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 !

[eizens_putnins]

I would say that datasheet may be very precise, and still even correct numbers are often misinterpreted. Customers are tended to remember biggest number outside of context, and expect miracles, which not happen. 
So such customers are tended to expect that all 500 users will perform on theoretical max rate on any distance, which of cause never happens. No technical person would expect it, of cause.

280 km/hour on your new car speedometer doesn't mean that you will be driving with such speed all the time, even so number is correct, and properly represents that you have a really fast car, much faster than one with speedometer limit 160 km/hour.
 
Support for 500 associations is actually very useful in such environments as public events, hotels, malls and so on, as a big part of the clients are smartphones in the pocket of people passing by, not creating big traffic (if any at all). With many vendors (including 2 of 3 other WLAN grands) in this situation association tables are filling fast and real clients may not have access to the network.

Anyway, this number properly represents that Ruckus handles such situations better than most other vendors, which is a real fact.