My campus is part of a seven college consortium, but we're all contained within a rather small (600 acre) geographic area i.e. we can walk to any of the various campuses. Each campus is independent, and we have some campuses on Cisco (five) and others on Aruba (two + library). We run in #1. That is, we advertise the same SSID's on both, and authentication is handled by a central Radius (Ignition) that knits all the authentication sources together. The certificate handed out is from the cental Radius, and devices freely roam between the two with no issues. For roaming-sensitive services like VoIP, we extend the same VLAN's to all to ensure the device retains its IP address. We also use xpressconnect to help provision users. We've been running in this configuration for years now, and even when there is an Aruba system boarding Cisco, we've encountered no issues specific to having two vendors. Having two vendors has provided us with a lot of "real word" comparison between the two vendors, and the Aruba deployments appear to be more client/client performance quirky than Cisco... but that's a different story. Jeff
>>> On Wednesday, May 01, 2013 at 9:31 AM, in message <F3711825DE65B341914C8D37F8B9654E0CB36F076E@mail-01>, "Entwistle, Bruce" <[email protected]> wrote: We are currently in the process of installing a second vendors wireless hardware on campus, current Cisco installing Aruba, using the same SSID on all APs. Both systems authenticate against the same ACS server. In our pilot deployment, windows PCs seemed to connected to either network with no intervention, however our Apple products ask to accept the certificate from our ACS server. Once accepted the Apple devices roam between systems. Has anyone had a similar experience and found a solution which did not include any user interaction? Thank you Bruce Entwistle Network Manager University of Redlands From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Jeremy Noah Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2013 4:42 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Multi vendor interoperability on Campus In our ongoing deployments switching from Cisco to Juniper, we are using the new SSID as a way to advertise the new service and differentiate possible wireless connectivity issues. This has been very useful for campus communication and instructions to our help desk, but has lead to minor issues where some non-technical management have difficulty differentiating between the service and the hardware. Overall, I agree with option 3. Keith Noah University Information Technology Services University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Network Operations Center Cell:414-810-6789 Office:414-229-4972 From: "Bruce W Osborne" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, May 1, 2013 6:12:08 AM Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Multi vendor interoperability on Campus I would recommend 3. When we moved from Cisco to Aruba in 2008, we used a different SSID and tried to deploy the new system geographically to minimize multi-vendor interaction. We did a rapid deployment in our dorms over winter break. Bruce Osborne Wireless Network Engineer IT Network Services (434) 592-4229 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY 40 Years of Training Champions for Christ: 1971-2011 From: Becker, Jason [[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 11:34 AM Subject: Multi vendor interoperability on Campus What are others doing to get interoperability when you have multiple wireless vendors on campus? We are transitioning to a new system and trying to think of all the issues we may run into during this. A little background about our layout… a building will have all the same vendor AP's but adjacent building may not, over 100 buildings on campus, total of 4000+ across campus, systems will have different ip pool space, and limited outdoor coverage. Ideas 1. Same ssid across both systems and let the clients choose what system. 2. Same ssid and adjust the probe/reponse thresholds so clients outside of a building don't connect. 3. Have versions of ssids for each system so clients can choose what ssid to connect to. Thanks, Jason ********** 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/.
