Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice - Business case vs technical?
Jeff, I guess we all wrestle with long term... When we first started our WLAN analysis (back in 1999) we compared a bunch of vendors: Lucent, Aironet ready to become Cisco, Cabletron, Symbol. We eventually picked Lucent for its superior design in term of upgradability (we still have the same APs 6-7 years later!). The AP ownership changed 3 times (LucentAgereProximTerabeam but kept the Proxim name) What we learned from this experience is that a well tought out design has bigger chances to be acquired if the company fails and survive the long term. The color of the hardware might change ;-) If you look for instance at ARUBA, a lot of energy has been spent on the hardware (and a lot needs to be spent on the web interface, sorry Aruba!), I doubt that even if Aruba fails there wouldn't be a Siemens or Nortel or some Chinese company ready to acquire assets and support existing customers. What is the alternative? 100% of the world on Cisco... Philippe -- Philippe Hanset University of Tennessee, Knoxville Office of Information Technology Network Services 108 James D Hoskins Library 1400 Cumberland Ave Knoxville, TN 37996 Tel: 1-865-9746555 -- On Wed, 5 Dec 2007, Jeffrey Sessler wrote: I'm curious for those that have opted to deploy wireless solutions from vendors other than Cisco, how much of your decision was based on business case vs the technical aspects of the vendor's product? My difficulty so far with most of the non-Cisco vendors is with predicting their long-term viability within the WLAN space. Even Aruba, at #2, with only a 10% market share, doesn't seem to be gaining on Cisco, but rather, is fighting it out with the others in the space. Aruba and others are still losing money, I heard Meru may be looking for a buyer, etc. Thus, it seems difficult to predict where Aruba, or others for that matter, will be in 3-5 years, making it a tough business case to invest in these vendors. Who knows, Aruba may not be there, or could be purchased if there is another round of industry consolidation. After all, who would have predicted Cisco's purchase of Airespace in 2005. Has anyone else wrestled with this? Thanks Jeff Jeffrey D Sessler Assistant Director of Technical Services Scripps College ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice
Do any of the Aruba customers know what the limitation of client connections per controller is? How does this number compare to the number of AP's that can be supported by a single controller? Philippe, When planning for AP density in your dorm wireless networks, do these metrics come into play? How big are your dorms and do you need dedicated controller hardware for them (as opposed to the rest of your network)? Thanks, BJ On 10/19/07 12:58 PM, Philippe Hanset [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jay, We picked ARUBA mostly because we know that Wi-Fi will definitely change with 802.11n, but we needed our dormitories covered NOW. Aruba provided the cheapest short term solution with their B/G only APs ($295 list). I presented this to our administration as trashable solution while waiting for next generation Wi-Fi! On the controller side, Aruba has an upgrade path to support 802.11n. For PoE, we got PowerDsine injectors, gig capable, in preparation for more capacity (it seems that 802.3af will be able to feed some of those 802.11n AP) A few caveats with Aruba: -Their new 3.x code was released a little to soon to our opinion... -Do not plan to use APs in AP mode for Wireless Containment, you need dedicated Air Monitor for that (we discovered it later :( -Position APs on each floor, or the heat map will not show coverage on floors that do not have APs -Documentation could be improved, but their TAC provides what is missing in the Doc. Besides these few items, it works well. Philippe -- Philippe Hanset University of Tennessee, Knoxville Office of Information Technology Network Services 108 James D Hoskins Library 1400 Cumberland Ave Knoxville, TN 37996 Tel: 1-865-9746555 -- On Fri, 19 Oct 2007, Jay Howell wrote: I am in the process of evaluating vendors for a campus-wide rollout of wireless. I have narrowed my choices down to Cisco and Aruba. We are planning on creating three roles which are faculty/staff, student, and guest.Each of these roles will have varying degrees of access to systems on the network. Because of manpower issues we will be broadcasting the SSID and using Novell's LDAP to authenticate to the system. We are not a Cisco shop so there is no advantage either way as far as dropping into our existing system. My question is are there any gotchas I might be missing with these two vendors? From what I have seen, both systems seem to work nearly identically. You can access the same information from each controller, and both are self-healing when an AP goes out. Are there any support issues I should be aware of? We plan on making our decision around the first of November, so I look forward to any comments this group might have. -- * Jay Howell Executive Director of Information Technology Chowan University Ph: 252-398-6361 * ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice
