Unleashed - Per Radio SSIDs

[william_burnett]

So I ordered a few R600 UNLEASHED APs for a client site that is having tremendous interference issues (4 story building with multiple tenants per floor) with their current APs (Sophos JUNK).

I find it frustrating, if not laughable that the Unleashed APs are not capable of PER RADIO SSID assignment. 

Simple facts:

In a typical SMB deployment (or a town home or cul-de-sac for that matter), there are typically multiple (sometimes dozens) of APs in close proximity, but not controlled by the customer. This means that 2.4 channels 1, 6 and 11 are almost always full of interference and noise.

Most SMB customers still require some connectivity on 2.4, for the sake of legacy devices, even if it is saturated and slow.

Putting the primary WLAN/SSID on 5GHz is usually the best practice.

Lastly, when an SSID is being broadcast on BOTH 2.4 and 5, the connection usually ends up landing on 2.4.

Why in the world would Ruckus decide to force unleashed SSIDs to be broadcast on both radios?

Somebody has their head up their backside. 

[john_d]

I understand what you mean. I'm a SMB customer as well and am currently mostly ZD managed but I've been very tempted to go over to Unleashed but the feature parity has yet to get there for me.

I definitely like its lighter weight licensing scheme for SMBs, the lack of dependence on a single controller without paying thousands more for additional controls and setting up redundant failover. It also supports meshing and 802.11r/k FT Roaming which isn't possible with standalone.

In a lot of ways it's already exceeded what Standalone and ZD offers, but in many other ways it's still not reached feature parity yet. 

[eizens_putnins]

Unfortunately, current practice prevents product to be complited and tested before going to market. Even company which don't want to test rpoducts on customers, is forced to put on market half-ready products, or it is put out of busines by competitors doing exactly this. Therefore it is absolutly normal that some fetures are missing - at some moment project manager has to freez feature list in curret release, and this is based unfortunately not ony on needs, but also on status of developent of each feature. There are also mistakes done by project managers - unavoidable. And, of cause, point of views of customer and developer are not the same.
Anybody saying he had never made a mistake, or never forgot to include really needed requirement in some stage of project just probably isn't in this business.
There are missing features in any product if you look closely, unfortunately. Unleashed isn't exclusion, and it will take probably 1-2 years to become a full featured SMB solution. Currently it has some big limitations yet, not only SSID setting. 
But if you look on  Ruckus SOHO line (cloud managed, but using also same or at least very similar  hardware) -- it has so many limitations and bugs, that  it is actually not usable in many cases. At least it is definitely not what we expect from Ruckus.
It is a fact that bad project management  can kill even potentially very good product.

[michael_brado]

In defence of Product Line Marketing who haven't spoken up, there were certain assumptions about Unleashed use in an SMB environment, which didn't include the features ZD/SZ customers have grown used to.  I assure you we have Feature Requests for SSIDs on different AP radios, and AP Group constructs which aren't included (yet) today but are under consideration.  Your feedback to your Ruckus SE is the best way to get your desired features onto the plate for Product Managers.

We have just unveiled Ruckus Cloud Wi-Fi too, with an entirely different look and feel to the WebUI.  I can also assure you that there are lists of features/functions which must still be addressed on this platform too.  Early access customers have given us a wish list, and the developers are working in as many improvements and new features as they can with each build release.  Contact your Ruckus System Engineers if you have suggestions or find problems, so they can bring your issues to the PMs.  Thanks for the feedback.

[william_burnett]

Michael,

Respectfully, my point is that some of those "certain assumptions about Unleashed use in an SMB environment" made by Product Line Marketing, are suspect (short sighted?) and much of the issue.

What your customers have become "used to" in the other product lines or what you are offering in your new "cloud" product are also not relevant other than proof that the mechanism for SSIDs per radio, was long ago tested, built and deployed in other products based the SAME hardware.  

The simple point is that Ruckus designed and marketed this firmware to attract SMB customers. In that context, there is no reasonable justification for cramming all SSIDS onto both radios, when in an SMB environment it is more appropriate to isolate SSIDs per radio.

What is done is done, but I certainly hope that somebody has their eyes open and this is treated as an oversight that needs to be fixed and not a "wish list" item that may or may not get implemented. It is a deal breaker for me, and most of the other folks I rub elbows with in my profession (SMB primarily 25-150 users).

As for the (another) "cloud" product, no way, not ever, not a chance. 🙂 

[eizens_putnins]

I completely agree that removing too much features makes product unattractive. Especially ugly it is taking into consideration that Unleashed is not  a completely new product, but new repackaging of existing one. Yes, some new software is written, but all previous work and experience can be  used.
In many cases reason of discrepancy between customer wishes and real product is because project managers are not actually interested to create a great product, they are interested to create a profitable business. So it looks logical for some managers to remove some useful features, hoping that customer will buy controller-based instead of unleashed -- it means that customer will spend more. In reality angry  customer will more likely buy different vendor equipment.

This reason applies even more to cloud products -- all point of cloud technology is meant to be creating easy to install and use full-featured product, which is cheaper to have than own full-featured system. Unfortunately, in most cases companies go cloud to make much more money on the same product, selling on yearly base what customer previously had paying once. It is justified in different ways, as added value, convenience and lower cost of ownership, but in reality main point that it is more profitable for vendor. Good example is Meraki (owned now by Cisco) -- very  average Wi-Fi and other networking equipment is sold as hardware (for cost similar to other vendor analogical equipment), but to use it you have to pay yearly fee, otherwise equipment becomes a brick. This results in a very poor results of Meraki on many markets, but what they get is obviously profitable enough to make them happy.
I hope Ruckus will not go this way -- it is a risky moment actually, as now pressure on company to be profitable can lead to switching attention to profitability, not to leadership in technology.