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Why Ruckus? An Executive Comparison with Meraki Wi-Fi networks deployed today must be ready to support 3x more clients and harsher RF conditions in just one year. Ruckus is laser-focused on innovative Wi-Fi products that take the guesswork out of RF expertise in an easy to configure, simple to manage and high performance solution. Sophisticated features such as adaptive antenna arrays, smart RF mitigation and optimization techniques put Ruckus products years ahead of any other Wi-Fi vendor and ensure wireless you can count on for years to come. Great TCO vs. Out of Control Costs Ruckus offers the best Wi-Fi that money can buy at an af- fordable price. With a performance advantage that typically requires up to 30% fewer APs, Ruckus starts out at a great price point and furthers that with streamlined pricing that provides a rich feature set with no additional licensing. A great Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) means your Wi-Fi network is paid and amortized within just a short time after purchase. Meraki customers, on the other hand, must purchase cloud management; Meraki network cannot not function otherwise. This means the equipment purchase is not a one-time capital expense but rather expensive, ongoing licensing fees, paid year over year. Customers do not own their wireless network, they rent it from Meraki. Unimpressive Performance Ruckus offers proven performance and reliability that satisifies the most demanding customers and the toughest environ- ments. The Meraki solution is centered around management, not performance. But low performance is a massive contribu- tor to connectivity and other user problems as well as network stability and reliability. Endless complaints from users simply adds to the overall costliness of this solution. No Guarantees and No Safety Net When a company buys a wireless network, they expect it to function for as long as they choose to keep it. This is not true with a Meraki network. What happens if Meraki goes out of business? There is no alternative solution available for their custmers who will be left hanging with a useless network. The Bottom Line Outrageous costs - you have to buy your network and then pay a large annual fee forever for the right to use it Pitiful performance - consumer-grade Wi-Fi masked as enterprise quality No service guarantee - Read their Ts&Cs – “Meraki makes no guarantees as to the continuous availability of the Service” No safety net - if Meraki goes out of business, your Wi- Fi network is out of business Lightweight support - You have to rely on their 24/7 Cloud Controller but they only offer 5/7 telephone sup- port

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Page 1: Why Ruckus vs Meraki-USLetter5

Why Ruckus?An Executive Comparison with Meraki

Wi-Fi networks deployed today must be ready to support 3x

more clients and harsher RF conditions in just one year. Ruckus

is laser-focused on innovative Wi-Fi products that take the

guesswork out of RF expertise in an easy to configure, simple

to manage and high performance solution. Sophisticated

features such as adaptive antenna arrays, smart RF mitigation

and optimization techniques put Ruckus products years ahead

of any other Wi-Fi vendor and ensure wireless you can count on

for years to come.

Great TCO vs. Out of Control CostsRuckus offers the best Wi-Fi that money can buy at an af-

fordable price. With a performance advantage that typically

requires up to 30% fewer APs, Ruckus starts out at a great price

point and furthers that with streamlined pricing that provides

a rich feature set with no additional licensing. A great Total

Cost of Ownership (TCO) means your Wi-Fi network is paid and

amortized within just a short time after purchase.

Meraki customers, on the other hand, must purchase cloud

management; Meraki network cannot not function otherwise.

This means the equipment purchase is not a one-time capital

expense but rather expensive, ongoing licensing fees, paid

year over year. Customers do not own their wireless network,

they rent it from Meraki.

Unimpressive PerformanceRuckus offers proven performance and reliability that satisifies

the most demanding customers and the toughest environ-

ments. The Meraki solution is centered around management,

not performance. But low performance is a massive contribu-

tor to connectivity and other user problems as well as network

stability and reliability. Endless complaints from users simply

adds to the overall costliness of this solution.

No Guarantees and No Safety Net When a company buys a wireless network, they expect it to

function for as long as they choose to keep it. This is not true

with a Meraki network. What happens if Meraki goes out of

business? There is no alternative solution available for their

custmers who will be left hanging with a useless network.

