On Sat, 6 Apr 2013, Frank Bulk wrote:
The problem with scaling with consumer grade APs is that they lack - manageability - automatic channel management - coordinated RF power control
I see these as all being related, and running OpenWRT on the APs so that they are 'just linux boxes', with all the management tools that are implied by that, goes a LONG way towards solving these issues as far as I am concerned.
Personally, I don't want "automatic channel management" because I've seen too many cases where things like this turn into an endless reconfiguration cycle. Central administration of channel management is pretty trivial.
- support for smooth handoffs
When you say "support for smooth handoffs", how is a handoff between Enterprise APs better than between consumer APs that have the same SSID?
- coordinated load balancing of traffic and clients
Coordinated load balancing requires changing the client side of things, or trying to trick the client side to do what you want by selectivly not responding to the client until the client gives up and tries something that you do want to respond to. Or am I missing something?
- PoE-based powered
There are also devices available that run OpenWRT that are PoE powered, outdoor sealed, etc that are still dirt cheap compared to the "Enterprise" APs
- plenum rating
probably correct, although like PoE, there are also probably appropriate devices available
- support by Voice over Wi-Fi handset vendors - technical support
Support is valid, but by that argument you aren't running Linux either right? :-)
David Lang
Frank -----Original Message----- From: tech-boun...@lists.lopsa.org [mailto:tech-boun...@lists.lopsa.org] On Behalf Of David Lang Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2013 2:48 PM To: Roy McMorran Cc: tech@lists.lopsa.org Subject: Re: [lopsa-tech] Wifi <snip> In short, I like to go with cheap (i.e. consumer grade) APs because they give me great flexibility when loaded with openwrt 1. they can be managed with the normal *nix management tools (including logging) 2. since they are cheap, you don't agonize over how many you deploy, if you think you need a few more, you just put them in place. 3. by picking ones that can run openwrt, you future proof yourself by not locking yourself into any one vendor's equipment or any one vendor's management. Yes, it's nicer to have all the APs the same, even with openwrt, but it's like your linux servers. It's nice when they are all the same, but it's not that much worse if you have a few different generations of systems where each generation is a different vendor. You absolutly do want to use one SSID, not several. For the staff, you can either add an additional SSID, or you can have the staff use VPNs to connect from the general use one. There are advantages to both. David Lang _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list Tech@lists.lopsa.org https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
_______________________________________________ Tech mailing list Tech@lists.lopsa.org https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
