RE: large-scale wireless [was: cpu needed to NAT 45mbs]

["Frank Bulk" <frnkblk () iname com>]

If you're going with Extricom you don't need to worry about channel planning
beyond adding more "channel blankets".  

Frank

-----Original Message-----
From: Carl Karsten [mailto:carl () personnelware com] 
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 10:56 PM
To: nanog () merit edu
Cc: frnkblk () iname com; Adrian Chadd; Suresh Ramasubramanian
Subject: Re: cpu needed to NAT 45mbs

Thank you for all the advice - it was nice to see 20 replies that all
basically
agreed (and with me too.)  If only the 6 people involved in this project
were such.

On Wifi for 1000:

I have tried to make sure everyone involved in this PyCon Wifi project has
read
  http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0302/ppt/joel.pdf - too bad some have read it and
don't get it.  I think it will be OK, because someone else wrote up the
plan,
which is basically to use http://wavonline.com/vendorpages/extricom.htm

If anyone would like to see it in action,  I am sure something can be
arranged.
  (you are welcome to come look at it, but I would think would want to
actually
peek under the hood and see some stuff in real time, etc.  )  March 13-16 in
Chicago.

Carl K

Joel Jaeggli wrote:
> Frank Bulk wrote:
> > I would have disagree with your point on centralized AP controllers --
> > almost all the vendors have some form of high availability, and Trapeze's
> > offering, new (and may not yet be G.A) purports to be almost entirely
> > seamless in its load sharing and failover support.
>
> I have a few scars to show from deploying centralized ap controllers,
> from several vendors including the one that you mention above. Hence my
> observation that they must be deployed in a HA setup in that sort of
> environment...
>
> We you lose a fat-ap, unless cascading failure ensues you just lost one
> ap... When your ap-controller with 80 radio's attached goes boom, you
> are dead. So, as I said if you're going to use a central ap controller
> for an environment like this you need to avail yourself of it's HA
features.
> > Now that dual-band radios in laptops are becoming more prevalent, it's
> > possible to get 30 to 50% of your user population using 802.11a.
> >
> > Frank
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-nanog () merit edu [mailto:owner-nanog () merit edu] On Behalf Of
Joel
> > Jaeggli
> > Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2007 11:51 PM
> > To: Adrian Chadd
> > Cc: Suresh Ramasubramanian; nanog () merit edu
> > Subject: Re: cpu needed to NAT 45mbs
> >
> > Adrian Chadd wrote:
> > > On Sat, Nov 10, 2007, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
> > >
> > > > Speaking of all that, does someone have a "conference wireless'  bcp
> > > > handy?  The sort that starts off with "dont deploy $50 unbranded
> > > > taiwanese / linksys etc routers that fall over and die at more than 5
> > > > associations, place them so you dont get RF interference all over the
> > > > place etc" before going on to more faqs like what to do so worms dont
> > > > run riot?
> > > >
> > > > Comes in handy for that, as well as for public wifi access points.
> > > Everyone I speak to says something along the lines of
> > >
> > > "Why would I put that sort of stuff up? I want people to pay me for
> > > that kind of clue."
> > I did a presentation a couple of years ago at nanog on high-density
> > conference style wireless deployments. It's in the proceedings from
> > Scottsdale. Fundamentally the game hasn't changed that much since then:
> >
> > Newer hardware is a bit more robust.
> >
> > Centralized AP controllers are beguiling but have to be deployed with
> > high availability in mind because putting all your eggs in a smaller
> > number of baskets carriers some risk...
> >
> > If you can, deploy A to draw off some users from 2.4ghz.
> >
> > Design to keep the number of users per radio at 50 or less in the worst
> > case.
> >
> > Instrument everything...
> >
> >
> > > There are slides covering basic stuff and observations out there.
> > >
> > > (I'm going through a wireless deployment at an ISP conference next week;
> > > I'll draft up some notes on the nanog cluepon site.)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Adrian