The Bottom Line• Outrageous costs - you have to buy your network and

then pay a large annual fee forever for the right to use it

• Pitiful performance - consumer-grade Wi-Fi masked as

enterprise quality

• No service guarantee - Read their Ts&Cs – “Meraki

makes no guarantees as to the continuous availability of

the Service”

• No safety net - if Meraki goes out of business, your Wi-

Fi network is out of business

• Lightweight support - You have to rely on their 24/7

Cloud Controller but they only offer 5/7 telephone sup-

port

Page 2: Why Ruckus vs Meraki-USLetter5

Page 2

Why Ruckus?

The Meraki marketing literature makes a lot of claims that are,

at best, optimistic and at worst misleading. The rest of this

document is a deeper look at these statements and claims.

The Hidden Cost of the CloudThe difference between cloud controllers and premise-based

is very simple: rent vs. buy. This is rarely pointed out and those

who don’t understand this will pay and pay. Where a premise-

based controller is paid for once and quickly amortized into a

lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), a cloud controller has to

be purchased again every year and is never paid off. This has a

huge impact on TCO.

For example, using Meraki’s price calculator from their web

site, the following prices out a 10 AP network with enterprise

licensing:

5 Year TCO for Meraki and Ruckus

Meraki

MR24

Meraki

MR16

Ruckus

ZF7363

10 APs $11,990* $6,490* $5,990

10 Enterprise Licenses $4,500 $4,500 $0

Controller $0 $0 $2,000

Support $0** $0** $1,699

Total Initial Cost $16,490 $10,990 $9,689

Recuring Costs $4,500 $4,500 $1,699

* Prices shown are list price (North America)

** Meraki support is standard, 9/5 instead of 24/7 (not available)

At list price, the MR24 is still almost twice the cost of Ruckus

and the lower end MR16 a bit more than Ruckus. But note the

recurring yearly costs are nearly 3x the cost of Ruckus regard-

less of hardware. The longer a Meraki installation is kept, the

higher these yearly operating expenses will grow.

Ruckus’ higher AP performance will likely only require 6 Ruckus

APs to deliver the same or better coverage and density as 10

Meraki APs. With only 6 Ruckus APs that reduces the initial

Ruckus cost to $7,233 and yearly support to just $1,339.

It’s Not Your Network That’s Up 99.9% of the Time

This is touted consistently and con-

stantly, but what does it mean? A

close reading of their Service Level

Agreement (SLA) contract states

“Meraki Cloud Controller web

interface will be operational and

available to Customer at least 99.9%

of the time in any calendar month”.

The Meraki End User License Agreement (EULA) also states

“Meraki makes no guarantees as to the continuous availability

of the Service or any component thereof.” Even worse!

This is not a statement of wireless network uptime, it’s not even

a statement of any type of controller functionality uptime but

merely a guarantee that the web interface is available 99.9% of

the time. In cases where it is not, the customers sole recourse

and compensation is a service credit (licensing) for a maximum

of 15 days. This is great deal for Meraki - if a customer is late

paying their cloud licenses, they get to charge interest for an

unspecifed/unlimited time (see Meraki EULA).

Of course a customer has to submit a request for these credits

- they are not given automatically for system failures. Therefore

the onus is on customers to monitor Meraki’s system for them

just to protect their own interests.

A 99.9% uptime means the service is unavailable for no more

than 74 minutes per month. But Meraki upgrades its software

roughly ever month - a downtime of at least 2 hours. Some-

thing customers cannot opt out of or prevent.

Customer WAN failures are also not included in downtime and

of course these represent a significant risk to system avail-

ability. Meraki only guarantees their web interface is available

99.9% of the time - if you can’t reach it, too bad. Moreover, this

does not count as a service downtime and therefore the cus-

tomer is not eligible for any recompense from Meraki.

