With an enterprise-class Wi-Fi system the access points, either between each
other, or via a controller, manage the handoff clients using PMK so that the
arriving client doesn't need to go through the full connection process.
(http://www.networkcomputing.com/mobile/archives/mobile_archive_112305.html)
That's with L2 connections. And, as another poster already wrote, when
traveling across L3 boundaries an enterprise-class system can tunnel the
client's connection back to the original AP or to a controller, so that
there's no disruption to the client.
In regards to load-balancing, original methods involved the AP either not
responding to probes and/or association requests, or disassociating
connected clients. IEEE 802.11k has added some additional awareness, but
I'm not sure how much/well that has been implemented into products.
Frank
-----Original Message-----
From: David Lang [mailto:da...@lang.hm]
Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2013 7:03 PM
To: Frank Bulk
Cc: tech@lists.lopsa.org; Roy McMorran
Subject: RE: [lopsa-tech] Wifi
On Sat, 6 Apr 2013, Frank Bulk wrote:
The problem with scaling with consumer grade APs is that they lack
- manageability
- automatic channel management
- coordinated RF power control
I see these as all being related, and running OpenWRT on the APs so that
they
are 'just linux boxes', with all the management tools that are implied by
that,
goes a LONG way towards solving these issues as far as I am concerned.
Personally, I don't want "automatic channel management" because I've seen
too
many cases where things like this turn into an endless reconfiguration
cycle.
Central administration of channel management is pretty trivial.
- support for smooth handoffs
When you say "support for smooth handoffs", how is a handoff between
Enterprise
APs better than between consumer APs that have the same SSID?
- coordinated load balancing of traffic and clients
Coordinated load balancing requires changing the client side of things, or
trying to trick the client side to do what you want by selectivly not
responding
to the client until the client gives up and tries something that you do want
to
respond to. Or am I missing something?
- PoE-based powered
There are also devices available that run OpenWRT that are PoE powered,
outdoor
sealed, etc that are still dirt cheap compared to the "Enterprise" APs
- plenum rating
probably correct, although like PoE, there are also probably appropriate
devices
available
- support by Voice over Wi-Fi handset vendors
- technical support
Support is valid, but by that argument you aren't running Linux either
right?
:-)
David Lang
Frank
-----Original Message-----
From: tech-boun...@lists.lopsa.org [mailto:tech-boun...@lists.lopsa.org]
On
Behalf Of David Lang
Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2013 2:48 PM
To: Roy McMorran
Cc: tech@lists.lopsa.org
Subject: Re: [lopsa-tech] Wifi
<snip>
In short, I like to go with cheap (i.e. consumer grade) APs because they
give me
great flexibility when loaded with openwrt
1. they can be managed with the normal *nix management tools (including
logging)
2. since they are cheap, you don't agonize over how many you deploy, if
you
think you need a few more, you just put them in place.
3. by picking ones that can run openwrt, you future proof yourself by not
locking yourself into any one vendor's equipment or any one vendor's
management.
Yes, it's nicer to have all the APs the same, even with openwrt, but it's
like
your linux servers. It's nice when they are all the same, but it's not
that
much
worse if you have a few different generations of systems where each
generation
is a different vendor.
You absolutly do want to use one SSID, not several.
For the staff, you can either add an additional SSID, or you can have the
staff
use VPNs to connect from the general use one. There are advantages to
both.
David Lang
_______________________________________________
Tech mailing list
Tech@lists.lopsa.org
https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech
This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators
http://lopsa.org/
