Considering Ubiquiti Wireless
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I currently have Aruba in my office and it sucks. Zero handoff for the nomads in the back is no problem. The problem seems to be the way Aruba handles RADIUS for the front. No matter.
I am considering trying out Ubiquiti. Devices seems cheap enough in comparison to Aruba and like the fact of the free controller, either in the cloud or on-prem. However, I do have a question. If I have APs at one location and the controller is in my colo (geographically separate) and both locations lose connection for some reason, do the APs keep operating or do they stop?
Also, in the time frame that y'all have been putting them in, how many times have you had to do any support calls on them and were they because of an AP device failure?
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Yes, they keep operating. The controller is just remote configuration, it's not the brains of the device. You dont even need a controller at all. It is just for initial setup.
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Of course keeping a controller is recommended. Just saying it isn't necessary.
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How about device failures? Maybe I should ask it this way. What is the expected lifespan of these devices?
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@NerdyDad said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
How about device failures? Maybe I should ask it this way. What is the expected lifespan of these devices?
I've not seen one die yet. Don't know that we have good specs on lifespans, but so far they have been very reliable and seem to outlive things many times their cost, but that's pretty anecdotal.
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I've had an older UAP Lite at home for a few years. It never gave me problems. I replaced it with an AC Lite.
The oldest remaining gear I have in use is 4 UAP Pros at a satellite office. They've been in service for 17 months.
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@scottalanmiller said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
Yes, they keep operating. The controller is just remote configuration, it's not the brains of the device. You dont even need a controller at all. It is just for initial setup.
@scottalanmiller said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
Of course keeping a controller is recommended. Just saying it isn't necessary.
Yep, you don't NEED a controller after configuration, but I would leave one running. It will keep stats on the APs for you.
I don't use RADIUS currently, so I'm not sure if that would require a controller or not?I also haven't read up on roaming. I know it works seamlessly, I just don't know if a controller is required for that to function or not.
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@NerdyDad said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
a and like the fact of the free controller, either in the cloud or on-prem.
Just an FYI, the cloud is a
private cloudthat you setup and manage, or you rent space on someone else's controller. Ubiquiti doesn't host for you. Just wanted to clarify.*edit - It's a VM running Linux or Windows, not really a cloud at all.
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@Dashrender said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
@NerdyDad said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
a and like the fact of the free controller, either in the cloud or on-prem.
Just an FYI, the cloud is a private cloud that you setup and manage, or you rent space on someone else's controller. Ubiquiti doesn't host for you. Just wanted to clarify.
Not a private cloud. There is no suggestion of that. Nearly everyone does it on public cloud. Never heard of anyone ever doing it on private.
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What Dash means is that there is no hosted option. It's just software. You install it on your own VM, which would normally be public cloud, it's not SaaS hosted by the vendor.
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@scottalanmiller said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
What Dash means is that there is no hosted option. It's just software. You install it on your own VM, which would normally be public cloud, it's not SaaS hosted by the vendor.
I'd rather host it internally in my colo anyways.
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@scottalanmiller said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
@Dashrender said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
@NerdyDad said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
a and like the fact of the free controller, either in the cloud or on-prem.
Just an FYI, the cloud is a private cloud that you setup and manage, or you rent space on someone else's controller. Ubiquiti doesn't host for you. Just wanted to clarify.
Not a private cloud. There is no suggestion of that. Nearly everyone does it on public cloud. Never heard of anyone ever doing it on private.
Clearly I'm using the wrong term. The controller isn't a cloud software - right? it runs in Linux or Windows. He needs a VM running in someone else's system, like DO. I didn't think those were clouds?
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@Dashrender said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
@scottalanmiller said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
@Dashrender said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
@NerdyDad said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
a and like the fact of the free controller, either in the cloud or on-prem.
Just an FYI, the cloud is a private cloud that you setup and manage, or you rent space on someone else's controller. Ubiquiti doesn't host for you. Just wanted to clarify.
Not a private cloud. There is no suggestion of that. Nearly everyone does it on public cloud. Never heard of anyone ever doing it on private.
Clearly I'm using the wrong term. The controller isn't a cloud software - right? it runs in Linux or Windows. He needs a VM running in someone else's system, like DO. I didn't think those were clouds?
Well currently, one plant is running with Cisco Meraki in the cloud while the other plant is controllerless with with AP being the master.
I would host this controller in a VM in our colocation. But I see what you are saying as hosting the controller in a VM in like AWS or Azure or something of that nature.
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@NerdyDad said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
@scottalanmiller said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
What Dash means is that there is no hosted option. It's just software. You install it on your own VM, which would normally be public cloud, it's not SaaS hosted by the vendor.
I'd rather host it internally in my colo anyways.
Perfect.
You then have the option of either keeping it completely internal, connecting over private connections (either WAN links or VPNs) to each location, or you can publish it to the internet, and your APs can check in that way.
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@NerdyDad said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
I would host this controller in a VM in our colocation. But I see what you are saying as hosting the controller in a VM in like AWS or Azure or something of that nature.
Except that you would never use either of those as the expense isn't worth it.
A $5/month Vultr or DO account would do in most cases.
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@Dashrender said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
@scottalanmiller said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
@Dashrender said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
@NerdyDad said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
a and like the fact of the free controller, either in the cloud or on-prem.
Just an FYI, the cloud is a private cloud that you setup and manage, or you rent space on someone else's controller. Ubiquiti doesn't host for you. Just wanted to clarify.
Not a private cloud. There is no suggestion of that. Nearly everyone does it on public cloud. Never heard of anyone ever doing it on private.
Clearly I'm using the wrong term. The controller isn't a cloud software - right? it runs in Linux or Windows. He needs a VM running in someone else's system, like DO. I didn't think those were clouds?
No such thing as cloud software
It's just software. It's not hosted, it's just software. -
@Dashrender said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
He needs a VM running in someone else's system, like DO. I didn't think those were clouds?
DO is very much a cloud. As is Vultr, Amazon, Azure, Linode, etc. Amazon EC2 is the definition of cloud, cloud computing is specifically the name created for Amazon's EC2 product. EC2 came first, Amazon made the name cloud computing to describe it.
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All of those are IaaS clouds. Private cloud means one that is dedicated to you, public cloud means one that is shared with other people.
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@Dashrender said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
@scottalanmiller said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
Yes, they keep operating. The controller is just remote configuration, it's not the brains of the device. You dont even need a controller at all. It is just for initial setup.
@scottalanmiller said in Considering Ubiquiti Wireless:
Of course keeping a controller is recommended. Just saying it isn't necessary.
Yep, you don't NEED a controller after configuration, but I would leave one running. It will keep stats on the APs for you.
I don't use RADIUS currently, so I'm not sure if that would require a controller or not?I also haven't read up on roaming. I know it works seamlessly, I just don't know if a controller is required for that to function or not.
The only thing you absolutely need to leave a controller running all the time for is if you want to present a landing page on a guest network. At least when I set ours up a year ago that's how it was.
