What is the "go-to" industry standard for WDS hardware?

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jmroberts70

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I'm setting up a rather large office building from scratch for the first time. It will be the first situation where I believe I'm going to need to implement a WDS system. Is there a commonly-used hardware platform you all normally like or are there several options out there I need to look at and consider before purchasing?
 
I just use it at home and a few small customers.
Id guess in a large scale deployment, disk speed, network speed would be the most important.
After of course getting AD working smoothly (I think 2012 doesnt need AD to setup WDS)
 
If you use multicast you could easily image 100 machines from a regular desktop.

I run mine on a VM that sits on a RAID1 of 15K SAS drives with a Gigabit NIC. 4 GB and 4 cores of a 2.6 Xeon.
 
If you use multicast you could easily image 100 machines from a regular desktop.

I run mine on a VM that sits on a RAID1 of 15K SAS drives with a Gigabit NIC. 4 GB and 4 cores of a 2.6 Xeon.

You really don't need separate hardware. I too use just a VM for it. It isn't really CPU intensive, it is network intensive.
 
OP could you clarify whether you're talking about Windows Deployment Services or a Wireless Distribution System? :confused:
 
Wireless Distribution System.

I'm really leaning towards a MikroTik platform. Looks like quality stuff at a reasonable price. I think they also produce WDS equipment as well. Am I heading in a good direction for an office of around 150 people with a soon-to-be 50MB fiber connection to the web, dedicated T1's for cloud-based PBX system using POE?
 
No no no no. WDS is garbage. Always hardwire Access Points.

I really like the Unifi APs from Ubiquiti.
 
Oh my bad, I actually thought that was what WDS was. I absolutely intend to hard wire my AP's. My understanding may be off because I didn't think an array of AP's would seamlessly transfer between nodes without any trouble. I'll check out Ubiquiti for sure. Thanks!!
 
Nobody uses WDS in the enterprise world. In large scale AP deployments (200+ APs) over large foot prints (1 million sqft and greater) it all gets hard wired and managed by a wireless LAN controller..
 
Oh my bad, I actually thought that was what WDS was. I absolutely intend to hard wire my AP's. My understanding may be off because I didn't think an array of AP's would seamlessly transfer between nodes without any trouble. I'll check out Ubiquiti for sure. Thanks!!


Ubiquiti has a feature called "Zero Handoff" which does this but it's still in development.

Honestly though, using the same SSID is usually good enough to roam seem leaky. You may see a dropped packet or two when switching APs, but unless it's UDP or VOIP traffic and you are roaming between APs constantly, you'll be fine with matching SSIDs.
 
WDS sucks off your bandwidth from your clients. I'd only use it for places you absolutely cannot run a cable.
 
Yeah, I'm closing this thread. It's pretty clear that WDS is crap and not even what I thought it was referring to originally. I'm probably going to go with a wired Ubiquity AP system.
 
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