ZD3000 and R700 limits at a large public event

[mihail_tudoran]

I am planning to supply WiFi for a large public event, about 10000 people present. I estimate that at least half will connect and use the WiFi service, this event will be hosted in a remote area and I only expect small amounts of interference, also the traffic levels will be small ( facebook, simple browsing )

I do have one ZD3000 with 25 Ap license and ten R700 access points, I am not sure about the client limit on the ZD3000 because I noticed that there is a 5000 clients limit but didn't understand where this limit applies. This limitation applies only to authenticated clients or the total number of clients regardless if they are connected to a open network ( no security or captive portal at all ) or using some kind of encryption or authentication ?

At this event I will host two WLAN's: one encrypted with WPA2 ( no user database, only a simple password ) that will host about 100 clients and one open network that will host the public with no encryption or password ( planning to use Vlan pooling in order to break the broadcast domains into smaller chunks ).

Because at this moment I only have 10 x R700 I am planning to get ten more in order to support the clients. I never tested one R700 at full capacity, is this AP capable of the 500 clients stated in the data sheet ? Will the performance degrade very much ?

Thanks !

[michael_brado]

The limitation on maximum number of users is provided.  Multiply by number of licensed APs for the possibility number of users.

A maximum number of licensed APs supports the maxiumum number of users,
per ZoneDirector model.

[mihail_tudoran]

Then you should remove the document https://support.ruckuswireless.com/answers/000001444 from the ZD3000 KB articles because it is misleading users about this limitation.

[michael_brado]

Thanks for providing the link, which I confirm is accurate.

The Maximum combined total connected *users (*DPSK, guest pass, local, open) corresponds to the maximum AP licenses.

A ZD1100 with 50 APs can support 1250 users
A ZD3000 with 250 APs can support 5000 users
A ZD3000 with 500 APs can support 10000 users
A ZD5000 with 250 APs can support 5000 users
A ZD5000 with 600 APs can support 10000 users
A ZD5000 with 800 APs can support 15000 users
A ZD5000 with 1000 APs can support 20000 users

However, as stated above, these are supported maximum open auth/no encryption user connections.
But you should not plan large event wireless support at the maximum number of clients per AP.

[mihail_tudoran]

So there is a limitation here.

For me I can't understand what is the point and the marketing strategy to enforce such a thing. If a user has 50 AP that each can support 150 users it will end up being limited by the ZD license user limit and Ruckus will force the user to buy a 250+ AP license that is useless to the customer and may even force it to other vendors that look more expensive at the first look but they aren't when you analyze all the facts.

[eizens_putnins]

It is very interesting question, I have not yet ever was able to hit the limit of users on ZD3000 system practically and it is quit difficult to check practically -- normally number of users even on big public events  is less than you would expect - for 10 000 visitors event you rarely have more than 1000-2000 users simultaneously in fact.  
Actually, I am not yet convinced by Michael  answer (I have heard same statements before also)  that this limit applies to all connected users.
This are my suggestions why I am not sure if it is that simple:

1. For me it looks more realistic that it is applied only to any kind of authenticated user, and, possibly to statistic subsystem, as users on open SSIDs (without encryption and authentication) are associated by AP without ZD intervention.
2. I suppose that there is a size limitation for user database on ZD, as well as some limits in databases used to maintain statistic data (such as a table of current users), but for ZD to count all active users and to force limit even on open SSIDs -- it would be a bit troublesome task to implement, and it provides no benefits (there is no additional license you can buy to add more users over 10000 limit anyway), so I don't see why Ruckus developers would waist time doing so.
3. It is also not clear, why this limit is needed at all? It is not performance thing, as ZD1200 has about 20x more performance than ZD1100, but it's stated limit is almost same. So, again, for me it looks that this limit is actually the size of user database in a software - but what if we use external RADIUS for authentication or no authentication as all?
4. There are some success stories about very high density cases published by Ruckus on big stadiums, on older of them ZD3000 have been used, and I think if this limitation would really exist, they would not work. So probably it doesn't apply to unauthenticated users, at least not enforced (it is possible, that statistics will not display user info properly in such cases).

Anyway,  all my suggestions about how it probably works are just speculations  -- It would be really nice to get this question  clarified once and for all by Ruckus developer team member -- who really knows firsthand how it is designed and how it works in reality. Can you get such answer for us from Ruckus developer team, Michael?

Also,  it would be interesting to know if there is any such limitation for vSCG? With 10000 AP limit per node, number of users supported must be really huge, but SCG processing power per AP is much lower...

Of cause, in most cases this limit is irrelevant anyway -- you can hit this limit realistically only in very special projects, and it definitely doesn't apply to any office environment.

  About providing Wi-Fi for events on temporary base, I completely agree with Primoz -- whenever you want to get high density, you want to use only directional models (ZF7762-S, ZF7782-S/N, T301S/N), and they work really great. You can easy accommodate 150-200 users on one AP, as far as you have correct design and tune configuration to disable slow connections and 802.11b devices.
If you are OK with R700, it means that you don't have really high density and than you don't need to care about user limit.
R700 is ok when you have big conference room with 1000 people but only 200 active Wi-Fi devices (actually 1x R700 can handle it reasonably).  If you have 1000 mobile devices, you will be not very good with just 5x R700 (even so they will work much better than 5x APs from any competitor because of Beamflex+) -- but with 5x T301 you'll  get much better total bandwidth and capacity.
If you have no idea about next venue, you probably want to use T301S mainly (30x120 degree diagram) and couple of T301N (30x30 degree). This makes very easy to cover any venue  and you are much less constrained by AP location requirements. Or you can go with T301N only, which will provide the best possible performance, but than you'll need more of them to cover same area.