Do any of the Aruba customers know what the limitation of client connections per controller is? How does this number compare to the number of AP's that can be supported by a single controller? Aruba supports a maximum of 256 users per AP, but the default config is 64. We decided on a density of about 15 users per AP. On the controller side, Aruba has 128 AP blades, 256 blades and coming with 1024 AP blades. We have 3 chassis for the whole campus (at the moment Dorms only, but it is designed to support the whole campus if necessary) in order to have a n+1 redudancy architecture. Each chassis has one 256 AP blade. So, one chassis has a 256 blade and is the aruba controller (supports 0 AP during normal condition and is designed to be the back up for any other Chassis that would fail), and two chassis with each a 256 AP blade. This config supports our 450 AP in dormitories. Our dorms have about 6000 people (13 buildings). Philippe Univ. of TN Philippe, When planning for AP density in your dorm wireless networks, do these metrics come into play? How big are your dorms and do you need dedicated controller hardware for them (as opposed to the rest of your network)? Thanks, BJ On 10/19/07 12:58 PM, Philippe Hanset [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jay, We picked ARUBA mostly because we know that Wi-Fi will definitely change with 802.11n, but we needed our dormitories covered NOW. Aruba provided the cheapest short term solution with their B/G only APs ($295 list). I presented this to our administration as trashable solution while waiting for next generation Wi-Fi! On the controller side, Aruba has an upgrade path to support 802.11n. For PoE, we got PowerDsine injectors, gig capable, in preparation for more capacity (it seems that 802.3af will be able to feed some of those 802.11n AP) A few caveats with Aruba: -Their new 3.x code was released a little to soon to our opinion... -Do not plan to use APs in AP mode for Wireless Containment, you need dedicated Air Monitor for that (we discovered it later :( -Position APs on each floor, or the heat map will not show coverage on floors that do not have APs -Documentation could be improved, but their TAC provides what is missing in the Doc. Besides these few items, it works well. Philippe -- Philippe Hanset University of Tennessee, Knoxville Office of Information Technology Network Services 108 James D Hoskins Library 1400 Cumberland Ave Knoxville, TN 37996 Tel: 1-865-9746555 -- On Fri, 19 Oct 2007, Jay Howell wrote: I am in the process of evaluating vendors for a campus-wide rollout of wireless. I have narrowed my choices down to Cisco and Aruba. We are planning on creating three roles which are faculty/staff, student, and guest.Each of these roles will have varying degrees of access to systems on the network. Because of manpower issues we will be broadcasting the SSID and using Novell's LDAP to authenticate to the system. We are not a Cisco shop so there is no advantage either way as far as dropping into our existing system. My question is are there any gotchas I might be missing with these two vendors? From what I have seen, both systems seem to work nearly identically. You can access the same information from each controller, and both are self-healing when an AP goes out. Are there any support issues I should be aware of? We plan on making our decision around the first of November, so I look forward to any comments this group might have. -- * Jay Howell Executive Director of Information Technology Chowan University Ph: 252-398-6361 * ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice
We have been a Cisco shop for over 4 years. Not to take anything away from Aruba, but like vendor products always work well together. I am very pleased with our WLAN, both LWAPP and IOS solutions. Solid, stable, and reliable. Kevin Johnson, CCNA Network Engineer Cisco Wireless Specialist Health First NST 3300 Fiske Blvd. Rockledge, FL 32955 Phone 321-434-5557 Cell 321-403-2542 Jay Howell [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/19/2007 10:12 AM I am in the process of evaluating vendors for a campus-wide rollout of wireless. I have narrowed my choices down to Cisco and Aruba. We are planning on creating three roles which are faculty/staff, student, and guest.Each of these roles will have varying degrees of access to systems on the network. Because of manpower issues we will be broadcasting the SSID and using Novell's LDAP to authenticate to the system. We are not a Cisco shop so there is no advantage either way as far as dropping into our existing system. My question is are there any gotchas I might be missing with these two vendors? From what I have seen, both systems seem to work nearly identically. You can access the same information from each controller, and both are self-healing when an AP goes out. Are there any support issues I should be aware of? We plan on making our decision around the first of November, so I look forward to any comments this group might have. -- * Jay Howell Executive Director of Information Technology Chowan University Ph: 252-398-6361 * ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. # This message is for the named person's use only. It may contain confidential, proprietary, or legally privileged information. No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this message in error, please immediately delete it and all copies of it from your system, destroy any hard copies of it, and notify the sender. You must not, directly or indirectly, use, disclose, distribute, print, or copy any part of this message if you are not the intended recipient. Health First reserves the right to monitor all e-mail communications through its networks. Any views or opinions expressed in this message are solely those of the individual sender, except (1) where the message states such views or opinions are on behalf of a particular entity; and (2) the sender is authorized by the entity to give such views or opinions. # ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice
