I would like to hear opinions from this community about how to approach
WLAN planning for new construction projects. We are in the midst of a
constructing a series of new buildings and I am not pleased with the early
results.
1. Do you take a stab at a best-guess predictive survey from construction
drawings (AutoCAD) and then do post-build survey and adjustments? (Can
result in sub-optimal initial deployment requiring re-work. How do you
estimate the re-work cost?)
2. Do you wait until the new building is standing to create a post-build
survey and deployment? (Can be costly in terms of implementation budget
as well as elapsed time to running service.)
FWIW, we have several years of internal experience with Ekahau Site Survey
for predictive surveys. However, our ESS-literate staff resources are
spread very thin. So far, we have had trouble identifying competent
contractors to hire for creation predictive surveys on our behalf. It
seems most of them do not understand high-density client workloads such as
are found in typical university buildings. Worse, some do not really
understand Wi-Fi at all.
3. If you use ESS:
a) Can you describe your experience with making use of its
auto-import feature for reading AutoCAD files?
b) Can you describe your experience/success with obtaining AutoCAD
models (from your facilities dept.) which classify building materials into
unique layers to ease auto-import by ESS?
The latest Big Think in the construction industry is BIM (Building
Information Modeling.) Our Facilities Development department has adopted
AutoDesk's Revit tool for creating/managing BIM for new buildings. While
Revit has an export function to create AutoCAD .dwg files, there is a
terrifying degree of flexibility in how this export can be done.
4. Do you have any experience in creating AutoCAD exports from Revit BIM
which are suitable for import by Ekahau Site Survey?
Thanks in advance for your input.
Eriks
"In God we trust; all others must bring data." - attributed to W. Edwards
Deming
---
Eriks Rugelis | Manager, Network Development | University Information
Technology
010 Steacie Science and Engineering Library | York University | 4700 Keele
St. , Toronto ON Canada M3J 1P3
T: +1.416.736.5756 | F: +1.416.736.5830 | [email protected] | www.yorku.ca
York UIT will NEVER send unsolicited requests for passwords or other
personal information via email. Messages requesting such information are
fraudulent and should be deleted.
**********
Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group
discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
