Wireless Access

Hi everyone,

I'm just starting to play with 8.3 (conservative) to familiarize myself with the new layout and all.  I was trying to setup an ap-group similar to how I had in 6.5 and I'm sort of stuck.  I wanted to enable fair-access for both radios but I can't figure out how to set it up in the GUI.  I got as far as going into Configuration/System/Profiles/QoS/Traffic Management.  I created a new profile and set the shaping to fair-access.  How do I add it to the ap-group for each radio?  I found a guide for doing it via CLI but I was under the impression that most things should be doable via the web interface.  Am I missing something?

On a side note, are there any benefits to moving to 8.4 and above in an enterprise organization?  Is it still too buggy?

Thanks.

Please don't upgrade to 8.4, instead you should consider upgrading to AOS 8.5.0.5 (been very stable) , i recommend you reach out to your local Aruba team that is familiar with your familiar and can provide better feedback 

I am able to see it in the GUI but I am running 8.5.0.5 

Yup I got that far and I see it in 8.3 as well.  The issue then is how do you apply that to the ap-group?  This would be how it's done in CLI:

(host) [md] (config) #wlan traffic-management-profile test

(host) [md] (Traffic management profile "test") #shaping-policy fair-access

(host) [md] (config) #ap-group blah

(host) [md] (AP group "default") #dot11a-traffic-mgmt-profile test

There were a group of ARM settings that applied to 802.11n APs and previous technologies. When client match was introduced, it replaced many of the earlier ARM technologies. The 802.11ac APs only support client match and do not support the earlier technologies. I believe airtime fairness, bandsteering (non client match version), and a couple of other features are still supported, but only with non-802.11ac APs. 802.11ac APs use client match.

I hope this helps,

Thanks for the info David.  I think with Client Match on 6.5 it still allowed you to configure and add the airtime fairness profiles to the ap-groups and it appears that you can also do it in 8.x albeit only via CLI.  Whether this means that it's no longer used is another question to the Aruba team as it doesn't make it easy to figure out how things should and shouldn't be configured.  Also, 8.x support documents seem to indicate that you still can configure airtime fairness with fair-access or preferred policies and no mention of APs being supported or not.

P.S. I just picked up your Understanding Aruba OS 8 book so looking forward to gaining more knowledge from it. 

@cjoseph thank you!  And I think you might have shown a problem with my setup.  I don't see that profiles tab when I select my ap-group. In fact my ap-groups don't even show APs on them from that screen.  FTR, I'm running with 8.5.0.5 (previously 8.3), A7005 controller with two AP-325s.  Controller is setup as standalone.  Everything appears to be working fine as the wifi service works but I'm definitely not seeing the same as others.

You need to enable "Show Advanced Profiles". Go to "admin" in the top right corner, then select Preference, and then enable "Show Advanced Profiles". The Profiles menu will then appear.

Thank you David!  That's what was missing and I'm now able to see all the profiles associated to my ap-group!  I think this is the first time I've ever been told about this extra option in the preferences.  You are a saint, thanks again!

The settings are there in both 6.x and 8.x, but will only work with non-802.11ac APs. If your APs are 802.11ac, the settings do nothing. 802.11ac APs use Client Match (not the old methods). Thanks for buying the book. In the book I have some flowcharts and explanation of Client Match. You can also download 18 figures from the book from my website.

I hope this helps,

The following is in the ArubaOS 8.5 Users Guide (and previous version Users Guides)

"Legacy 802.11a/b/g devices do not support ClientMatch. When you enable ClientMatch on 802.11n-capable devices,

ClientMatch overrides any settings configured for the legacy bandsteering or load balancing features. 802.11ac capable

devices do not support the legacy bandsteering, station hand off or load balancing settings, so these APs must be managed on using ClientMatch."

I hope this helps,