Equipment Refresh

[RWCampbell]

I don't have a lot of experience with Extreme networks. I inhereted the support responsibility for a warehouse that used an ancient WiNG controller and AP setup. The APs are 6532s (approx. 20), and the controller is an RFS6000 running WiNG v5.9.  So we're pretty far out of the lifecycle of these devices, to my understanding.  I'm not an extreme networks expert. But I'm wondering the state of the wireless platform of extreme networks, and whether I should continue using it.  It's been stable, and the main reason we're considering a replacement is we're dealing with steady attrition of the AP hardware.  We're down to less than half of the original AP's which is impacting operations, though minimally so far.

I've considered using ubiquity as they utilize it in the office area (this is a warehouse with some old devices logistics devices being supported). But I don't see a whole lot of options to reuse the external antenna's that they have in place for coolers. We don't have crazy throughput requirements, we just want solid coverage throughout and no fast-switching issues between AP's, and to reuse the antennas and enclosures we have, so I'm curious of those of you out there:

Given what we had in the past, what would the community recommend in the Extreme ecosystem for a cost effective drop in replacement, be it cloud or controller managed.  Any suggestions?  I appreciate any insight.

~Robert

[DariusLapinskas]

No wonder that your AP-6532 fleet went to less than half in number as (according to my personal observation) these series had poor flash hardware that overtime wore off and rendered these APs inoperable.  Newer models had far less issues with flash memory.

Since your existing 20 AP-6532 network is less than half of all initial AP set, the initial AP number should have been over 40 units. And that's (most likely) the reason why your existing setup has RFS6000 device(s) as a controller since original Motorola/Zebra WiNG APs had a capability to serve as virtual controllers for up to 24 APs of the same model. 

The current lineup of true (not so called universal hardware ending with "c/cx") WiNG AP models (AP310i/e, AP410i/e, etc) that could work as truly standalone APs thus as virtual controllers for the model APs as well.  These models run WiNG 7.x and can adopt set of up to 64 heterogenous APs (see document https://extremeportal.force.com/ExtrArticleDetail?an=000089448).  Thus very likely that you could just install new WiNG APs and use them without any additional controller by using single AP as controller for the rest of AP set.

One more thing to bear in mind is that new WiNG AP models, compared to old AP-65xx, won't allow to crank up the radio transmit power to 100mW/20dBm.  This due to new regulations/standards/multiple antenna/etc.  But knowing that your current installation survives with a less than half of the original AP "staff" it is very likely that this decreased Tx power limit in new model APs will not negatively affect new AP network coverage.

[RWCampbell]

Thank you for the comments!

[Christoph_S]

Hello RWCampbell,

Your best option would be to contact an Extreme Partner to discuss options:  https://www.extremenetworks.com/contact-sales/

Having said that, you can upgrade your current deployment to a VX9000 and request that the licenses be transferred from the current RFS6000 over to the VX9000 or alternatively go for an NX5500 or NX7500 controller (same license transfer option will apply) . Those are not cloud based controllers. 

As for the APs, you can choose between AP310i/e, AP410 i/e, AP510 i/e and AP5010 APs wifi 6 and wifi 6e APs. 

Or you can opt for a complete cloud based solution. 

It is best to discuss options with the sales team. 

I hope this helps,

Chris

[RWCampbell]

Thank you for the comments!!