Distinguish between a fat AP and a thin AP. If the Wi-Fi signal is full, the full coverage will be easy.

Distinguish between a fat AP and a thin AP. If the Wi-Fi signal is full, the full coverage will be easy.

Wireless AP is an access point that uses wireless devices (mobile phones and other mobile devices and wireless devices such as laptops) to access the wired network, it is mainly used for broadband home, building, campus, campus, warehouse, factory, and other places that require wireless monitoring. The typical distance covers dozens of meters to hundreds of meters, it can also be used for long-distance transmission. Currently, the maximum value is about 30KM, and the main technology is the series.

Most wireless APS also have the AP client mode, which can be connected to other APs to extend the network coverage.

Wireless AP is divided into thin AP and fat AP by performance

A thin AP generally refers to a wireless gateway or bridge, and a fat AP generally refers to a wireless route.

Many thin AP instances are used in scenarios with high requirements. To implement authentication, a server must be authenticated or a switch that supports the authentication function.

Fat AP is mostly used in both the home and small networks, with comprehensive functions. Generally, a device can achieve access, authentication, routing, VPN, address translation, and other functions, and even has firewall functions. For example:

There is a computer in your bedroom. One day you have a whim, and you have a poorly configured computer in the living room, Remote Desktop to your bedroom computer, so that you can play games in the living room. Of course, what is the effect? We also say that the computer in this living room is technically called a thin client. If you have a computer with good configuration, this computer does not have a hard disk, but other hardware is readily available, you configure it to take data on the bedroom computer at startup, after the startup, all the software is locally executed and stored remotely. The gaming experience is excellent. This computer is a fat client.

Yes, the fat client is certainly easier to provide better performance, but this is not why it is called fat or thin. In addition, fatness is a relative name, which is not absolutely defined. For example, in the above example, your living room computer can also be a docking station connected to a long connection. It is to bring the display, mouse and keyboard, and headphones of your bedroom computer to the living room. It has weaker performance than the thin client computer (although the experience may be better ).

Analysis of fat AP and thin AP from the technical perspective

Technically speaking, a fat AP has the ability to configure itself. It does not store its own configuration, and it can execute its own configuration. As you can imagine, the first step is to cost the storage chip, and then the logic that can execute the configuration also requires hardware and software bearer, which is both the cost. Therefore, fat AP is much more expensive than thin AP, and the performance is also higher. Because the thin AP can't do anything, there is no "brain", you need a master brain-Access Controller to manipulate them. Although fat AP will do a lot of work, considering its practicality, most of them still retain the functions that allow AC to manipulate.

Because the hardware functions of a thin AP are often simpler, most of the thin APS act as a manager, and the capacity is usually smaller than that of a fat AP. Because many services must be processed on the AC, some key latencies of the thin AP cannot be compared with those of the fat AP, resulting in limited performance.

Therefore, if your network is large, you must analyze the usage of fat and thin AP at the cost. When the network reaches a certain scale and density, it cannot simply say that it is better to use a certain AP.