What Benefits in Business Grade AP

[mobiledynamics]

What benefits do you get when running business grade AP's.

I'm talking a step below let's say a Aruba 105.

Aside from features, POE AP's, seamless roaming, etc.

If one was to use them just as AP's, nothing fancy on rulesets, authentication, etc - are business grade AP's just more stable that allows more users on it ? etc, etc.

 

[stevech]

What benefits do you get when running business grade AP's.

I'm talking a step below let's say a Aruba 105.

Aside from features, POE AP's, seamless roaming, etc.

If one was to use them just as AP's, nothing fancy on rulesets, authentication, etc - are business grade AP's just more stable that allows more users on it ? etc, etc.

Some can be part of a managed-AP network.
Several have very well tested and long lived firmware baselines which is contrary to the competitive machinations of consumer WiFi.

Consider too the machine-to-machine (M2M) routers and AP and routers with cellular fall-back. I used one of these. It too has firmware that is very stable.

 

[htismaqe]

Check out Aerohive. I'm really impressed with their offering.

Also, stevech has a solid recommendation. Cradlepoint and others have very compelling devices which can do standard Wifi with 3G/4G backup.

 

[azazel1024]

Also some have features that consumer APs don't, like effective airtime fairness and can handle a significant number of concurrent clients with being brought to their knees.

I don't recall the exact equipment tested or where the test was done, but I was reading a resonably comprehensive test of consumer versus enterprise APs where it was an Apple Airport, a couple of other consumer grade AP/routers and a Cisco of some flavor. All N600 I think.

They setup an "office" environment that was something like 3,000-4,000sq-ft of cubicles with 3-4 large meeting rooms and several offices around the periphery. They then setup a central AP and something like 20 clients.

They then did simulated works loads on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 and 20 clients concurrently and tested what happened.

All of them did well with 1-3 clients with sharing air time and stuff. After that the two consumer APs broke down at 4-5 clients were 1-2 clients would get 50+% of the bandwidth and the other 3-4+ clients would be stuck with a small fraction. At 20 clients you'd see behavior like 1 client would get a 25% slice, 1 would get a 15% slice and the other clients were getting like 1-5% and overall bandwidth was down a huge amount too. So you'd have the best client to worst client ratio being like 20:1 and clients kept getting dropped.

The Apple Airport handled it a bit better and didn't break down till like 5 clients and at the worst it saw was like a 3:1 ratio from best to worst client in terms of bandwidth and overall banwidth impact was small...like 20-30%.

The Cisco AP didn't break down at any level, saw minimal reduction in overall bandwidth and its best to worst client ratio was like 1.5:1.

All clients were the same kind of laptop.

I'll grant you, even in an office environment there might not be 20 clients connected to one AP all with concurrent traffic at a resonably high level...but you might.

In a home situation it is probably rare to have more than 3-4 clients hitting an AP at once for anything other than minimal traffic, so airtime fairness is less of an issue. However, it is getting to be a bigger issue and hopefully something consumer router/AP manufacturers start getting a handle on.

This is also something that might have improved over time. I know I read the article at LEAST 2 years ago. It might well have been a year or two old at the time. Tech marches fast, so some of the latest and greatest APs/routers in the consumer world might do a better job of airtime fairness...but I also wouldn't bet on it and it might simply be a case of slight improvements or taking an extra device or two before it gets whacky/crushes connections.

 

[thiggins]

I think you are referring to this.
http://www.wlanpros.com/wi-fi-stress-test-a-vendor-independent-access-point-analysis/

 

[remixedcat]

I've tested Fortinet, Aruba, Cisco Meraki, and I'm testing a couple from another brand right now.

Cisco Meraki: (tested Z1 and MX60W)
Pros: Excellent management software. Cloud hosted=No need for controllers. Good throughput. Very detailed client specs. Very thorough QoS controls. Rock solid performance
Cons: Can be pricey depending on configuration.

Aruba: (tested AP225 and testing RAP109 currently)
Pros: Excellent throughput and range. Can be configured to run in 3 different configs: Controller/Controllerless "instant"/and Cloud (like Meraki). All 3 are good and the RF tools are awesome. Excellent performance
Cons: Can be pricey and switching from one to the other requires conversion process. Can Not run the cloud and controller/instant at the same time it is one or the other.

Fortinet (not recommended for wireless): (Tested Fortiwifi 60D)
Pros: Robust management interface even has CPU and MEM usage stats, excellent firewall options (fortiwifi 60D tested) ,
Cons: Terrible wireless performance and flaky UI that crashes in firefox

 

[sfx2000]

I think you are referring to this.
http://www.wlanpros.com/wi-fi-stress-test-a-vendor-independent-access-point-analysis/

Nice report actually - pretty much justifies my WiFi AP General Rule of Thumb - 10-15 active clients per AP/Channel for good performance all around.

Thx for sharing...

sfx

 

[Terry Kennedy]

What benefits do you get when running business grade AP's.

Aside from features, POE AP's, seamless roaming, etc.

If one was to use them just as AP's, nothing fancy on rulesets, authentication, etc - are business grade AP's just more stable that allows more users on it ? etc, etc.

