Aerohive Deployment Guide
Aerohive Deployment Guide For HiveAP and HiveManager Devices Aerohive Technical Publications Copyright Notice Copyright © 2008 Aerohive Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Aerohive Networks, the Aerohive Networks logo, HiveOS, HiveAP, and HiveManager are trademarks of Aerohive Networks, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective companies. Information in this document is subject to change without notice.
HiveAP Compliance Information HiveAP Compliance Information Federal Communication Commission Interference Statement This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device, pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules. These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation.
HIVEAP COMPLIANCE INFORMATION The availability of some specific channels and/or operational frequency bands are country dependent and are firmware programmed at the factory to match the intended destination. The firmware setting is not accessible by the end user. • The 5 GHz Turbo Mode feature is not allowed for operation in any European Community country. You can find the current setting for this feature in two places.
HiveAP Compliance Information Avertissement: L'installation et la dépose de points d'accès HiveAP doivent être effectuées uniquement par un personnel qualifié. Bitte unbedingt vor dem Einbauen des HiveAP die folgenden Sicherheitsanweisungen durchlesen. • Les points d'accès HiveAP doivent être connectés sur le secteur par une prise électrique munie de terre (masse) afin de respecter les standards internationaux de sécurité.
Contents Chapter 1 Preparing for a WLAN Deployment ...............................................9 Assessing Your Requirements .............................................................................10 Planning ......................................................................................................10 Upgrading from Existing Wi-Fi ................................................................................... 10 New WLAN Deployment .....................................................
Contents Mounting the HiveAP 28 and Attaching Antennas ......................................................38 Pole Mount .......................................................................................................... 39 Strand Mount ....................................................................................................... 40 Surface Mount ...................................................................................................... 41 Attaching Antennas....................
Chapter 7 Using HiveManager ................................................................. 77 Installing and Connecting to the HiveManager GUI ....................................................79 Introduction to the HiveManager GUI ....................................................................82 Cloning Configurations ............................................................................................ 83 Multiselecting ......................................................................
Contents Example 9: Creating WLAN Policies .................................................................... 126 WLANpolicy-hq1.................................................................................................. WLANpolicy-hq1 (Page 1) .................................................................................. WLANpolicy-hq1 (Page 2) .................................................................................. WLANpolicy-hq1 (Page 3) ............................................
Chapter 1 Preparing for a WLAN Deployment To ensure a smooth WLAN deployment, you need to begin with a bit of planning. A straightforward review of your deployment plan before you begin will result in optimal results more quickly. The goals of this chapter are to assist you in assessing your readiness for WLAN implementation and to provide tips and tricks to resolve any issues that might arise in your environment.
Chapter 1 Preparing for a WLAN Deployment ASSESSING YOUR REQUIREMENTS To get started with your Aerohive WLAN installation, examine the basic requirements of your implementation. First, consider who your stakeholders are and take the time to fully understand their access requirements. Talk to department managers within your organization and make sure everyone has documented the full complement of potential users of your network.
PLANNING Upgrading from a thin AP solution is also easy. However, because a thin AP makes use of an overlay tunneled network, you sometimes have to add a local VLAN for access or use tunnels to replicate the overlay network. However, because using VLANs rather than tunnels provides significant performance and scalability advantages, that is clearly the recommended path.
Chapter 1 Preparing for a WLAN Deployment Site Surveys One of the first questions IT managers ask when they are preparing for a WLAN deployment is whether or not a site survey should be performed. In a site survey, the administrator walks around the facility with a site survey tool to measure the RF (radio frequency) coverage of a test access point or the existing WLAN infrastructure.
PLANNING Budgeting Wi-Fi: The Chicken and Egg Problem The hardware cost of a Wi-Fi solution is generally driven by the number of access points needed, and an Aerohive network is no exception. Unfortunately, a traditional challenge of budgeting for Wi-Fi is that it is difficult to know how many access points to plan for until you have deployed and measured them. There are methods of doing site surveys before a deployment to answer these questions.
Chapter 1 Preparing for a WLAN Deployment Associated Access Point Costs After you determine how many access points you need, it becomes simpler to determine the other costs involved with deploying Wi-Fi because most are driven by the quantity of access points. These costs include the following: • • Installation and Wiring • CAT5 – CAT5 wiring is required for all HiveAPs acting as portals.1 One advantage of Aerohive Networks is that you can deploy HiveAPs in a mesh to avoid some of the wiring costs.
PLANNING In general, the way to increase capacity is to add more access points (within reason) and tune down the radio power to avoid interference. One reason for deploying a high capacity network is to create a WLAN for voice and data applications. In such a WLAN, everyone has a VoIP handset running wirelessly all the time. In general, the following table shows the standard densities for office deployments. Office Requirements Expected Data Rate Using 802.
Chapter 1 Preparing for a WLAN Deployment Figure 1 Omnidirectional Antenna Radiation Pattern The HiveAP can accommodate external antennas via coaxial jacks on its chassis (see "Antennas" on page 28). The jack is a standard male RP-SMA connector. Various patch, directional, and omnidirectional antennas can be used to change the coverage pattern. The most common external antennas are patch antennas. These are directional antennas that provide coverage in a single direction.
PLANNING • The quality and performance of a Wi-Fi network is a function of the signal-to-noise ratio. To avoid noise issues, check the area for common noise generators such as industrial microwave ovens, wireless video cameras, cordless phones and headsets, and Bluetooth devices. Such devices especially cause interference in the 2.4 GHz spectrum. • Plan appropriately for high ceilings. With an omnidirectional antenna, the downward coverage is not great.
Chapter 1 Preparing for a WLAN Deployment OPERATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS To make your WLAN deployment process as smooth as possible, you should consider more than just the distribution and installation of access points. You should also consider how you will manage, optimize, and troubleshoot your WLAN after deployment. Tuning Approach building an enterprise WLAN with the same life-cycle approach you would apply to a wired network.
BASIC WI-FI CONCEPTS BASIC WI-FI CONCEPTS The goal of this section is to provide some background on Wi-Fi propagation and how to lay out a wireless network. While RF (radio frequency) engineering is a rather complicated science, this section provides a simple overview on the basics of Wi-Fi propagation and channel layout that you need to be able to install an enterprise WLAN. The first thing to know is that Wi-Fi is forgiving.
Chapter 1 Preparing for a WLAN Deployment Figure 3 Path Loss in an Open Space Received Signal Signal-to-Noise Ratio Noise Distance When clients send a packet, the ratio of the signal-to-noise (SNR) level defines the quality of the link, which is directly related to the performance of the network. Based on the SNR, the client and AP negotiate a data rate in which to send the packet, so the higher the SNR the better.
BASIC WI-FI CONCEPTS Microwave ovens, wireless video cameras, Bluetooth headsets, and cordless phones can all interfere with Wi-Fi signals (see Figure 5). Excess noise in an environment is often difficult to diagnose and can have a major negative impact on network performance. To discover noise sources, a spectrum analysis system is needed. AirMagnet provides an affordable spectrum analysis tool that operates in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz spectra.
