Ruckus Zone Director 1100 with 3 AP zf7341 working on MESH - Performance issues observed

[sumanth_k_j]

We have setup Ruckus Zone Director 1100 with One AP zf7341 as root AP and other two AP zf7341 on MESH.

RuckusAP-Main- zf7341-Connected (Root AP)
RuckusAP-01 - zf7341 - Connected (eMesh AP, 2 hops)
RuckusAP-02 - zf7341 - Connected (Mesh AP, 1 hop)

Observation : Quality of connectivity is very good near Root AP ( @ Ground Floor)

The other two AP's are bit far from Root AP (@ First Floor and @ basement), clients near AP1 and AP2 get very low signal strength from Root AP and there is performance degradation in observed.

There is no provision to get the AP1 and AP2 getting connect through wired connectivity.

Question : Are there any product from RUCKUS to enhance the signal quality (repeater)or the only way to improve the signal strength is by connecting the AP1 and AP2 through wired connectivity.

Vendor Recommendation :
Add new outdoor ZF 2741 to make it as root AP and move the existing zf7341-(Root AP) near AP1 and AP2.

[primoz_marinsek]

You've got 3 problems.

One is that APs are quite far form root the other is that bandwidth is shared among the 3 and the clients they are connected to it and you have spread the collision domain very far so you are getting hidden nodes probably.

So the main suggestion is that you run cable. The other option is to get 2 7731 bridges and make a link, however that one is a bit McGyver style.

Vendor recommendation is wrong!!! 2741 will NOT mesh with 7341. I doubt someone at RW gave you that idea.

[sumanth_k_j]

Good point, Thank you for suggesting the optimal best solution with the present devices in place.

We checked on ZoneFlex 7731 specs and did not find it much relevant to our requirement.

Question : I the case of running the cable to the two access points
RuckusAP-01 - zf7341 and RuckusAP-02 - zf7341 will the Ruckus Zone Director 1100 treat the 2 APs as Root APs or can there be two more Root APs in the network.

Spoke to vendor he also agreed the option to add in 7341 on mesh is wrong.

Will update after cabling and performance details

[primoz_marinsek]

The rule is very simple.

MESH is LAST RESORT, not primary topology in WLAN networks.