If the cloud is unvailable, who do you call? Meraki’s technical

Under the Hood: What to Know Before You Buy

Page 3: Why Ruckus vs Meraki-USLetter5

Page 3

Why Ruckus?

support is only business hours, 9/5 rather than 24/7. If some-

thing happens outside of tthese hours, the customer is stuck.

The Meraki web site claims to have 24/7 support but it is not on

their price list and is, apparently, a series of one-off deals with

no real description of the service, a concrete and comprehen-

sive SLA, etc.

For off-hours, Meraki offers an online-knowledgebase. A quick

check shows how difficult this is to use. Searches constantly

bring up articles that have little or nothing to do with the

search keywords. Only the most determined user can find real

answers.

All Ruckus ZoneDirector Wi-Fi controllers are simply and easily

configured and can operate from any data center. No Internet

or WAN connectivity is required. Ruckus also offers 24/7 sup-

port for all customers. For customers looking to reduce their

operating costs even further, different levels of support are

available on a per unit basis. This empowers customers to pick

and choose the level they wish to pay for different equipment.

This is unlike Meraki with its “one size fits all” approach; forcing

customers to pay the same level of support for all equipment,

regardless.

It’s Not Your Network Anymore

Ruckus offers wireless controllers that are easy to configure

and simple to use. Each ZoneDirector controller is wholly

owned and controlled by the customer: no grey areas of doubt

or uncertainty or potential finger-pointing if problems arise.

Administrators are in the driver’s seat and know exactly what is

happening at all times.

With cloud-based services, there is always the question of

control: who decides when to upgrade your network? Who has

physical access to the hardware and how is it protected? How

much of our data is visible to people outside of your company

and control? This may not be a big deal when purchasing vid-

eos on Amazon.com, but it is a huge issue for any enterprise.

One glaring issue is software management. Most enterprises

are used to controlling their own network and decided when

and how to upgrade it if they find it necessary. Indeed, many

organizations tend to find a version that works and stabilize on

it for long periods of time. Others prefer to run the new candi-

date software in a lab first, before releasing it

onto a production network.

This is not an option with Meraki. They decide

when and what to run on your network. Cust-

mers have the option to specify preferences

for when upgrades will happen, but cannot completely block

it. There is no way to opt-out completely. Perhaps even worse,

upgrades are system-wide so there is no chance of testing new

software in a lab prior to deployment. In this way, production

networks are completely at the mercy of Meraki.

Bottom line: Meraki owns your network, not you.

Cloud-based management is just another way of paying some-

one else to own and operate the hardware that runs your net-

work. There is nothing magical about a controller in the cloud

that couldn’t be done with an appliance in the customer data

center. Unless of course you have a business model like Meraki

in which constant payments by its customers to relicense their

network over and over again is major portion of revenue.

Meraki will never make a customer-owned premise version

of their controller. It would kill their profit. If they did create

a premise-based controller, customers would quickly realize

the Meraki solution is no different from anyone else’s - except

more expensive and lower performance.

RF AnalysisThe single most important factor in Wi-Fi performance is local

RF environment. Once a packet is transmitted by the radio it’s

too late to do any more improvement. Optimization has to hap-

pen at the AP and with the Wi-Fi system.

RF is the thing that is typically out of an organization’s control.

The option to change neighboring Wi-Fi networks’ behavior is

practically impossible. RF changes every day and sometimes

in unpredictable ways. The only way to stay on top of this is a

system that is capable of automatically tuning and optimizing

itself as well as offering a rich set of RF analysis information for

performance visibility and troubleshooting.

What to Expect from an Enterprise-class System

Within the wireless industry, RF analysis has a specific mean-

Meraki

Networks

Page 4: Why Ruckus vs Meraki-USLetter5

Page 4

Why Ruckus?

ing: the ability to view what is happening in the RF spectrum.

This typically includes information such as capacity and usage,

identification of heavily loaded channels and identification of

foreign RF sources. Over the air packet capture is another com-

mon feature. This information is typically provided from the

central management/controller system.

