WLAN Auditing &Tuning Done Right with WiTuners part 1
WLAN Auditing &Tuning Done Right with WiTuners
In Part One of this series, “WLAN Planning Done Right with WiTuners”, we looked at what’s involved in planning a WLAN and how WiTuners can help to easily generate a WLAN deployment plan. Now,how is your WLAN performing? How do you keep it operating optimally, adapting in a timely manner to the changes in your network conditions?
Why is WLAN Performance Auditing and Tuning Needed?
The previous job that we discussed resulted in the acquisition, placement, and setup of enough APs to meet the needs of a small town’s school and administration building. You, the volunteer school board member, started out by simplybuying a bunch of equipment. WiTuners helped you to set the WLAN up, providing a layout and settings for the wireless equipment. All you had to do was customize the deployment area, set the environment definition, and WiTuners’ auto-planning wizard did the rest. A little more work was required to define the building walls and reposition the APs to move them to acceptable spots in the rooms, avoiding HVAC components and so forth. Another optimization and the network was ready to install and get into operation.
So, things seemed to be working OK … they thought you were a genius … and if an area seemed to have poor coverage you just popped in another AP. You keep the APs separated, position them away from walls, set them on different frequencies, and the WLAN delivers what was promised (primarily, it deliversconnectivity, but the ugly word throughput is about to come up).
Did you know that you’re about to receive a rude awakening to the fact that you are ill-prepared to make the deployment work properly on an ongoing basis?
Many things can go wrong after a WLAN is installed and up and running. Patterns of traffic that the WLAN is carrying can change, and they can change quite often. The radio environment changes (and it can change quite frequently) due to unexpected interference, new obstructions (doors open and close, you know), the introduction of new equipment, and so forth. Constant performance monitoring is necessary to ensure that the WLAN is operating to meet throughput demands.
What does Wi-Fi really promise beyond connectivity? The performance of WLAN is straightforward to measure, and it’s often provided by a Network Management System (NMS). You look at the NMSreport for a couple of days and get a feeling for the average and peak traffic load for the classrooms and offices.But how much traffic load can the WLAN accommodate‒what’s its design throughput? That’s the number that you’re really interested in. If the volume of traffic consistently approaches and exceeds what the WLAN can support, the complaints start rolling in.
Trouble on the Horizon
Connectivity for the network seemed to be fine. Students could download off the internet, administrators’ smart phones could roam on the network, and email could be read and answered during boring school board meetings.
But then they had a two-for-one sale on Android phones at the mall, Apple fired back with the same offer, and most of the teachers stopped handing out notes in class, preferring to use a projector and posting a link to their PowerPoints. Before, only the nerds carried laptops, but now everybody else could get their notes on inconspicuous smart phones (along with YouTube, music, and whatever else was available to saturate their senses).
The complaints began to pour in as frustrated students couldn’t get their class notes without interrupting their streaming video. Teachers crowded into their lounge on Friday and brought the network down as they called their spouses (orsports lines) to plan for the weekend game.
What is needed is a WLAN auditing service that not only keeps track of traffic load, but also compares it to what should be the expected capacity of the system. When the traffic reaches a predetermined boundary based on the capacity, it should send out alert. Triggering the attention of the WLAN administrator, it’s saying, “The WLAN is under performing, do something, quick!”
The author loves to write about technology like WiFi Planning for example.
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