Controllerless Networks

We recently expanded out wireless network to a new floor.  We are using a consistant configuration.  The new floor brought our controller count to 28.  We also built a hybrid 802.11n and ac network.  The new floor shows considerably more frequency contention that the two floors that preceeded it.  Since going live the new floor lost connections, had very long time to establish a session and reduced throughput compared to the other floors.  Initially the new floor was the only one affected.  Now we are seeing degraded performance on both original floors as well.  

 

Aruba has been great trying to help with the issue but we are not making headway.  Hoping you guys may have ideas.

We'll need the ususall more information:

How many floors (I'm thinking three is what you're describing)

How many iAP (and what models) per floor

What code revision

Also a little bit about the clients and what sort of use they're doing over wifi.

Happy to add more info:

A total of three floors, not contiguous. Floors 4, 13 and 20.
Floor 4 has 6 IAP 115 We occupy half this floor
Floor 13 has 6 each IAP 115 and 6 each IAP 225 we occupy the full floor
Floor 20 is identical to floor 13

All are on code 6.3.1.1-4.0.0.1_41049

I hope this info helps

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*Jim McMurchie* | *Smartsheet*
IT Manager
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jim.mcmurchie@smartsheet.com
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My primary experience is in huge warehouses and large retail stores, so I'm not much use in multi-floor setups, but judging be the distance between floors, I'd be surprised if you got much coverage or interference from your equipment from one floor to the next - 7 floors of people, furniture and mechanical systems should attenuate the signal pretty effectively.

Have you been able to "see" APs on other floors? How about connect to them?

I'd guess first off that you've got an interference source - possibly a neighbor or two competing for airspace? Take a look at the IDS page in your VC-GUI, are there any strong interfering signals?

 

troubleshooting something like this is difficult via a forum, it can be so many things. specially if aruba TAC (i assume) has already gone over it. it would help if you tell what already has been investigated.

 

personally i have questions on putting IAP-115 and IAP-225 together on one floor. is there a specific reason for that?

 

then you say it gets worse when you add floors. with around 6 floors in between and i doubt you get singal over that range you might consider just setting up three different virtual clusters so they atleast don't affect each other.

 

then as msabin suggests look into interference. i assume there are others with wireless on the other floors. do they perhaps do bad things?

To add to boneyards issue with the iap-115 and iap-225 together on the same floor. Are you using any of the 802.11ac capability of the 225? If yes, can you try turning it off. I say this because typically if you want to run 802.11ac on a floor and 802.11n APs as well, clients may experience difficulties. They should either be all n or all ac.
Can you share your configuration?
Any particular reason for the code version you are one? It is pretty old.

Others have said it, but the two things I would do, in order:

 

1.  De-cluster the three floors.  Each floor should become its own cluster with its own VC. 

2.  On the two upper floors where 115s and 225s co-exist, set the 225s to operate in 11n mode, as much as possible.  You may only want to try to run with 20MHz channel widths, as well, which will allow ARM more adjustment points/channels to go to on 5GHz. (BTW, what type of clients are predominant on your network?)

3.  Also, if you have them enabled, it might be wise to turn off 802.11k, 802.11r, and ClientMatch and only turn one on at a time while trying to isolate the issue.  If you're not doing wireless voice and/or video, then relying upon the clients' native roaming features while trying to isolate the issue should not be a problem. I suspect that TAC have already tried this particular approach (turning fast roam and CM OFF), and they've also likely paid attention to real-time ARM power/channel assignments to see if the power window ARM is set in is appropriate for the environment/install.  

You could also go to your UI, More>Support>show-tech-support (I think that's what it's called) to run a detailed report on your cluster and post it here so we can see some more details.