Meru n Wireless Implementation Meru n Wireless Implementation Morrisville State College

802.11n Wireless with Meru Matt Barber, Network Analyst, Morrisville Jean Boland, Vice President for Technology Services, Morrisville February 10, 2008

Morrisville State College Part of the State University of New York -Comprised of 64 Colleges and Universities 3,300 Students Enrolled at Morrisville -Approximately 1,750 students live in on-campus residence halls Over 70 Academic Programs with 140 Faculty Offer Bachelor and Associate Degrees - Health, Aquaculture, Equine, Business, Info Tech, Hospitality, Architectural Technology, Engineering Technology, Natural Resource Conservation, Automotive Technology, Biology

TECHNOLOGY Our Vision Statement “Morrisville State College aspires to be an academically challenging, business-oriented, technology-focused entrepreneurial learning community.” Academics Applied Business Entrepreneurialism

Technology Strategy 1998 – Mobile Computing: ThinkPad University 1999 – Nomadic Learning: Wireless Campus 2003 – Continuous Communication: Nextel Cell Phone for Every Residential Student Morrisville State College Phases I, II, III

Why Mobility? More than two-thirds of the U.S. workforce will be mobile workers (CTIA Daily News, July 2002) Drucker predicts that by 2020 fewer than half of working people will be employed by others in a classic way Students can study and learn at the location best for them…anywhere, anytime learning To better prepare our students

Morrisville Former Wireless Installed in the Fall of 1999 Raytheon Raylink FHSS 2 Mbps shared Over 300 Raylink Access Points (APs) installed One set of drivers; One PCMCIA card MS Vista will not support End of life product – purchasing existing supply Student complaints of slowness Wireless is only access in dorm rooms

The Morrisville Environment Upgraded Enterasys Network in Summer GigE backbone - Gigabit switches in the closets Fiber Backbone Former Cabling cat5 / cat5e cables to wireless APs - Approximately 100 cat6 cables to wireless APs 43 buildings with about 1.9 million square feet Morrisville Campus and Norwich Campus

What We Were Looking For Increased speed Expanded coverage area Easy to manage Product lifespan of 5 to 7 years Support for multiple operating systems Support for typical student devices 2007 Wireless Upgrade

Why We Selected n Speed, speed, speed Increased coverage over b or g Expected product lifespan Most fiscally responsible decision for us Validated by Wi-Fi Alliance certification of n products Is a/b/g nearing end of life?

Why We Selected Meru Availability of n Single Channel  Ability to easily add an access point to plug a coverage hole Client load balancing between APs  Good for large lecture halls Selected IBM as our integrator

Why We Selected Meru, cont. Virtual Cell Time management of RF traffic  Each client gets equal access to the AP  Radio “talk time” is equally shared among all clients on an access point Lowest common denominator effect is is minimized

Testing of Existing Cable Cat 5 and 5e Cable Testing  to insure operability at gigabit Ethernet speed  270 cables tested  1 cable replaced Excellent Results  All cable runs were less than 200 feet nfrastructure hired for all cabling

Site Survey EZ-RF Coverage Planner – done for 5 GHz a  RF Predictive Modeling  Physical Site Survey Findings:  Greater coverage between floors, outdoors and overall  Fewer APs needed than expected Originally expected 900 Aps to be installed

August Implementation for Start of School Cabling  400 new cat6 cables Access Point Installation  710 Meru AP 150’s  10 Meru AP 320’s Six new switch installations for additional ports Added new locations, such as football field, equine barns Both a/b/g APs and a/b/g/n APs installed

In August, Meru n Deployment 10 Meru AP 320’s Each AP with  one b/g/n radio  one a/n radio Using Power over Ethernet (PoE)  Existing 802.3af standard (15 watts)  2 X 2 antenna configuration In Mustang Alley

From Our Students It is really fast in Mustang Alley (where Meru n is), but it is so slow everywhere else! g is slow?? Changing Expectations…

ClientsClients Lenovo T61 laptops have internal 2.4 / 5 GHz n wireless Legacy Lenovo laptops  Internal a/b/g wireless  2.4 GHz n USB adapter Desktops  2.4 GHz b/g USB adapter  2.4 GHz n USB adapter 5 GHz n USB adapters were not yet available…

From Lenovo Done by 3 rd Party Test Lab “Quality Partners” Chariot Download – Comparison between 11n and 11g 11n showed 800% better performance than 11g.

From Morrisville Client Time Test Results

Lessons Learned Moved from a homogeneous to a heterogeneous client wireless environment  one wireless driver to many  one wireless adapter to many Up-to-date wireless driver is critical Power management on laptops, must be set to “maximum performance” and NOT to “maximum battery life”  Can turn OFF internal wireless; erratic results Clients, clients, clients…

In October, Total Meru n Installation All 720 APs are Meru dual radio n AP 320’s  b/g/n in 2.4 GHz  a/n in 5 GHz Replacement of a/b/g APs with a/b/g/n APs took 2 people only 1 week Still using Power over Ethernet (15 watts) Campus Wide Meru n Wireless

Statistics To Date In our 5 th month of using 720 Meru n APs: n wireless coverage of 43 buildings and 1.9 million square feet All classrooms, all buildings, all parking lots, and ancillary spaces; equine barns, football field, etc. Over 1,500 simultaneous users at peak usage Connection Speeds of up to 300Mbps

Equine Breeding & Training Center “Mister Ed” theme song, by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans

Our Dashboard

Additional Devices Supported Opened up support for portable and gaming devices  Added over 60 devices in first month  Currently have over 110 portable and gaming devices on wireless  Now supporting student iPod Touches, Sony PSPs, Playstation 3s, Xbox 360s, Nintendo Wiis, and iPhones

Dual band a/b/g/n client adapters  want to move as many clients as possible to 5 GHz n Linksys WPC600N PCMCIA card on site Linksys WUSB600N USB on order Netgear WNDA3100 USB available in March What is Next for Client Adapters?

Testing SNMP Manageable Power Injectors  draft IEEE 802.3at standard (30 watts)  for 3 x 3 antenna configuration  will look at increased wireless experience and determine if the power injectors are worth the cost Could stay with PoE (15 watts) and 2 x 2 antenna configuration Could purchase Phihong or Microsemi power injectors What is Next for Power? 802.3af (15 watts) or 802.3at (30 watts)?

802.11n “LIVE” at Morrisville Student Candids

What our students have to say About Meru’s n wireless Nicholas Scholl, a senior at Morrisville State College:

What our students have to say About Meru’s n wireless Christopher Perch, a freshman at Morrisville State College:

Mobility at Morrisville We are creating a marketable difference for our students at Morrisville. With laptops, cell phones, and now n wireless, our students are ready to enter and be productive in the mobile workforce.

Morrisville n Wireless QUESTIONS????