Jay, We have had Aruba networks just over 3 years. Great product and they have been excellent to work with. I would have a bake off between the two of them and see what fits your solution the best. Give them 2 days to set things up and see who would win!!! I would bet that Aruba would, but that is IMHO. Brian Brian J David Network Systems Engineer Boston College _ From: Jay Howell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 10:12 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice I am in the process of evaluating vendors for a campus-wide rollout of wireless. I have narrowed my choices down to Cisco and Aruba. We are planning on creating three roles which are faculty/staff, student, and guest.Each of these roles will have varying degrees of access to systems on the network. Because of manpower issues we will be broadcasting the SSID and using Novell's LDAP to authenticate to the system. We are not a Cisco shop so there is no advantage either way as far as dropping into our existing system. My question is are there any gotchas I might be missing with these two vendors? From what I have seen, both systems seem to work nearly identically. You can access the same information from each controller, and both are self-healing when an AP goes out. Are there any support issues I should be aware of? We plan on making our decision around the first of November, so I look forward to any comments this group might have. -- * Jay Howell Executive Director of Information Technology Chowan University Ph: 252-398-6361 * ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice
We have been using Cisco WiSM and WCS for more than one year. We have two WiSMs and around 400 APs. Our experience with Cisco is positive. Although there are some bugs, the system has been stable and easy to manage. Also it integrates with Cisco NAC well. Dennis Xu Network Analyst(CCS) University of Guelph 5198244120 x 56217 From: Jay Howell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: October-19-07 10:12 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice I am in the process of evaluating vendors for a campus-wide rollout of wireless. I have narrowed my choices down to Cisco and Aruba. We are planning on creating three roles which are faculty/staff, student, and guest.Each of these roles will have varying degrees of access to systems on the network. Because of manpower issues we will be broadcasting the SSID and using Novell's LDAP to authenticate to the system. We are not a Cisco shop so there is no advantage either way as far as dropping into our existing system. My question is are there any gotchas I might be missing with these two vendors? From what I have seen, both systems seem to work nearly identically. You can access the same information from each controller, and both are self-healing when an AP goes out. Are there any support issues I should be aware of? We plan on making our decision around the first of November, so I look forward to any comments this group might have. -- * Jay Howell Executive Director of Information Technology Chowan University Ph: 252-398-6361 * ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice
Jay, We picked ARUBA mostly because we know that Wi-Fi will definitely change with 802.11n, but we needed our dormitories covered NOW. Aruba provided the cheapest short term solution with their B/G only APs ($295 list). I presented this to our administration as trashable solution while waiting for next generation Wi-Fi! On the controller side, Aruba has an upgrade path to support 802.11n. For PoE, we got PowerDsine injectors, gig capable, in preparation for more capacity (it seems that 802.3af will be able to feed some of those 802.11n AP) A few caveats with Aruba: -Their new 3.x code was released a little to soon to our opinion... -Do not plan to use APs in AP mode for Wireless Containment, you need dedicated Air Monitor for that (we discovered it later :( -Position APs on each floor, or the heat map will not show coverage on floors that do not have APs -Documentation could be improved, but their TAC provides what is missing in the Doc. Besides these few items, it works well. Philippe -- Philippe Hanset University of Tennessee, Knoxville Office of Information Technology Network Services 108 James D Hoskins Library 1400 Cumberland Ave Knoxville, TN 37996 Tel: 1-865-9746555 -- On Fri, 19 Oct 2007, Jay Howell wrote: I am in the process of evaluating vendors for a campus-wide rollout of wireless. I have narrowed my choices down to Cisco and Aruba. We are planning on creating three roles which are faculty/staff, student, and guest.Each of these roles will have varying degrees of access to systems on the network. Because of manpower issues we will be broadcasting the SSID and using Novell's LDAP to authenticate to the system. We are not a Cisco shop so there is no advantage either way as far as dropping into our existing system. My question is are there any gotchas I might be missing with these two vendors? From what I have seen, both systems seem to work nearly identically. You can access the same information from each controller, and both are self-healing when an AP goes out. Are there any support issues I should be aware of? We plan on making our decision around the first of November, so I look forward to any comments this group might have. -- * Jay Howell Executive Director of Information Technology Chowan University Ph: 252-398-6361 * ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice
