Johan
Novarum Campus Benchmark Testing Points to 802.11n Adaptive Mesh Systems as the “Only Real Choice” for Future Deployments.
Ruckus Wireless™ today announced that its ZoneFlex™ outdoor wireless broadband access system outperformed leading products from BelAir and Cisco Systems, delivering a 12:1 price/performance advantage, according to a new benchmark study released today by Novarum, a strategic consulting and analysis firm for the wireless broadband data industry.According to the report, based on actual over-the-air (OTA) testing, the Ruckus dual-band 802.11n smart antenna mesh network outperformed its legacy 802.11a/g competitors by 4:1 (Cisco) and 6:1 (BelAir). In addition, the coverage quality, or the ability of laptops to successfully connect from anywhere, particularly indoors, was superior with the Ruckus system.
In comparing the cost efficiency of the tested campus mesh solution, Novarum used Cisco as the baseline. Published pricing was used for the three systems under test along with the mean downstream and upstream indoor client performance numbers to establish a cost/performance metric. According to the report, the relative cost/performance difference revealed that Ruckus ZoneFlex dual-band 802.11n campus mesh system delivered a remarkable 12x improvement over competitive systems from Cisco and BelAir.
The real-world mesh testing, performed at the Woodside Priory campus in Northern California, was designed to establish a benchmark that accurately reflects campus-level mesh network deployments and to determine the impact and value of emerging 802.11n smart mesh technology versus traditional outdoor 802.11g systems.
“With no extant third-party testing that sets a baseline for performance and service quality for any campus products, we set out to define a useful benchmark for both existing and emerging mesh solutions against which users can make informed deployment decisions,” said Ken Biba, founder and chief technology officer at Novarum who directed and conducted the testing. “The lack of comparative research is doubly relevant considering the major transition in 2009/2010 from legacy 802.11a/g radios to smart antenna technology with 802.11n.”
According to Novarum, a new generation of 802.11n MIMO based high-performance mesh networks are “changing the game” in the outdoor market by providing:
· Significantly higher throughput
· More reliable client connectivity
· Better signal coverage with fewer nodes
· Dramatically simpler deployment
· More effective indoor signal penetration
· Lower total cost of ownership
Campus Benchmark Testing Methodology
According to a new Novarum report entitled “The Value of Smart Antennas: Campus Mesh Network Performance Benchmark,” the testing focused on two key areas: 1) throughput performance,
2) coverage predictability (as measured by equity between clients).
Novarum structured the benchmark testing to represent a realistic deployment environment that included multi-story buildings, tree coverings, elevation changes and client devices deployed in various classrooms and dormitories indoors. Four mesh nodes from each vendor were installed on building rooftops around the core of the Priory School campus (only one mesh system was powered on at any time). Two mesh nodes were placed 100 meters, one-hop away from the “root” mesh access point. A third mesh node was deployed 60 meters, two-hops away from the root.
Novarum configured all of the dual-band nodes to use the 5GHz band to support backbone mesh connections and the 2.4GHz band (using all three non-overlapping channels, 1,6 and 11) to support client connections. Client readings were taken in ten different locations across campus.
Novarum then measured TCP throughput to and from the 10 clients to the benchmark server using IXIA’s Chariot tool. Raw “TCP goodput,” both upstream from clients to the performance server attached through the root mesh node and downstream from the root to the clients, was measured.
The systems under test included the leading 802.11ag mesh solutions from Cisco Systems (Cisco’s “Lightweight” AP1522/Cisco 4402 WLAN controller) and BelAir Networks (BelAir 100 AP). These systems were measured against the Ruckus ZoneFlex dual-band 802.11n Smart Wi-Fi system (ZF 7762 / ZoneDirector 1006).
“As the industry leader in Wi-Fi shipments, we selected a Cisco Systems as well as BelAir,” said Biba. “However, Ruckus was the only vendor shipping a complete 802.11n dual-band outdoor MIMO system. We used this opportunity to determine the real value of next gen mesh systems that use beamforming against what has traditionally been available in the market.”
Key Findings
Novarum’s campus mesh testing revealed that the Ruckus infrastructure outperformed both BelAir and Cisco by a wide margin in both upstream and downstream benchmark tests.
The Ruckus 802.11n mesh system succeeded not only in transferring the most aggregate data by a factor of 6x over BelAir and almost 4X over Cisco but also succeeded in delivering coverage to all client locations throughout the campus. No client locations were frozen out.
The ZoneFlex 7762 is the first centrally-managed, concurrent dual band 802.11n outdoor access point to support dynamic beamforming. The ZoneFlex 7762 is capable of sustaining performance of up to 150 Mbps over 1000 feet (300 meters) between meshed nodes and up to 50 Mbps to client devices over 500 feet (150 meters)
“While outperforming both BelAir and Cisco, the Ruckus system was, by far, the easiest to deploy at the lowest cost,” said Biba. ”Our analysis concluded that the combination of 802.11n, adaptive meshing techniques and smart antenna array technology delivers the expected performance gains but at a surprisingly lower price point than traditional 802.11g systems.
This new generation of indoor/outdoor adaptive meshing approach using 802.11n will undoubtedly disrupt the price/performance model we’ve seen today in the for outdoor campus market and will help to define a new and more flexible wireless broadband access architecture that allows companies to build as they grow,” said Biba.
All Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi access points use an agile antenna array to perform dynamic beamforming, a technique that adapts and shapes Wi-Fi signal patterns between sending and receiving antennas to deliver better overall performance and range. Novarum predicts that within four years all competitive Wi-Fi network devices will migrate to this technique. Today, Ruckus products are able to transmit and receive preferentially in the best spatial direction to the receiver, while ignoring interference for even greater gain.