Meraki’s concept of RF analysis is quite different:

• RF analysis information is only available from a web page

that can only be accessed by a wireless device currently at-

tached to a Meraki AP. No remote troubleshooting options are

available - a laptop must be on-site and able to associate to the

Meraki network. None of this information is sent to the cloud or

available from the cloud interface.

• The “analysis” consists of a single graph showing a per-

centage of channel usage - but only for the channel the AP

occupies. Even with background scanning enabled, no other

channel information is available.

• No other RF information is available

• No over the air packet capture is available

In contrast, Ruckus offers a well-planned and easy to use RF

troubleshooting tools such as remote packet capture from any

AP. This gives administrators a precise view of exactly what

is happening in their network. Best of all, this information is

available from the central interface on the ZoneDirector. Once

the packet capture is launched, an administrator can view the

over the air traffic from anywhere with network connectivity: a

remote location, office, home or on the road. No time consum-

ing, costly on-site service calls are required.

This is how an enterprise troubleshoots their network - cleanly

and efficiently.

RF Meltdowns

Wi-Fi is extremely popular. It is difficult to find any location with

no neighboring Wi-Fi or any other kind of RF transmissions.

This harsh RF landscape will only get worst as more networks

are deployed with higher numbers of clients and densities.

Because wireless performance is so dependent on the local RF

conditions, optimization is critical. Once a packet is transmitted

by the AP radio there is nothing that can be done to make it

faster or better. RF optimization must occur at the AP and it has

to be smart and agile enough to cope with quickly changing

enviornments.

The list of RF optimizations available to Meraki customers

includes:

• Change channels (1, 6, 11 only) due to Wi-Fi interference

• Band-steering

That’s it. In constrast, compare what Ruckus’ deep RF knowl-

edge and expertise provides:

• Channelfly - a interference and capacity-aware channel

selection method that uses Wi-Fi, non-802.11 and capacity

potentials to optimize channel section and performance across

the entire radio spectrum

• Client load-balancing - balances large device populations

Ruckus vs. Meraki RF Troubleshooting:

Which one do you think says more about

your network?

Meraki Spectrum Analysis Tools (on-site only)

Ruckus Centralized Spectrum Analysis & Packet Capture Tools

(RF reports available in 9.5)

Page 5: Why Ruckus vs Meraki-USLetter5

Page 5

Why Ruckus?

across multiple APs to improve performance and lower conten-

tion

• Band-steering - helps ensure dual-band clients connect to

5 GHz (802.11an); easing congestion on the crowded 2.4 GHz

(802.11bgn) spectrum for single band devices

• Airtime Fairness - ensures each device gets a chance to

transmit rather than allowing a few devices to grab all of the

bandwidth

• BeamFlex - dynamic adaptive antenna arrays with over

4,000 antenna combinations connects clients at the highest

transmit rates over the greatest distance while mitigating RF

interference by up to -17 dBm

These kinds of features are essential for any kind of Wi-Fi

performance. They are particularly valuable as more and more

Wi-Fi devices connect to the network. The ability to keep per-

formance high for every client becomes critical.

60 Simultaneous Clients (TCP Downlink)

Enterprise-class Wi-Fi Security

802.1X is the authentication method of choice for enterprises to

securely connect employees, VoIP phones, etc. to their wireless

network. Although it is the most secure option, 802.1X suffers

from a reputation for being difficult to configure and setup.

With Ruckus 802.1X is simple - it’s as easy as configuring the

ZoneDirector as a NAS client on the RADIUS server. Just one

device, done once for the life of the network.

For those who are not ready to use 802.1X, Ruckus also offers

Dynamic PSK and Zero-IT. Dynamic PSK is a highly secure

version of Pre-Shared Key networks that allows IT to provi-

sion each client with its own unique key. These keys cannot be

shared; making the network more secure. They also support

expiration dates and immediate administrative revokation.