We have been extremely satisfied with Aruba over the past 16 months we've had them deployed on our network. I'd like to comment on a few points from the previous posting to consider: Whichever you chose, they are both overlays on you existing network. Cisco is still Airespace technology, no matter what name is on their boxes. We have 900 APs/six controllers deployed completely over a Cisco infrastructure, no issues whatsoever. If you are looking to do role based access, Aruba is your vendor. Their controllers come with a built in firewall that lends itself perfectly for this task. We have different roles/policies based on university affiliation (staff, student, faculty, guest) and by method of access (captive portal, WPA). Straightforward, easy to configure. I would like to know one feature that Cisco offers that is not available from Aruba. If someone knows of some feature, please let me know. Lastly, reading the Cisco/WISM issues on this list makes me cringe. Mainly, from having dealt with the same type of issues in deploying special function blades in our core 6000's. As soon as I have an issue with one of my controllers, I'll be sure to post here, but it hasn't happened yet. Just my 2 cents, Don Wright Senior Network Engineer Brown University Network Technologies Group From: Lee H Badman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 11:10 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice I would advise evaluating what management platform you use separately- especially if you go with Cisco. We have had a running series of major annoyances with WCS that render it 50% useless for us, and plenty of promises that each would be fixed with the next release, which may or may not happen. Look at the list of open caveats and bugs, as well as spending time in the discussion forums for issues that may be important to you.. AirWave's AMP may be a better fit- depending on your needs and expectations. As for picking WLAN hardware/management- I'd ask these sorts of questions as well, as they can be vexing day-to-day: - Is configuration scheduling for APs available? - Do I have to reboot APs just to add SSIDs? - How much can be done through GUI, and how much has to be done at the command line? - Can devices be sorted in simple numeric sequence in GUI views? - Can I turn off 802.11b (or a or g) on individual APs if need/desire be, or am I limited to doing it controller-wide? - Can I do any configurations on multicast or Peer-to-peer blocking on a per-VLAN basis, or is it strictly controller wide? - Are effective CDP/LLDP views available between AP/switches that show not only attached port, but also speed and duplex mismatches? Also- if you are looking at doing mesh at all with Cisco (the outdoor APs)- get clarification on what's going on right now between controllers and APs- I'm getting conflicting reports between SEs that the mesh nodes now require their own dedicated controllers (where as they did not on earlier versions of code) but that later on the code will be repaired again so that dedicated controllers won't be required. Depending on the answer- this can really add to the cost. This one is very strange- different SE's have differing versions of reality on this one. Best of luck to you as you proceed. Lee H. Badman Wireless/Network Engineer Information Technology and Services Syracuse University 315 443-3003 From: Jay Howell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 10:12 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice I am in the process of evaluating vendors for a campus-wide rollout of wireless. I have narrowed my choices down to Cisco and Aruba. We are planning on creating three roles which are faculty/staff, student, and guest.Each of these roles will have varying degrees of access to systems on the network. Because of manpower issues we will be broadcasting the SSID and using Novell's LDAP to authenticate to the system. We are not a Cisco shop so there is no advantage either way as far as dropping into our existing system. My question is are there any gotchas I might be missing with these two vendors? From what I have seen, both systems seem to work nearly identically. You can access the same information from each controller, and both are self-healing when an AP goes out. Are there any support issues I should be aware of? We plan on making our decision around the first of November, so I look forward to any comments this group might have. -- * Jay Howell Executive Director of Information Technology Chowan University Ph: 252-398-6361 * ** Participation and subscription information
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice
