Last year during the AP change promo I exchanged 26 old AP’s for new ones. I have finally started to change them out, mostly because we are getting the new firmware shipped with new radios so I have no choice. My question is should these be Hardware capable? There is no option for Hardware scheduling in them. Please don’t tell me I have to pay more money (about a thousand bucks per AP) to buy a 15k file that has a URL in it to flip it. Is there a difference between Hardware scheduling and Advantage?
I already paid $300 or $400 for the promo now do I have to pay more for the upgrade. Which by the way was a total scam because the old AP we were told we could change them to SM’s but oh wait you can’t do that AND have them use Hardware scheduling.
Some light on this subject would be appreciated.
What version software is on the AP’s?
What version is the board?
Telnet to the AP
Login in root and the password (or no password)
Type: version
You are looking for platform 9
As long as they are platform 9 you are OK.
If the Firmware version is 8.x then you are in Hardware Scheduling, since that firmware only supports Hardware Scheduling.
Version 7.3.6 is the only version that supports either software or hardware.
What you will notice is that all the new SM’s being shipped are the new P10’s which only come with version 8.x and cannot be downgraded to 7.3.6 because of licensing restrictions.
All of your P8 AP’s will pretty much become worthless in the next 6 months, we recently had to replace close to 30 of our old AP’s with P9’s to overcome the problem.
Those AP’s can be converted to SM’s and then used in Hardware Scheduling, I am assuming there is not enough memory or processor for the P8 AP’s to support HW Scheduling mode, only in SM mode.
–SDH
Sorry I should have been a little more clear. I have already done the promo and have 26 new AP’s to replace the old ones. The option for hardware scheduling is not in the new ones. Should it be? The firmware is 7.2 and they are all P9 boards.
For 2 of these AP’s I had to pay $1000.00 to get them to be Advantage. Did I do the wrong promo? I heard there might have been 2 promo’s where one for plain P9 boards and one for advantage boards both being different prices.
Hardware sched is not found on firmware 7.2.9.
Upgrade to atleast 7.3.6.
Are you already advantage? The last time I know, upgrading P9 boards to Advantage costs around 900$.
Derrick,
You will need to upgrade the Ap’s to 7.3.6 and the Hardware option will be there. Hope that helps…
On the top of the page of the APs there is a a canopy picture. Does it says that it’s Advantage? Or you just changed the APs to P9 boards? If it’s the second one you will need 7.3.6 software. On the Advantage APs there is option for HS in older software versions.
Upgrade them to 7.3.6. You will have the hardware option there. Connect the old P8 APs in SM mode to the P9 APs which are still running software scheduling. Then use the CNUT build in tool “Configure Advantage Platform Scheduler” to set the APs and SMs to hardware scheduling.
You can also manualy set the old APs to be SMs with hardware scheduling. Use the same CNUT tool for them when they are in SM mode.
We kept our old p8 AP’s on the shelf and when we needed to fill in an area we used them with the intent that once it starts getting some users on it we can upgrade to Advantage.
Jerry,
At what customer count or AP bandwidth uasge(Cacti) would you change out to Advantage???
We changed out prior to reaching the max.
Our motivation was:
1. Promo Pricing
2. Best possible performance