We are looking to deploy a campus wide WLAN in a k-12 school district. My initial impression is that an Aruba system with the PEF firewall is a far more feature rich solution than Ruckus but all of the neighboring school districts are going with Ruckus. I have a very short amount of time (this week) to make a decision and don't have a lot of wireless experience or knowledge. For those of you that are in the know, what do you prefer and why?
Today we only care about providing coverage but within 24 months every student could have a wireless device being used in the classroom. We also will have iPads for all staff members in a few months and plan for each of the classrooms to have an Apple TV.
We'd like the ability to control access by what AD group a user is in as well as what type of device they connect with. I know Aruba can do this. I don't think Ruckus can but am not sure. I beleive this really is the differentiator moving forward. As we have more and more devices in the hands of staff and students, some being district own, some being personal devices, it seems like having granular control (without managing each device) is going to be huge.
Aruba can limit bandwidth by device. Ruckus is by group. That seems like a big factor but maybe not..
I'm sure I'm just touching the surface of the differences and what is important. Please educate me!
Thanks.
Today we only care about providing coverage but within 24 months every student could have a wireless device being used in the classroom. We also will have iPads for all staff members in a few months and plan for each of the classrooms to have an Apple TV.
We'd like the ability to control access by what AD group a user is in as well as what type of device they connect with. I know Aruba can do this. I don't think Ruckus can but am not sure. I beleive this really is the differentiator moving forward. As we have more and more devices in the hands of staff and students, some being district own, some being personal devices, it seems like having granular control (without managing each device) is going to be huge.
Aruba can limit bandwidth by device. Ruckus is by group. That seems like a big factor but maybe not..
I'm sure I'm just touching the surface of the differences and what is important. Please educate me!
Thanks.