I would advise evaluating what management platform you use separately- especially if you go with Cisco. We have had a running series of major annoyances with WCS that render it 50% useless for us, and plenty of promises that each would be fixed with the next release, which may or may not happen. Look at the list of open caveats and bugs, as well as spending time in the discussion forums for issues that may be important to you.. AirWave's AMP may be a better fit- depending on your needs and expectations. As for picking WLAN hardware/management- I'd ask these sorts of questions as well, as they can be vexing day-to-day: - Is configuration scheduling for APs available? - Do I have to reboot APs just to add SSIDs? - How much can be done through GUI, and how much has to be done at the command line? - Can devices be sorted in simple numeric sequence in GUI views? - Can I turn off 802.11b (or a or g) on individual APs if need/desire be, or am I limited to doing it controller-wide? - Can I do any configurations on multicast or Peer-to-peer blocking on a per-VLAN basis, or is it strictly controller wide? - Are effective CDP/LLDP views available between AP/switches that show not only attached port, but also speed and duplex mismatches? Also- if you are looking at doing mesh at all with Cisco (the outdoor APs)- get clarification on what's going on right now between controllers and APs- I'm getting conflicting reports between SEs that the mesh nodes now require their own dedicated controllers (where as they did not on earlier versions of code) but that later on the code will be repaired again so that dedicated controllers won't be required. Depending on the answer- this can really add to the cost. This one is very strange- different SE's have differing versions of reality on this one. Best of luck to you as you proceed. Lee H. Badman Wireless/Network Engineer Information Technology and Services Syracuse University 315 443-3003 From: Jay Howell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 10:12 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice I am in the process of evaluating vendors for a campus-wide rollout of wireless. I have narrowed my choices down to Cisco and Aruba. We are planning on creating three roles which are faculty/staff, student, and guest.Each of these roles will have varying degrees of access to systems on the network. Because of manpower issues we will be broadcasting the SSID and using Novell's LDAP to authenticate to the system. We are not a Cisco shop so there is no advantage either way as far as dropping into our existing system. My question is are there any gotchas I might be missing with these two vendors? From what I have seen, both systems seem to work nearly identically. You can access the same information from each controller, and both are self-healing when an AP goes out. Are there any support issues I should be aware of? We plan on making our decision around the first of November, so I look forward to any comments this group might have. -- * Jay Howell Executive Director of Information Technology Chowan University Ph: 252-398-6361 * ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice
I would highly recommend Aruba. We have used their product for over two years and have been very happy with support and the day to day operation of the system. Kade P. Cole - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - (618) 650-3377 Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Telecommunications - Network Engineer III On Oct 19, 2007, at 9:40 AM, King, Michael wrote: Just for reference, we chose Cisco LWAPP. I personally feel you can’t go wrong with either choice. Aruba has some cool features Cisco doesn’t have, and Cisco has some cool features Aruba doesn’t have. Choose based on the features you want, not on the features you may never use. I’d be interested to see Frank Bulk’s take, since he’s done a bunch of real-world interop testing with both vendors. Mike From: Jay Howell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 10:12 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice I am in the process of evaluating vendors for a campus-wide rollout of wireless. I have narrowed my choices down to Cisco and Aruba. We are planning on creating three roles which are faculty/staff, student, and guest.Each of these roles will have varying degrees of access to systems on the network. Because of manpower issues we will be broadcasting the SSID and using Novell's LDAP to authenticate to the system. We are not a Cisco shop so there is no advantage either way as far as dropping into our existing system. My question is are there any gotchas I might be missing with these two vendors? From what I have seen, both systems seem to work nearly identically. You can access the same information from each controller, and both are self-healing when an AP goes out. Are there any support issues I should be aware of? We plan on making our decision around the first of November, so I look forward to any comments this group might have. -- * Jay Howell Executive Director of Information Technology Chowan University Ph: 252-398-6361 * ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http:// www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http:// www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice
