Zone Director (3050) and AP (R710) are out dated? Which firmware should I upgrade to?

[roy_lee_emny0bk]

Hi, We noticed our Ruckus is getting very slow when too many clients are connected at the same time.
It's been a long time since we update our firmware so I would like to give it a try.
Currently, our Zonedirector ZD3050 is 10.0.0.0 build 1424 and we have 46 Units of R710 Access points.
Does anyone know which firmware should I try?  thanks

[hayward_kong]

Just curious how many wifi clients are on?

[roy_lee_emny0bk]

We are a school with around 1000 clients. Usually each AP gets 35 clients

[hayward_kong]

I know Zone Director 3050 is consider End of Sale this year and the of the webpages indicated it's EOL Product. Recommend firmware is
10.1.1.0.55 (MR1 Refresh3)  Not sure if they will have any more firmware after this since it's in the it's in the EOL product family.

To get that firmware you need to have a current support contract.

Depends on what features you use on the ZD Directory 3050
maybe  Unleashed might work for you? but it's something to consider. However note unleashed only supports the max of 50 APs and 1024 concurrent connections.

check out the documentation of unleashed.

https://webresources.ruckuswireless.com/pdf/datasheets/ds-unleashed-portfolio.pdf



Current Version of unleashed is 200.7.10.x released this year.. but I recommend sticking with 200.6.10.x since 200.7.10.x seems to have issues with iOS devices in terms of performance.  If you go to unleashed all 46 APs R710 must be flashed... then program one of them to be a master and the other APs will automatically adopt as slave. Do note the R710 that acts as master can only have a max 100 of clients... the slaves can go greater than 100 which is no issue.


I think it would be easier and less work if you just pay for the support contract and get the firmware updated for ZD3000 to 10.1.1.0.55 .    but maybe down the road consider unleashed if it can fit your needs but at least it's a consideration depending on what features you use on ZD.

[hayward_kong]

Note: Unleashed firmware you get without support contract. So no cost to you besides your labor in getting it onto the R710 APs.

Just note: you need to convert you R710 back to standalone mode so it's not associated with a Zone Director then you can Flash it to Unleashed. Yes i know it's a lot of work but at least you'll get continued firmware support on the R710 in unleashed firmware for at least the next few years til they phase out 802.11ac Wave 2.  Wave 1 APs are phased out this year in unleashed. However again depends on what feature you use on the ZD 3050 and you will lose some of those features depending on if you use them or not.