topic Re: ZoneDirector - SmartRedundancy Failover kills my Wireless Connection in ZoneDirector

ZoneDirector - SmartRedundancy Failover kills my Wireless Connection

marco_eichstet1 — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 07:05:16 GMT

Hi,

I tried the SmartRedundancy Feature.
Really easy Setup. But i realized one Problem.

If my Active ZD goes down all my Clients loosing their Wireless Connection for about 20 Seconds. It seems all my APs reconnect to the new ZD and reenable all SSIDs which cause this Network Outage. Same happens if i do a Failover from one ZD to the other.

Is this by Design? It whould be smarter if there is no Wireless Network Outage.
Maybe my Setup is faulty.

Please help.
Thanks!
Best Regards
Marco

Re: ZoneDirector - SmartRedundancy Failover kills my Wireless Connection

michael_brado — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 22:34:51 GMT

Great question Marco,

It depends on the type of WLAN authentication used is a short answer. APs will
recognize when the primary ZD is no longer available, and will connect with the new
ZD, and reboot when provisioned by it. WLANs are redeployed every time the AP
has to re-join a ZD, whether by SR, forced failover, or pulling the plug on active ZD.
The typical AP reconnect and resume service period might be 15-20 seconds.

SR ZD pairs share some client state information, like web-auth, but do not share
802.1x states, meaning clients will need to fully re-auth thru RADIUS if they were
using 802.1x. There is ongoing development to share these client states too, but
we're not there yet.

Re: ZoneDirector - SmartRedundancy Failover kills my Wireless Connection

michael_brado — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 22:39:06 GMT

KBA-1932: Synchronized information when ZD's are in SR mode

The below configuration changes (except some system specific information such as IP address) will be synchronized when the Zone Directors are in Smart Redundancy mode.

1.Guest Pass generation/activation

2.Dynamic PSK generation/activation

3.Web Portal client Authentication status

Re: ZoneDirector - SmartRedundancy Failover kills my Wireless Connection

marco_eichstet1 — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 17:11:46 GMT

Hi Michael,

thanks for your Reply.
Oh... i have some really other great questions for some Ruckus Features, too... ;)

I know in Cisco's Redundancy Feature there is no Network Outage if one Controller fails. Unfortunatelly i think Ruckus is really really cool. So it whould be also really cool, Ruckus can do so, too.
Maybe there is the Possibility (in Future Firmware Releases) that the Ruckus APs realize the new ZoneDirector is just the Backup-One without re-deploy all WLANs and without an Wireless Outage.

Maybe there is a way...

Thanks!
Regards
Marco

Re: ZoneDirector - SmartRedundancy Failover kills my Wireless Connection

michael_brado — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 23:43:02 GMT

Product Marketing is definitely looking to expand our ZD redundancy capabilities.

Re: ZoneDirector - SmartRedundancy Failover kills my Wireless Connection

bart_oudhuis — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 10:11:38 GMT

Hi Michael, what would be the proper way to get this question into an feature request?

We are building a new ruckus wireless site and one of the demands is high availability. We currently use two ZD's, but the reload of the config into the AP's after a (planned) failover and thus disconnecting all clients is really something we can't afford. Should we submit a case for this (we are ruckus bigdog patner)

Re: ZoneDirector - SmartRedundancy Failover kills my Wireless Connection

monnat_systems — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 10:50:37 GMT

Hi Bart,
You need to discuss all your new feature requests with your regional Ruckus Sales engineer. they will take it up with Product team for further discussion.

Re: ZoneDirector - SmartRedundancy Failover kills my Wireless Connection

bart_oudhuis — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 11:20:53 GMT

Michael, thanks for the fast response, I will take this up with our sales rep.