Wireless Access

Hey,

I am looking to make some upgrades to our current wireless infrastructure. We currently have an older 3200XM with mainly AP105s. We currently have 29 APs. We will be keeping the AP105s for our shopfloor, but will replace all the office APs.

I am looking to probably jump to a 7030 or a 7205, although I suspect the 7205 will be a tad expensive. We need the increased AP capacity that the 7030 has as we will be adding some additional access points.

As for access points, I was looking at either the IAP315 or the IAP325. They will be replacing the AP105s that we have in our office areas. We currently do not have any devices that can take advantage of the wave 2 AC I don't think, but I figured this would be the best route to go. I'd like the IAP's just because they operate both with a controller and without, and there doesn't appear to be a price diffference from what I have seen.

We will primarily have newer Dell laptops/some desktops, projection devices, and the odd VoIP device connecting. The applications consist of CAD applications, O365 (mail and office). A lot of the CAD data can be quite large.

I know this isn't a lot of detail, but I was just wondering what you guys thought of the equipment I've been looking at.

Cheers

The question is, what is the sustained bandwidth of those CAD applications?  If they require constant bandwidth you might have to dedicate an access point to the room with that type of traffic.

That is a good question and I had thought about that while doing the AP layout.

They do not need sustained bandwidth, when the drawings are initially opened they need a lot of bandwidth, and then during the subsequent save, but during the edit there is minimal bandwidth requirements. 

So the traffic will burst as the users open and close these applications.

I am hoping that most will be using their docks, which have a wired conenction. But the whole purpose of having the laptops is so that they can be portable in the building.

Stupid question, as more and more devices connect to an access point, how does that affect the overall performance for the client? For instance, I have some AC clients currently reporting a max speed for 866 Mbps. As more and more clients connect to the AP, is it less likely that a client will reach that maximum speed value?

If you have a dense deployment of users (20 or 30 users to an access point), you should start out with 20mhz channels so that you have enough channels to go around.  An 80mhz channel plan like you have will not allow enough non-overlapping channels and affect your performance.

Each client that connects to the network effectively divides the sustained performance in half.  Also, if you are bonding channels, that could cause additional contention if you don't have enough channels to go around.  It is best to deploy 20mhz channels first.  Have you seen the high density VRD?

Ok, so after reading this (pretty sure I met this guy at Atmosphere 2015), I understand now what about mean about the channel planning. This makes sense, although I have never taken it into consideration before.

I have never really played around with the channels before, but I see why this is important to do.

I have not yet seen the high density VRD no, I will check it out. 

Currently I have gone the other way, having the 80mhz as the primary channels that are available, as I add APs, this will hurt my overall performance. We have always been told by our reps to leave the channels alone as the controller will typically manage this. When should you step in and start to manage the channels?

You should start out with 20mhz wide channels, period.  The only application for 80mhz channels is when you have little to no density.

Good to know.

So I definitely need to make some changes to our wireless network because there has been no previous planning in this regard.

I found the high density VRD document... Unbeliably detailed. I have some reading to do.