“One of the essential necessities of a meshed wireless system is to deal with an RF environment that naturally consists of imperfect transmissions, interference and contention between clients and access points for airtime on the shared channel,” said Biba. “We found that the use of 802.11n when combined with beamforming, interference mitigation and the ability of the mesh to automatically adjust to RF anomalies was the clear and present winner for future mesh deployments.”
According to a new Novarum report entitled “The Value of Smart Antennas: Campus Mesh Network Performance Benchmark,” the testing focused on two key areas: 1) throughput performance,
2) coverage predictability (as measured by equity between clients).
Novarum structured the benchmark testing to represent a realistic deployment environment that included multi-story buildings, tree coverings, elevation changes and client devices deployed in various classrooms and dormitories indoors. Four mesh nodes from each vendor were installed on building rooftops around the core of the Priory School campus (only one mesh system was powered on at any time). Two mesh nodes were placed 100 meters, one-hop away from the “root” mesh access point. A third mesh node was deployed 60 meters, two-hops away from the root.
Novarum configured all of the dual-band nodes to use the 5GHz band to support backbone mesh connections and the 2.4GHz band (using all three non-overlapping channels, 1,6 and 11) to support client connections. Client readings were taken in ten different locations across campus.
Novarum then measured TCP throughput to and from the 10 clients to the benchmark server using IXIA’s Chariot tool. Raw “TCP goodput,” both upstream from clients to the performance server attached through the root mesh node and downstream from the root to the clients, was measured.
The systems under test included the leading 802.11ag mesh solutions from Cisco Systems (Cisco’s “Lightweight” AP1522/Cisco 4402 WLAN controller) and BelAir Networks (BelAir 100 AP). These systems were measured against the Ruckus ZoneFlex dual-band 802.11n Smart Wi-Fi system (ZF 7762 / ZoneDirector 1006).
“As the industry leader in Wi-Fi shipments, we selected a Cisco Systems as well as BelAir,” said Biba. “However, Ruckus was the only vendor shipping a complete 802.11n dual-band outdoor MIMO system. We used this opportunity to determine the real value of next gen mesh systems that use beamforming against what has traditionally been available in the market.”
Key Findings
Novarum’s campus mesh testing revealed that the Ruckus infrastructure outperformed both BelAir and Cisco by a wide margin in both upstream and downstream benchmark tests.
The Ruckus 802.11n mesh system succeeded not only in transferring the most aggregate data by a factor of 6x over BelAir and almost 4X over Cisco but also succeeded in delivering coverage to all client locations throughout the campus. No client locations were frozen out.
The ZoneFlex 7762 is the first centrally-managed, concurrent dual band 802.11n outdoor access point to support dynamic beamforming. The ZoneFlex 7762 is capable of sustaining performance of up to 150 Mbps over 1000 feet (300 meters) between meshed nodes and up to 50 Mbps to client devices over 500 feet (150 meters)
“While outperforming both BelAir and Cisco, the Ruckus system was, by far, the easiest to deploy at the lowest cost,” said Biba. ”Our analysis concluded that the combination of 802.11n, adaptive meshing techniques and smart antenna array technology delivers the expected performance gains but at a surprisingly lower price point than traditional 802.11g systems.
This new generation of indoor/outdoor adaptive meshing approach using 802.11n will undoubtedly disrupt the price/performance model we’ve seen today in the for outdoor campus market and will help to define a new and more flexible wireless broadband access architecture that allows companies to build as they grow,” said Biba.
All Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi access points use an agile antenna array to perform dynamic beamforming, a technique that adapts and shapes Wi-Fi signal patterns between sending and receiving antennas to deliver better overall performance and range. Novarum predicts that within four years all competitive Wi-Fi network devices will migrate to this technique. Today, Ruckus products are able to transmit and receive preferentially in the best spatial direction to the receiver, while ignoring interference for even greater gain.
“One of the essential necessities of a meshed wireless system is to deal with an RF environment that naturally consists of imperfect transmissions, interference and contention between clients and access points for airtime on the shared channel,” said Biba. “We found that the use of 802.11n when combined with beamforming, interference mitigation and the ability of the mesh to automatically adjust to RF anomalies was the clear and present winner for future mesh deployments.”
802.11n Performance and Unprecedented Reliability at a Cost LESS than 802.11g
For the Novarum testing, based on US list pricing, total cost of the Ruckus ZoneFlex 802.11n system was $9,180 which included four ZoneFlex 7762 APs ($1,995 each) and one ZoneDirector (ZD 1006) controller ($1,200). Each ZoneFlex 7762 is truly lightweight (4.1 lbs / 1.9 kg.) and designed for easy installation by a single technician.
By comparison, the BelAir 802.11g system was estimated to cost $19,980 – list price for four APs ($4,150 each), eight 2.4GHZ antennas ($235 each), four 5GHz antennas ($235 each), and four node mounting kits ($140 each).
Finally Cisco’s meshed 802.11g solution was priced at $32,215 – list price for four 1522 APs ($3,995 each), 12 2.4GHz antennas ($320 each), four 5GHz antennas ($200 each), four node mounting kits ($100 each), four power cables ($300 each) and one WLC4402-12 controller ($9,995). With a weight of approximately 25 pounds (we actually weighed it), the Cisco 1522 effectively requires twice the time and manpower to deploy.
0 comments:
Post a Comment