Quick follow-up. To be fair, our Cisco/Airespace investment has been very good for the users, all pain has been on the system admin side. My point is that it's important to look deep past the glossy material and sales pitch, and unearth the slightly dirty laundry that I'm sure all fairly new wireless sytems have. Lee From: Wright, Donald [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Fri 10/19/2007 12:15 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice We have been extremely satisfied with Aruba over the past 16 months we've had them deployed on our network. I'd like to comment on a few points from the previous posting to consider: Whichever you chose, they are both overlays on you existing network. Cisco is still Airespace technology, no matter what name is on their boxes. We have 900 APs/six controllers deployed completely over a Cisco infrastructure, no issues whatsoever. If you are looking to do role based access, Aruba is your vendor. Their controllers come with a built in firewall that lends itself perfectly for this task. We have different roles/policies based on university affiliation (staff, student, faculty, guest) and by method of access (captive portal, WPA). Straightforward, easy to configure. I would like to know one feature that Cisco offers that is not available from Aruba. If someone knows of some feature, please let me know. Lastly, reading the Cisco/WISM issues on this list makes me cringe. Mainly, from having dealt with the same type of issues in deploying special function blades in our core 6000's. As soon as I have an issue with one of my controllers, I'll be sure to post here, but it hasn't happened yet. Just my 2 cents, Don Wright Senior Network Engineer Brown University Network Technologies Group From: Lee H Badman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 11:10 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice I would advise evaluating what management platform you use separately- especially if you go with Cisco. We have had a running series of major annoyances with WCS that render it 50% useless for us, and plenty of promises that each would be fixed with the next release, which may or may not happen. Look at the list of open caveats and bugs, as well as spending time in the discussion forums for issues that may be important to you.. AirWave's AMP may be a better fit- depending on your needs and expectations. As for picking WLAN hardware/management- I'd ask these sorts of questions as well, as they can be vexing day-to-day: - Is configuration scheduling for APs available? - Do I have to reboot APs just to add SSIDs? - How much can be done through GUI, and how much has to be done at the command line? - Can devices be sorted in simple numeric sequence in GUI views? - Can I turn off 802.11b (or a or g) on individual APs if need/desire be, or am I limited to doing it controller-wide? - Can I do any configurations on multicast or Peer-to-peer blocking on a per-VLAN basis, or is it strictly controller wide? - Are effective CDP/LLDP views available between AP/switches that show not only attached port, but also speed and duplex mismatches? Also- if you are looking at doing mesh at all with Cisco (the outdoor APs)- get clarification on what's going on right now between controllers and APs- I'm getting conflicting reports between SEs that the mesh nodes now require their own dedicated controllers (where as they did not on earlier versions of code) but that later on the code will be repaired again so that dedicated controllers won't be required. Depending on the answer- this can really add to the cost. This one is very strange- different SE's have differing versions of reality on this one. Best of luck to you as you proceed. Lee H. Badman Wireless/Network Engineer Information Technology and Services Syracuse University 315 443-3003 From: Jay Howell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 10:12 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice I am in the process of evaluating vendors for a campus-wide rollout of wireless. I have narrowed my choices down to Cisco and Aruba. We are planning on creating three roles which are faculty/staff, student, and guest.Each of these roles will have varying degrees of access to systems on the network. Because of manpower issues we will be broadcasting the SSID and using Novell's LDAP to authenticate to the system. We are not a Cisco shop so there is no advantage either way as far as dropping into our existing system. My question is are there any gotchas I might be missing with these two vendors? From what I have seen, both systems seem to work nearly
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice
Just for reference, we chose Cisco LWAPP. I personally feel you can't go wrong with either choice. Aruba has some cool features Cisco doesn't have, and Cisco has some cool features Aruba doesn't have. Choose based on the features you want, not on the features you may never use. I'd be interested to see Frank Bulk's take, since he's done a bunch of real-world interop testing with both vendors. Mike From: Jay Howell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 10:12 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice I am in the process of evaluating vendors for a campus-wide rollout of wireless. I have narrowed my choices down to Cisco and Aruba. We are planning on creating three roles which are faculty/staff, student, and guest.Each of these roles will have varying degrees of access to systems on the network. Because of manpower issues we will be broadcasting the SSID and using Novell's LDAP to authenticate to the system. We are not a Cisco shop so there is no advantage either way as far as dropping into our existing system. My question is are there any gotchas I might be missing with these two vendors? From what I have seen, both systems seem to work nearly identically. You can access the same information from each controller, and both are self-healing when an AP goes out. Are there any support issues I should be aware of? We plan on making our decision around the first of November, so I look forward to any comments this group might have. -- * Jay Howell Executive Director of Information Technology Chowan University Ph: 252-398-6361 * ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