Both Dynamic PSK and 802.1X client configuration is also a

breeze with Ruckus’ patented Zero-IT software. Zero-IT is a

simple program that can be run on a wireless client (Mac OS,

Windows, Android, iPhone, and more). The program will au-

tomatically configure the client to connect to whichever SSIDs

they are authorized to use. This makes deployment of 802.1X

and D-PSK networks even more simple, faster and less prone to

trouble or helpdesk calls.

Although the Meraki system supports 802.1X authentication,

There are huge limitations.

• Each Meraki AP must be configured on the RADIUS server

as a NAS client rather than just one controller like Ruckus

• Adding new APs means touching RADIUS every time

• APs need static IP addresses to work correctly with RA-

DIUS

• Readdressing APs means touching RADIUS every time

This kind of clumsy implementation is most definitely not

considered enterprise class and will severely hobble any Meraki

802.1X implementation.

SummaryInvesting in a Wi-Fi network is an investiment in time as well as

money. The balance of cost and usability is strongly affected by

initial cost, yearly costs, future-proofing for growth and reliabil-

ity (helpdesk/maintenance costs). No one likes to have to go

back and ask for more budget to pay for an existing network or

upgrade it.

Ruckus Wi-Fi products are designed to support hundreds of

devices per AP and work around the most difficult RF problems

automatically.

Meraki fails to even complete a test with 60 simultaneous clients

(Data courtesy of Tom’s Hardware)

Page 6: Why Ruckus vs Meraki-USLetter5

Page 6

Why Ruckus?Page 6

Why Ruckus?

Ruckus Wireless, Inc.

880 West Maude Avenue, Suite 101, Sunnyvale, CA 94085 USA (650) 265-4200 Ph \ (408) 738-2065 Fx

w w w. r u c k u s w i r e l e s s . c o m

Additional Reading

Tom’s Hardware Part 1 - an explanation of wireless performance

Tom’s Hardware Part 2 - performance testing and multi-vendor bakeoff results

Wired Magazine - Ruckus smart antennas may be the key to natiowide Wi-Fi

Everything Wireless: Talks from the Experts - 802.11ac, BeamFlex, client load balancing, airtime fairness and much more

(www.ruckuswireless.com/library)

ZoneDirector Demo on Demand - quick, easy demonstrations of the Ruckus product line

Key questions to ask:

• Exactly what errors and conditions are considered down-

time?

• What visibility does a customer have into these errors from

Meraki’s side?

• What kind of performance metrics are guaranteed for

latency, responsiveness of the system, etc.?

• How much control do I have over my network? Can I opt

out of software upgrades if I don’t want them?

• How much downtime are current customers experiencing

due to mandatory software upgrades?

• How will the system perform in real-world environments

with lots of clients, obstacles, interference, etc.?

• What can the Wi-Fi network do to help me understand

and troubleshoot my RF issues? Can it do it remotely without

requiring an on-site visit?

• What does the system do to select optimize channel selc-

tion?

• What can it do to load balance clients in high density situ-

ations?

• Can the system make sure all clients get airtime access

without allowing bandwidth hogs or starving clients?

• How does the system help automatically reduce and miti-

gate RF interference?

Meraki consistently fails to provide an enterprise-class experi-

ence for its customers. The Meraki solution appears cheap and

simple but hides significant underlying costs and maintenance

pains. All of this is provided with low to average performance

that fails to meet the demands of an ever more challenging

RF landscape, higher performance clients or growing density

populations.

Ruckus Wireless is laser focused on building the best Wi-Fi

networks bar none. A Ruckus network provides the enterprise-

class tools and control administrators expect in a simple inter-

face that makes configuration a breeze. This is complemented

by a rich and robust set of RF optmization features that quickly

respond to changing RF conditions for the best possible

perfomance and reliability. As demand for Wi-Fi increases

only Ruckus offers future-proof deployments that easily meet

current demands and provide headroom for future growth. A

well designed Ruckus wireless network can provide excellent

service for years with minimal effort and a great TCO.