Four Essential Requirements for Wireless Network Design

The development of wireless networks is unstoppable, and there is a trend to replace wired networks. Therefore, the design and management of wireless networks is also a skill that must be mastered by network administrators. I will share with you some experience in wireless network design. For convenience, I have summarized it into four essential elements in the wireless network design.

Requirement 1: Dynamic Client Load Balancing

As enterprises demand wireless networks, a wireless launch point cannot meet users' needs. To this end, we need to deploy multiple wireless launch sites in different places of the company to form overlapping cells, so that the wireless signal department can fill the entire company. This is a basic requirement in wireless network design. However, this also hides the necessary requirements for a wireless network design. As shown in, it is a cell consisting of two wireless launch sites in an enterprise. Now user A overlaps the two cells. You can connect to either of the two wireless launch sites. However, you can only connect to one wireless launch point at a time. Therefore, you must consider which wireless launch point to connect?

Some may say that you can connect to the most signal wireless launch point. This sentence makes sense. However, this is not the case. If the signal at a certain Wireless Transmitting point is strong, everyone will connect to the Wireless Transmitting point. In this case, the Wireless Transmitting point is shared bandwidth. The number of clients connected to the above is too large, and the network performance is not as good as the wireless launch point with a weaker signal. It can be seen that if the number of wireless clients in an enterprise is large, the signal strength alone cannot determine which wireless launch point the user should connect.

When designing a wireless network, network engineers should consider implementing dynamic client load balancing in the network. That is to say, if the coverage of multiple wireless emission points is the same or the signal strength does not differ much, the wireless client should connect to the wireless emission point with less load for better performance. In fact, this is similar to going to work. During peak hours, if we take shortcuts, we will spend more time due to congestion and other reasons. As the road is smooth, it takes less time to get to the company. When enterprises use wireless networks as their main communication networks, it is best to achieve dynamic client load balancing. This server Load balancer improves the performance of the wireless network.

Requirement 2: self-repair wireless coverage

No network administrator can ensure that the wireless launch site is safe and unavailable. How can network communication be restored in the shortest time when network devices such as wireless emission points fail? This is what must be considered in the wireless network design, that is, the fault tolerance of the wireless network.

For this problem, I believe that if an enterprise has multiple cells, we need to consider self-fixing wireless coverage in wireless networks. When a wireless launch point fails, the launch point can automatically adjust its transmission power to replace the faulty wireless launch point by increasing the cellular size. For example, in Cisco's wireless network deployment, when a LAP fails, its cell disappears. In the deployment diagram of the enterprise wireless network, there will be a region without wireless signals. When this LAP fails, the background WLC will immediately detect it. At this time, the WLC automatically adjusts the transmit power of its adjacent LAP to increase the transmit power to increase the cellular range. By increasing the coverage of surrounding cells, we can make up for the missing signals again. In this case, the wireless router controller can repair the coverage area of the wireless network without the intervention of the network administrator. This reduces the time for wireless network faults to the shortest time.

In fact, whether it is a wireless network or a limited network design, redundancy solutions are required. Only an effective redundancy solution can minimize the losses caused to enterprise users due to network faults. For wireless networks, self-repair and wireless coverage are undoubtedly a good redundancy solution. I believe that unless a wireless network is only an accessory to an enterprise's wired network, or a wired network only occupies a small part of the enterprise's network communication, this content can be ignored. Otherwise, a redundant solution must be designed. Obviously, this "self-repair wireless coverage" is a preferred solution. Because it does not need to increase the investment cost of enterprises, and there are not a few products that support this technology. Therefore, it is the first choice for network administrators, both in terms of cost and feasibility.

Requirement 3: deploy a unified management platform

When the enterprise's wireless network coverage is relatively broad, a wireless launch point can no longer meet the needs of the enterprise. At this time, enterprises need to use multiple wireless emission points to form multiple interconnected cells, so that each corner of the enterprise has wireless network signals. At this time, it is not only a matter of investment costs, but also a conflict between adjacent cells. If the frequency of two adjacent wireless release sites is the same, the signal may conflict, reducing the signal strength and affecting the performance of the wireless network. Therefore, when there are many wireless launch sites, it is better for the network administrator to establish a unified management platform to manage these wireless launch sites in a unified manner to reduce their chances of conflict.

At this point, Cisco is indeed the leader in this field and has set a good example for us. In Cisco's unified wireless network architecture, wireless devices are divided into two parts: WLC and LAP. LAP is what we call a wireless launch point, and WLC is the manager behind the scenes of a wireless launch point. In the WLC, you can set the transmit power of each LAP according to the required coverage range, or you can adjust it automatically as needed. During the adjustment process, the system automatically determines whether the frequency of a LAP conflicts with other surrounding LAP. If there is a conflict, the network administrator will be notified in time to help avoid this conflict.

In addition, the security of each wireless launch point is also a concern of network administrators. When there are many launch sites, it is obviously very troublesome to manually manage each wireless launch point. When the workload is heavy, it cannot ensure that the security policies of each wireless launch point do not conflict with each other. For this reason, it is best for a wireless router to have a unified management platform like a vswitch and other network devices to reduce conflicts between different devices. At this time, it is necessary to have a unified management platform like WLC.

Requirement 4: wireless signal monitoring

Not only does the enterprise generate a lot of interference signals, but if the surrounding enterprises also deploy wireless network signals, it will also produce unnecessary interference to the enterprise's wireless network. To this end, the company's existing wireless network solutions require devices to monitor the use of channels by means of scanning channels. This device can collect RF interference, noise interference, and peripheral wireless emission point interference. Only by keeping abreast of such interference information can network administrators shield them from the wireless networks of enterprises and ensure the smooth communication between enterprises.

Without such a device, it is difficult for the network administrator to manually monitor it. Because wireless signals are not as visible as physical substances. When there is no similar monitoring device, the network administrator often finds related interference sources only when there is a problem. However, this has already caused a certain amount of trouble to the user. Therefore, when deploying a wireless network, it is best for engineers to monitor the use of RF by dedicated devices and automatically detect possible interference sources. Collect necessary information for network administrators to manage wireless networks.

When I design wireless networks for enterprises, if the requirements of enterprises are high, these four requirements are generally met in wireless networks. While improving the unlimited network performance, it also improves its controllability and fault tolerance.

1. Hotel wireless network deployment Design Scheme
2. In-depth analysis of enterprise wireless network security design