Wireless Solutions Xirrus vs. Cisco

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Shottah_king

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Does anybody here manage a Xirrus wireless solution? For an enterprise solution would Xirrus be better than Cisco in terms of coverage and cost?
 
I can't speak for Xirrus but we looked at Ruckus, Aerohive, Aruba, and Cisco and ended up going with Aruba. It cost more than aerohive and less than Cisco, but the company was pretty top-notch in pre-sales. The other three....not so much. If they cant help you before you buy it, who knows how they'll treat you afterwards.
 
We have not implemented a wireless solution yet, but are looking at the same companies Eickst did, in addition to Xirrus. The concern that I have when looking at the Xirrus product is how many cards they are putting in one of those units, and the size. Their sales rep was constantly talking about their ability to keep the controller at the unit, and being able to manage the signal traffic at that one spot. That, and they speak to being able to cover more area with a single unit, minimizing the cost.

Seems to me that when one of those units goes down, you have a wider area that is is without WiFi.
 
Shottah_king said:
Does anybody here manage a Xirrus wireless solution? For an enterprise solution would Xirrus be better than Cisco in terms of coverage and cost?
Click to expand...

A wise man once told me "No one ever got fired for purchasing Cisco" ... It has worked well for me so far. :D
 
Don't forget Meru - virtual cell and virtual port make all the difference.

Virtual Cell - all APs are on the same channel, so no 1 - 6 - 11 crap. Far far easier to implement.
Virtual Port - each client gets its own BSSID. This allows over the air QoS and essentially turns wifi into a switched architecture instead of a hub.

As far as I know, Meru is the only infrastructure capable of 0ms roaming. If you will be running VoIP phones - this works very well.

This was a pretty neat demo - 500 client in 500 square feet...
http://www.merunetworks.com/pdf/independent/farpoint_report_1110.pdf
 
We were going to test Meru but the AP's were pretty expensive and their "virtual"-cell design has some drawbacks that I'm sure their website or reps don't talk about. Of course every vendor we tested had some kind of downside, to be sure.

Of all the vendors we tested, no vendor had to worry about the 1/6/11 "crap" as they all did adaptive RF, managed automatically by the controller.
 
Eickst said:
We were going to test Meru but the AP's were pretty expensive and their "virtual"-cell design has some drawbacks that I'm sure their website or reps don't talk about. Of course every vendor we tested had some kind of downside, to be sure.

Of all the vendors we tested, no vendor had to worry about the 1/6/11 "crap" as they all did adaptive RF, managed automatically by the controller.
Click to expand...

APs + licenses are $1000/each for AP311 (ABGN). The only "downside" they don't mention is that with Virtual Port turned on the clients do not have location awareness. That is, instead of the client choosing which AP to roam to, the controller does it for them. It after all knows more about the environment and can do stuff like load balance the APs because of this. If you need the location feature, there will be a feature called Virtual Cell Overflow in 4.2 which allows you turn present a non-virtual cell network on a given ESS if necessary.

The other nice thing about a single channel architecture is that you can crank the power all the way up - this means far less APs. We cover ~400K sq/ft. with 100 access points. In most every area several APs can go down and not lose coverage.

And don't believe what other vendors (Cisco) tell you about virtual cell/port until you see a demo for yourself. Cisco is none too happy that technology is patented. Remember that wifi essentially is a hub architecture if you leave the intelligence to the clients (see CSMA/CA). When the controller handles exactly who can talk when, this eliminates any collision domain (virtual port).

Start here if you want to see how it works - http://s2n.merunetworks.com/2009/11/virtual-cell-demystified/

And no I don't work or resell Meru - just a happy customer. The founder of the company even came to our site to get feedback and look for suggestions - how's that for customer service!
 
SpaceHonkey said:
APs + licenses are $1000/each for AP311 (ABGN). The only "downside" they don't mention is that with Virtual Port turned on the clients do not have location awareness. That is, instead of the client choosing which AP to roam to, the controller does it for them. It after all knows more about the environment and can do stuff like load balance the APs because of this. If you need the location feature, there will be a feature called Virtual Cell Overflow in 4.2 which allows you turn present a non-virtual cell network on a given ESS if necessary.

The other nice thing about a single channel architecture is that you can crank the power all the way up - this means far less APs. We cover ~400K sq/ft. with 100 access points. In most every area several APs can go down and not lose coverage.

And don't believe what other vendors (Cisco) tell you about virtual cell/port until you see a demo for yourself. Cisco is none too happy that technology is patented. Remember that wifi essentially is a hub architecture if you leave the intelligence to the clients (see CSMA/CA). When the controller handles exactly who can talk when, this eliminates any collision domain (virtual port).

Start here if you want to see how it works - http://s2n.merunetworks.com/2009/11/virtual-cell-demystified/

And no I don't work or resell Meru - just a happy customer. The founder of the company even came to our site to get feedback and look for suggestions - how's that for customer service!
Click to expand...

Uh...are you sure you don't work for them? And there are more technical downsides than that. It sounds like you drank the kool-aid a little too much. I'm sure it works well for you, but it's not a panacea like you are making it out to be. No vendor is.

Bottom line to the OP, have them bring in demo kits, have a bake-off, and pick the one that works FOR YOU. Just be leary of new companies, you never know how long they will last. And remember that your job might depend on what you pick. Keep that in mind when you select a vendor.
 
SpaceHonkey said:
APs + licenses are $1000/each for AP311 (ABGN). The only "downside" they don't mention is that with Virtual Port turned on the clients do not have location awareness. That is, instead of the client choosing which AP to roam to, the controller does it for them. It after all knows more about the environment and can do stuff like load balance the APs because of this. If you need the location feature, there will be a feature called Virtual Cell Overflow in 4.2 which allows you turn present a non-virtual cell network on a given ESS if necessary.

The other nice thing about a single channel architecture is that you can crank the power all the way up - this means far less APs. We cover ~400K sq/ft. with 100 access points. In most every area several APs can go down and not lose coverage.

And don't believe what other vendors (Cisco) tell you about virtual cell/port until you see a demo for yourself. Cisco is none too happy that technology is patented. Remember that wifi essentially is a hub architecture if you leave the intelligence to the clients (see CSMA/CA). When the controller handles exactly who can talk when, this eliminates any collision domain (virtual port).

Start here if you want to see how it works - http://s2n.merunetworks.com/2009/11/virtual-cell-demystified/

And no I don't work or resell Meru - just a happy customer. The founder of the company even came to our site to get feedback and look for suggestions - how's that for customer service!
Click to expand...

That is amazing. I just watched the video. Thank you for the insight.
 
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