Wireless Access

I've noticed some discussions that included bits about having AP groups by buildings. When our system was configured, it was not set up that way, although we do have AP groups for outdoor mesh locations. I assumed things were put into one group so that ARM had more information about what was going on. After reading some forum posts, I'm starting to think we should split our primary group by buildings. What are the best practices for AP groups and buildings in a campus environment?

Thanks,
Robert

I'm not sure there is a formal best practice, but I always recommend AP group per building.

Thanks for your response Tim. I'm still trying to put my mind around this. One reason I can think of is to use different ARM profiles for different buildings. Do you do anything different per-building from a configuraiton perspective?

Thanks,

Robert

It's all about flexibility. Below are a few things I've had to do and it was much easier because each building had it's own AP group.

1) Reporting in AirWave by building (ap group)

2) Enable a temporary SSID in a single building

3) Disable ARM OTA for a specific building where students reported issue with their playstations.

4) Enable 11b rates in a certain building because a certain device was in use.

5) Have some buildings point local 1 and some point to local 2

6) ClearPass rules based on building (ap group). For example: one building may have a different captive portal from the rest.

7) Different channel width (20, 40, 80) by building based on AP type, use type and environment.

Those are  all the ones I can think of right now.