost on the arrays anymore.

I'm curious on what you guys are using and how you like it? Anything that you have used and will never go back to again? How is the support? How is pricing? Xirrus is very confusing as every little thing is priced separately (Hardware support, os support, feature licensing, array os licensing, the arrays, xms licensing for the xms and for each array, etc).

Thanks in advance.

[CasperSally]

We use Meraki & no complaints. We do have a weird issue with iPad Airs and their MR24, but using 2.4Ghz seems to solve that (can just set 2.4 for iPad SSID). They have tried to troubleshoot with us, but are unable to reproduce.

[RobertHammen]

Ruckus has the best antennas from what I have seen. Most of my clients are using Cisco or Meraki.

[gskibum]

I have a customer using a Ruckus system. It has exceeded my expectations beyond what I thought any wi-fi system could deliver. But it was expensive. I have no experience with Meraki.

[damienbarrett]

We've been a Ruckus shop for five years and recently evaluated the competition in preparation for a forklift upgrade (if necessary) of our WiFi in Summer 2015. In the end, Ruckus won out again over the competitors. Five years ago, we looked at Xirrus, Trapeze, Cisco, Ruckus, Aruba, and Meru. This time round, we looked at Aerohive, Ruckus, and Cisco.

Since we already upgraded our controller last summer, and have the infrastructure investment, it made sense to stick with Ruckus for our AP replacement this coming summer. Aerohive was a very strong competitor and we seriously considered them but were unable to find a reseller in the NYC/NJ area that seemed to know it well enough to assuage our concerns about our required support contract.

TLDR; We use and love Ruckus, but Aerohive is a strong competitor in the Edu & Mac space.

[Chris_Hafner]

We are 100% Aruba and quite happy with it. Aruba is also working with JAMF on a number of integrations for things like policy based certificate distribution, managed enrollment and a bunch of other new stuff they just announced. We're super happy with them as they can generally manage bonjour traffic rather well so far!

[Nick_Gooch]

Thanks guys... I like the idea of Aruba's Airgroup. I'm not sure if the others have something similar? Xirrus has bonjour director which is kind of similar.

[Chris_Hafner]

Before our most recent wireless refresh (three years ago) we narrowed our competitors down to Xirrus vs Aruba. Aruba won out in our eyes for three primary reasons: Manageability, Flexibility and Cost.

Xirrus is still far behind AirGroup management. Mind you, I love their arrays but management is or was, a secondary consideration. Initially Xirrus intended to honor whatever management was already handling your network. Meaning that they wanted to create the worlds fastest, most reliable access points available (I still love their Rapid Deployment Kit). We went with Aruba as we had almost no modern network management so Xirrus simply wouldn't work for us at the time. I believe that aerohive has some similar management infrastructure but we really didn't like their performance or security of their products. I'm not the Network Engineer so I'll remain rather vague on that. ;-)

P.S. In a school setting we found that Xirrus was often overkill for many of our areas. Aruba was far cheaper to install and operate even when considering Xirrus' single and dual radio breakout boxes.

[Chris_Hafner]

P.S. I should also point out that our research showed a number of larger institutions both corporate and educational used a combination of Aruba and Xirrus deployments depending on need. Aruba tended to handle secured wireless access and Xirrus was primarily used for large unsecured (public or semi-public) venues like Harvard's conference centers and Gillette Stadium (I a New Englander).

[gregleeper]

We went with Enterasys three years ago because of favorable recommendations from campuses in our area and they were impressively cheaper than Cisco. They are now owned by Extreme Networks. I believe it is Enterasys or Extreme Networks who is actually the wifi provider at Gillette and at Lincoln Financial in Philadelphia. http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/specials/hot-seat/2013/08/17/enterasys-changing-patriots-viewing-experience-with-high-capacity-gillette/vFOJ4XRfke7qTAjTpqpZMI/story.html

Terrific support and reliable wifi is our impression of them.

[Chris_Hafner]

Interesting. I wonder if Xirrus is still in Gillette or if the Enterasys system replaced it.

[gregleeper]

Pretty sure Enterasys replaced them. I remember a lot of marketing emails when that happened about 6 months after we decided on them.

[Kennedy]

We are running Ruckus at my current school. This is the 4th school I've rolled the Ruckus gear out to, and it keeps getting better. Never fails to impress. Each time we are pitched from another Vendor, and we evaluate against our requirements (which are pretty standard), they can't compete. They also essentially match any price point from other Vendors, so we've never had an issue there.

I'm going to need a miracle to be convinced away from Ruckus to another Vendor at this point.

Cheers,
Gav

[lionelgruenberg]

We're using Aruba for wireless and Enterasys switches for the network. Rock solid performance.

[gskibum]

Working with a Ruckus system this weekend.

Gotta say it's more than annoying that a premium support service plan has to be purchased just to access KB articles and firmware & software updates. Even for EOL products.

[Kennedy]

If you're in demo mode, they will sort his for you. Talk with sales, not support.

If you're in production then it shouldn't be an issue?

Happy to help if you need any documents in particular.

[Simmo]

Aruba here, their product and support is great in my experience.

[gskibum]

Doesn't say anything about demo mode or contacting sales. I would merely like to access current firmware, and I was also looking for some knowledge base articles. But I kept running across this road block insisting on premium support to access these things.

Pretty lame thing to run across on a weekend network upgrade project.

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[marktaylor]

We have been 100% Aruba for years, each time we review nothing comes close. Being able to reduce the Airplay Apple TV choices down to the ones nearby is a massive plus for teachers to use.

[jgwatson]

Add aerohive to your list to look at. They have a handy feature which will send unenrolled devices to the JSS for enrollment, if a student decides to delete the profile.

[pchang]

I'm bumping this old thread. @gregleeper how has Extreme wireless been? We are looking at replacing our wireless infrastructure with wireless from Extreme Networks.

Anyone else using Extreme Networks Wireless out there? Would love to hear the pros and cons.

Thanks! :)

[Aziz]

(ignore this!) accidental post

[gjsmith62]

8 Years + now with Xirrus.
Context is 1200 students with a minimum of one device each.
Performance, service and support are great.
Security is via NPS and ACL's on VLANs.
In summary Xirrus is reliable and the performance is great.

[Josh_A1]

Another for Aerohive.

Not had experience with other vendors but Aerohive is easy to use and as mentioned above the re-enrollment feature is pretty ace if it works in your environment.

[gregleeper]

@pchang We've had great success with Extreme. Top notch support and quality products for a price that is quite a bit cheaper than Cisco products. We have decided to purchase their wireless products again to upgrade to 11ac.

[pchang]

@gregleeper That's great to hear. We are looking at getting their 11ac AP's as well. Which 11ac AP's are you refreshing with?

Do you utilize their NAC solution as well and have it integrated with the JSS?