High density router for Venue with 18 Ruckus R710 AP's and Ruckus ICX 7150 -48P Switch with Fiber Optic Internet

[jorge_sanint]

Hi everyone, I installed a Ruckus ICX 7150-48P - switch and 18 Ruckus R710 AP’s.   I have a fiber optic internet.

I need a recommendation on a router that can accommodate high density traffic and be be able to maintain speeds and work well with Ruckus hardware in a high density network (thousands of people may be connected at the same time).     Does anyone know a router that could meet the task requirements ?

I currently have a Trendnet router (trendnet gigabit TEW-829DRU) which looses speed rapidly after a reboot and provides only 10 percent of the actual speed And without anyone but me connected.  
I measured with laptop bypassing router and it measures 900 mbps for both uploads and downloads (if I bypass the router)

If I connect router it measures well at the beginning (500 mbps or more) for the first five minutes and then goes down to 90 /20 Approximately and wont go up.  I need a router that can handle the Ruckus hardware.  Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.  Thank you

[eizens_putnins · Accepted solution]

Hello,

It's quit normal that SOHO router will not provide sufficient performance, but 90/20 seems more as some misconfiguration - I would expect capability in a range 100-200Mbps bidirectional. Unfortunately,  I don't think you can hope to get reliable over 1Gbps NAT performance from any SOHO box currently.

Anyway, you can always use some professional firewall, such as Watchguard T40 or even M370 or higher, for example. Other firewall brands should provide similar capability - Fortinet, Sophos, etc., just check what firewall performance is stated without using antivirus and similar services (it is much lower for older appliances, so look for current models only).

You can go for cheapest box without Security Suit, if you don't need any subscription security services, and you can get reliable NAT performance over 1 Gbps (or 3 Gbps with bigger box) than. 

 Hope it helps

[vesalius]

Spitballing, i3 or i5 should be enough, no more than 8gb ram or 16gb SSD required. 4 NICs would give you 1 for wan and up to 3 to create a bond for redundancy and more lanes from the 7150 to the firewall. 

[jorge_sanint]

@eizens_putnins​  @Vesalius​  Both of you have given me great advice and direction.  Your answers are  very complementray from each other and give me a much better  understanding of what I have to do.  I wish I could mark both of you as the accepted answer.   (Apparently I can , lol)

[eizens_putnins]

If you are ok with more setup, you can use any mikrotik cloud router, they will have better performance than general pc, will be cheaper and more reliable. For example,  RB5009UG has 10GB SFP+ ports, can provide very high throughput, and costs just about 200 Eur... Mikrotik is not truly enterprise gear, as it has no normal vendor support, but at least it is built for professional use and is quit capable (when configured properly).

  Anyway, if you want to use PC-based router, better to use some standard DELL/HP/IBM mini-desktop with some server NIC, as mini-PC available on ALiexpress often have low performance NICs and not suitable to be used as high performance NAT router (there are exceptions, of cause, but they are not the cheapest ones). For router needs you need very limited RAM -- typically 2-4 GB is more than enough, and you can boot it from USB flash. You  can easy get used i5/4GB/64GB SSD mini-desktop + some 4-port 1G server PCI-e NIC from ebay in budget under 200 Eur.  

 In the same time, I understand that saving money is nice, but you need to keep in mind, that when one part of infrastructure is the best in class professional equipment, but another -- SOHO inferior equipment, results usually are in accordance with cheapest part performance and reliability.

So better not try to save too much on router, when you have invested in WiFi infrastructure, otherwise results will be not as desired.