Controllerless Networks

Does a instant network gain information and act on that information from a dedicated spectrum monitor ? Or is a spectrum monitor almost pointless in a Instant network ?

Spectrum is designed to observe non-wifi interference and possibly determine what the device is.  It is not meant to be on 24/7, but to look into an issue.  If there is a non-wifi device that exhibits a certain amount of noise that prevents wifi from operating correctly, the access point will change channels.  That is without the access point being turned into a spectrum monitor or an air monitor.

An air monitor takes its time scanning multiple channels and identifying wifi devices on those channels.

 Yes. I use Air monitors.

A spectrum monitor can accumulate a LOT of data over time when used 24/7 when you use Airwave.

My question is, does a spectrum analyzer supply any additional stats or info that is used in any way by the VC in a instant system to make ARM decisions ?

For example a spectrum monitor can see types of interference across all channels and could look at each channel and decide its best to switch to a specific channel.

A normal access point cannot see all the channels, even in background scan mode.

I assumed a spectrum analyzer could supply a better set of channel data to the VC in a Instant system so ARM could make better choices ? No ?

Spectrum data is for more detailed analysis by the WLAN engineer and will not influence ARM. ARM will respond to interference, the Spectrum feature allows you to get more information about the type of interference so you can hunt it down more effectively and remove the source of interference from the environment, or design around it if you can't remove it.

So I want to be certain I understand this correctly. There is NO data used by a spectrum monitor in any way by a cluster on its own ? A spectrum monitor is a stand alone device that shares no data with anything else in the cluster ?

Also there is no reason to have "background spectrum monitoring" turned on for any reason in a IAP cluster unless someone is activly looking at live interference because the VC is not using, or storing,  any of the data ?

There are statistics gathered by the use of dedicated spectrum monitor or by using backgroud spectrum monitoring. It would seem to me this could provide useful statistics over time if used 24/7 ? This could spot sources of interfernece and if inspected on a regular basis could provide a valuable source of information. So I still see a reason to deploy stand alone spectrum monitors 24/7, but, they would need to be manually looked at and the information they provide would need to be manually acted on. This sounds like the best use of a spectrum monitor to me ?

Without spectrum or air monitoring turned on, the noise floor, as well as channel utilization, and frame retries are measured over time and stored in Airwave, so there is a history of the client experience for each access point.  The noise floor, the channel utilization and frame retries are the main metrics  that are typically used used for baselining and judging client experience on an access point.

With spectrum, the access point would be able to possibly identify what type of device is causing the interference, as well a RF-specific info like the FFT duty cycle.  In practice, you would typically turn on Spectrum when you want to identify an unidentified source of interference that you would seek to find.  That is not something that you would care to have running all of the time in the background, because it does impact client performance if you are doing hybrid spectrum.

No spectrum information is used for ARM.  Typically noise, and channel utilization can be used to make immediate ARM decisions.  Frame retries can be used to make periodic changes.

<crossed cjosephs response; similar content so removed>

Thank you for making that more clear.

Between my post above and this one I went and had a look at a dedicated spectrum monitor that was running 24/7 for the last 3 days. In the "AP Spectrum Non Wifi Device History" it has been collecting it logged a 99% duty cycle 5Ghz device on a channel I use as "video" with a really high signal level. This is rare showing it occurs for 30 seconds and only happens once every 3-4 hours. Its only effecting one channel.

I think I even know what this is. A wireless panasonic camera system on a entry door.

I had no idea it was causing any issue at all. But at this level of duty cycle, and signal level on a channel in use, it must be. It must not be a long enough problem to cause ARM to react.

So I have a example of how a dedicated spectrum monitor has really helped me with the client experence to identify a source of interference and see it only effects one channel. It allows me to manually move the effected AP to another channel.

So I see a clear use for a dedicated spectrum monitor on a Instant system even without using Airwave. It requires manually monitoring logs.

It would be cool tho if a VC could intragrate more with a dedicated spectrum monitor and mitigate issues better. a VC could better look at the whole RF enviroment and make decisions that are better informed without impacting performance of a AP.

I like using dedicated spectrum monitors running 24/7. They provide valuable statistics on the complete RF enviroment that I can act on manually.

You have to find what approach works best for you.

The output of show ap arm rf-summary shows what the access point thinks of all of the channels it scans:  https://www.arubanetworks.com/techdocs/Instant_42_WebHelp/InstantWebHelp.htm?_ga=1.43038629.1615771646.1440445030#CLI_commands/show_ap_arm_%20bandwidth_management.htm?Highlight=arm%20summary That is how it determines what channel to go to next or if it even has to change.  You would not want (1) access points changing channels too frequently or (2) access points  being placed on channels with other access points for momentary interference.

What I would really like is for Airwave to be free :) I would love to have the spectrum tools that come with AMP.

Thank you for helping me understand Spectrum monitors.