Enterprise Wi-Fi at home: Reflecting on almost three years with pro gear
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
I use it in a couple of offices as well, but it seems like the pros are switching to Meraki due to the better (remote, cloud-based) configuration tools... Do any IT professionals make the case for Ubiquiti over Meraki?
Only issue I've had is there is an emerging issue with the PoE negotiation chip on some UAC-AC-PRO APs. We've worked around it with passive POE, which just works, but it could become a bigger issue going forward.
Also impressed with airMAX, have used nanostation/nanobeam to build a number of short-haul point-to-point links where trenching fiber was too expensive.
In general, I use EdgeMax for routing/switching rather than the Unifi branded switches/routers, although the hardware is identical, EdgeMax is infinitely more configurable. Although the single-pane-of-glass for Unifi is very nice, UNMS is getting pretty good these days -- I just wish they'd merge UNMS with the UniFi controller and _stop_ using Java for the UniFi backend (thankfully they did not use Java for UNMS).
In addition to the UniFi AP I had purchased 3 Ubiquiti EdgeSwitches: 2x 24 port, and a 16x POE. The first EdgeSwitch Lite-24 port switch died due to hardware errors ('unit 0 MMU CBP packet header memory asserted') while causing all kinds of chaos. And it appears the second EdgeSwitch Lite-24 took a dump this week (similar amount of chaos), (un)fortunately I no longer babysit the IT stuff so I haven't dug in to it.
It supports local and remote management, clustering, poe, and can prioritize traffic based on application or specifically voice traffic.
The local management also has a web gui.
Disclaimer: I work for Aruba.
What I'm really curious about is other then management features and adding radios that follow the latest RF features (i.e. MU-MIMO) that are made available by Qualcomm/Atheros and others, what really differentiates APs? Can you speak to this about how Aruba (or others) differentiate itself in actual RF performance?
Most homes don't have more than 20-30 devices on the WiFi. Most Instant access points can handle about 50-60 devices at a time. In my own home, the 5 Ghz band is primarily used due to the open layout and there's a lot less interference on that band in my neighborhood. I'm just using one Instant access point (IAP-215) to cover about 2500 sq ft.
From a hand wavy and extremely generalized assessment, RF performance between the major enterprise vendors (Cisco Meraki/Aerohive/Ruckus/Aruba) differs by about 10%. If you design your network to the environment and devices used, you can achieve a highly performing network with any of major vendor. The deciding factor usually comes down to training personnel have with the equipment, relationships, and budget. Most RF engineers will probably sneer at the above statement, but there's some truth to it.
Other Useful Information
The Aruba Instant platform does not require a hardware controller - instead it uses a virtual controller that's homed to a master Access Point with automatic fail over to slave Access Points in the cluster.
You can also mix and match any Instant AP model within the same cluster. New Aps should automatically join as soon as they are powered up and plugged into the local network (on the same VLAN).
There's no additional licensing needed for local management.
Access points purchased through an official retailer come with a lifetime warranty.
Application recognition and content filtering is not available with Ubiquity. You can't prioritize traffic or restrict traffic on the WiFi based on specific content – for example, prioritize traffic for voice over YouTube or Facebook. In enterprise environments, WiFi calling has become important due to adopting Skype.
Aruba also offers 3rd party support and integration via Airwave and ClearPass. Overkill (IMO) for a home.
This is the kind of stuff I'm curious about.
If the antenna is well designed (good radiation pattern) and the EIRP is limited to FCC limits (100mW by default?) how will it achieve longer ranger? The client device (laptop, cellphone) has a TX power as well that requires some symmetry to achieve the range. I know APs can request clients lower their TX power to reduce interference in high density environments, but I don't know they'd raise it.
As for high density environments, this comes down to the management software and not the features of WiFi chipset? Things like MU-MIMO certainly make sense for high density environments (Ubiquiti sells a series of "HD" suffixed parts that add MU-MIMO), but I'm curious if there are other things other then more radios on more bands.
How many of the more advanced features of Enterprise APs at the mercy of the client WiFi module, firmware, and driver for behaving optimally? I assume a company like Aruba (or really any major player) has a full interoperability test lab. Which client devices work best (Intel?)?
> Most homes don't have more than 20-30 devices on the WiFi. Most Instant access points can handle about 50-60 devices at a time. In my own home, the 5 Ghz band is primarily used due to the open layout and there's a lot less interference on that band in my neighborhood. I'm just using one Instant access point (IAP-215) to cover about 2500 sq ft.
2500 sq ft on one AP is pretty impressive, for the price though you could buy several UniFi APs. I checked out the datasheet[0] for the AP 210 series and was delighted to see some radiation plots at different frequencies.
[0] https://www.arubanetworks.com/assets/ds/DS_AP210Series.pdf