Validated Reference Designs1

Very high-density WLANs are defined as RF coverage zones with a large number of wireless clients and APs in a single physical space. For purposes of this reference design, a VHD WLAN is one that is designed to serve at least 100 devices per cell. A VHD WLAN may serve as many as 500 devices per cell. With the proliferation of wireless-enabled personal and enterprise mobile devices, a surprisingly diverse range of facilities need VHD WLAN connectivity:

• Large meeting rooms
• Lecture halls and auditoriums
• Convention center meeting halls
• Hotel ballrooms
• Stadiums, arenas, and ballparks
• Concert halls and amphitheaters
• Casinos
• Airport concourses
• Passenger aircraft and cruise ships
• Places of worship

To help our customer and partner engineers succeed in meeting these new requirements, we have written this new validated reference design (VRD) exclusively about very high-density (VHD) WLANs. The guide captures the best practices of our field engineering teams. Aruba also built a dedicated VHD test facility with 300 of the latest 802.11ac devices to produce updated performance data. We are releasing this data to the public to assist in capacity planning

PLAN OF THE VRD

Aruba is introducing a new and modular approach with this VRD. We recognize that the people who are interested in this topic have a wide range of knowledge levels and interest levels. To that end, Aruba is publishing this VRD as a series of three guides, plus two individual scenarios that deal with specific deployment use cases. These guides can be mixed and matched as desired based on each reader’s experience and interests. This organization is shown below.