We use 7Signal (www.7signal.com) to continually test and compare performance against areas of campus. Neat product, it's been good at detecting issues, but even more useful in providing good feedback when we make changes to the wireless environment, such as dropping B support, etc. They can do a lot (spectrum analysis, wifi monitoring, etc), but one of the basic features is that they act as clients, target specific AP's and test attaching, login in, DHCP and then file and VOIP performance tests.
(Don't let their Health Care centric web page discourage you... :) ) - Carl From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Hanson, Mike Sent: Friday, October 19, 2012 7:18 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] WiFi Quality Monitoring We have a much much smaller wireless network than you all at 200 Cisco fat AP's controlled with Aruba's Airwave product, but I have been noticing in the last several months the same type of behavior with our AP's. I have traditionally rebooted the AP's twice a year to clear out the memory and or during a firmware upgrade. In the past year I did not reboot the AP's and have begun to receive complaints of poor connectivity and throughput. A reboot of the AP fixes the problem. I have not contacted Cisco about this problem yet. Mike Mike Hanson, CISSP Network Security Manager The College of St. Scholastica Duluth, MN 55811 On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 8:49 AM, Caston Thomas <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Www.7signal.com<http://Www.7signal.com> Caston Thomas InterWorks Sent from my iPhone 586.530.4981<tel:586.530.4981> mobile 248.608.0000<tel:248.608.0000> office On Oct 19, 2012, at 9:32 AM, "Christina Klam" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > Good Morning, > > We have noticed that after ~4 months the quality of our Cisco wireless > network sours. We will get reports of poor wireless quality from users > sitting directly under an access point. Often the WCS will report users > on the access points with good dBm, but in reality the users can barely > search the web. (I cannot remember if the average client SNR was looked > at). The "solution" is to reboot the access point. So, we now are now > talking about scheduling a reboot of all access points and controllers > (4400s) every 3 months. While this may work to keep the problem at bay, > it does not address two related questions. > > 1. Why is this happening? When I mentioned this behavior to a Cisco > TAC, they said they had never heard of this before. As this has been > our norm through multiple code and access point upgrades, I cannot > believe this. > > 2. What are other schools using to monitor the quality of the wifi? I > do not mean the rf interference quailty but instead a way to monitor of > how well the access points are passing traffic, signal strength, average > client SNR, etc? > > Thank you, > > -- Christina > Christina Klam > Network Administrator > Institute for Advanced Study > Email: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > > Einstein Drive Telephone: 609-734-8154<tel:609-734-8154> > Princeton, NJ 08540 Fax: 609-951-4418<tel:609-951-4418> > > ********** > Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent > Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