I use Cisco Aironet 1252's here at the house (4 AP's - it's a big property). In addition to the factors you list, I'd say multiple SSID's w/ VLANs (some consumer units do this), utterly bullet-proof reliability (the only time I need to reboot them is when updating the firmware), and built like a battleship (the 1252 has a cast aluminum frame and you could easily use one for self-defense).

wap1 uptime is 1 year, 43 weeks, 2 days, 10 hours, 4 minutes

The downsides are: 1) You need a Cisco support contract to be able to legally download and install software updates. 2) If you aren't familiar with Cisco IOS, configuration can be incredibly difficult.

There seem to be a number of these on eBay at prices under $100. Make sure you get one with the correct (autonomous) firmware loaded and that is tested and working, including antennas. You'll need a Cisco-compatible PoE injector if you're not powering these from a Cisco PoE switch.

Before the prices dropped on these, working/tested ones were in the $150-$250 range. I was buying ones listed as "for parts or repair", since most of those just needed to be re-flashed. These days it isn't worth the hassle, since you can get working ones for under $100.

If anybody buys one of these and needs help configuring it, I can post a sample config to get you started.

 

[stevech]

The Cisco Aironet APs I've worked with have a web server interface for config/admin. And you can do IOS commands if you're so inclined (!).
They test the dickens out of their firmware. Maybe differs now, but we didn't have to have a support contract to get new firmware - just a free sales type account.

Way back, Aironet ran VXworks as the OS and it wasn't as easy. This was back when Cisco had just acquired Aironet to "get into WiFi". Pre-Linksys.

 

[Terry Kennedy]

The Cisco Aironet APs I've worked with have a web server interface for config/admin. And you can do IOS commands if you're so inclined (!).

They do have a web interface. I've found that some things (in particular, bulk config changes) work better in the CLI. Changing one particular parameter (as long as you know what menu it is in) is a lot easier using the web interface.

There is (used to be?) a warning that config changes made via the web interface might not be reflected in the text-mode config, but I don't see it right now.

They test the dickens out of their firmware. Maybe differs now, but we didn't have to have a support contract to get new firmware - just a free sales type account.

They've gotten a lot more selective in recent years. At one time, if you had a login, you could download any firmware for any device. Then they limited it to device families you had on contract. They then tightened it to only the specific device models you have on contract (but if you know that 2 products run the same code, you can download it from a different page if you have that device on contract). Most recently, you can only download the specific feature set you have on contract, or a lower feature set.

And they've gone to "phone home" licensing as well. I expect that this is going to hurt them in the long run - hardware running IOS-like firmware from Broadcom (formerly LVL7) is much more cost-effective, and the big customers (Facebook, etc.) are designing their own devices now, contract-assembled offshore.

Way back, Aironet ran VXworks as the OS and it wasn't as easy. This was back when Cisco had just acquired Aironet to "get into WiFi". Pre-Linksys.

Cisco has a huge variety of hardware platforms. They seem to have transitioned to some flavor of IOS on most of them now, though. In the early days, IOS was sometimes a thin veneer on top of something else. For example, the Catalyst 2900XL spent 25% of its reported CPU time blinking the port LEDs, because IOS was just a management interface on top of microcode.

 

[KGB7]

Business grade products spend their money on R&D.

Consumer grade products, spend half their money on adds and shiny boxes.

This why consumer grade products don't work properly off the shelf and need constant firmware upgrades. This why you don't see RMelin developing firmware for commercial products.

 

[fistv]

I learned though Trial and Error. Started our wireless using a linksys 854G with linksys stock, worked with 4 or 5 of us when we first moved into the still under construction building, worked till the owner bought his sono's setup and installed it in his office, both gyms, conference room. Kept locking up, upgraded to DD-WRT and that fixed it till 4 more people moved in, but our fiber wired network was in by then so the wireless went on the back burner. Then the iphones arrived and it became an issue again. I upgraded to Cisco 891W but cheaped out on the WAPS, Cisco WAP610's, the waps would just stop working once lunch time arrived and the workers hooked up in the lunch room, no problem as long as you were in range of the 891W in my computer room, light bulb went off, ordered 2 Aeronet 1600E SAP [stand alone points], one in the lunch room, one to learn with and it handled the lunch crowd, more important the owner could sit in the lunch room and use his iPad. Had our first big customer event with ~1500 in attendance, put up another 891W Wan'd by a 80MB cable modem and 4 aeronets poe'd from the 891 spread out over 2 acres under a big circus type tent, worked with no issues and no customer complaints, had 4 vlans, one secure, 3 open with 4 dhcp scopes. The options, features and control on the aeronet 1600's were mind boggling from what I was used to on consumer waps. When I got the first aeronet I literally spent 2 days reading and trying till I got what I wanted and I still don't use all the features.

 

[azazel1024]

I think you are referring to this.
http://www.wlanpros.com/wi-fi-stress-test-a-vendor-independent-access-point-analysis/

Hmmm, deffinitely a different article/test than the one I remember reading; however, also awesome reading. Thanks for the link!