ZD9.9 and 7962APs?

[martin_kane]

Any hope that 7962 APs will, one day, be compatible with version 9.9?

[robert_barrett_]

Sorry for reviving an older thread but did you get anywhere with the sales people?  I am one of several school boards here that have decided to invest in Ruckus, school boards do not have the money to go out and replace perfectly good equipment when the only thing wrong is the decision made by the company that makes it.  IN a quick poll of 6 boards we have 615 7962 APs and a mix of everything up to R700.  The wireless cards that come in everything from Chromebooks to laptops are all ac capable. To get an AP that will benefit that card you are getting an R700/710.  The R710 is coming it at almost $900 for us, so to upgrade firmware would help the R710 but kill the 7962.  You cannot expect a publicly funded school division to then turn around and hand out $600,000 to replace APs that are only not functioning because you released firmware that does not support them.

Why can the new functionality not be set to work only on device XXXX and newer, older devices will continue to function but new features will not be available.  That would at least allow us to group the 7962 in schools, as opposed to mixing them in and then when we can replace we will replace them.  I can guarantee you that if these have to replaced they will be replaced with a different brand.

[brian_hoyt_6612]

I realize this is still a solution that costs but I wanted to throw out an alternative. Leave your existing controller and EOL AP at 9.8 (and hope for fixes, not sure I believe they will come in looking at rapid release to higher versions) then get a separate controller for the R5/6/7XX series and be able to move to latest release. Then your only lost money is cost of another controller and not all your AP.

[max_o_driscoll]

Okay to revive old threads.
More general observation:

I'm also facing a similar (but much smaller physically/financially) situation in my school's two sites in near future. Mix of ZD1125 (EOF) and APs (7363 EOF and R500 new).
The issue of working products that are being deprecated to EOF is a thorny issue. Understand why it's done but it is irritating to see new releases (with added functionality) that cannot be implemented on my "older kit".
A seriously generous replacement offer might be one way to go.

I want to be happy that my Ruckus WiFi is working well...but the feeling of being left behind is always there!

Brian's suggestion for multiple controllers is practical but then loses the centralisation that one controller gives unless you start only using one type of AP in a site and not mixing.

[peter_ellis_736]

We support many schools and have copped quite a lot of negative feedback on the 7962 EOL issue.  All of these schools are mixed AP model environments but still with a lot of 7962 AP's in use.

On average each school is expected to come up with a ~ 60K budget to renew AP's or get left behind if they need higher than firmware v9.8.2.  

With Windows 10 right around the corner we are expecting a lot of support calls for these schools with the usual DPSK and on-boarding issues (as always with any new operating system).

All of these schools have had Ruckus support for years but most are letting it lapse as they see no value if firmware updates are not forthcoming.  Many have never had to use Ruckus support as we support them directly locally. 

We now have to compete with other vendors just to replace 7962 access points as the cost - being a one off capital cost on hardware that completely limits the school moving forward - is being viewed as a poor investment so they are jumping ship.

Completely leaving out the 7962 AP's is really going to cost, in more ways than one.  

The flip side of Ruckus gear being easy to work with, cost effective and rock solid reliable is now a moot point with most of our school customer base.  They forget all the problems they had pre-Ruckus and just feel the 'single point of pain' - cost.     

[bill_burns_6069]

I don't know if this helps anyone but:
In my environment we only had a few 7962 APs.
We moved them to public areas and put them in standalone mode.

We lost centralized configuration but in a 1-VLAN, 1-SSID scenario, the APs didn't talk to the controllers much anyway so we didn't lose much by putting them in standalone mode.

Another solution:
Ruckus obsoleted older (smaller) controllers, so ebay yourself an old zonedirector to control your older APs.