On Thu, 2009-06-18 at 22:19 -0400, Scott Carullo wrote: > Butch, MT has some Mesh support built in now, I assume you have tested it > and / or helped others who may have deployed, whats your feedback on > functionality and stability? Ready for real world deployment?
I've tested it in numerous configurations in a lab environment. Configuration is quick and easy. It works pretty well for small deployments, but does not work well when a router has multiple wireless interfaces that are part of the mesh. If the configuration includes only one wireless card in the mesh (even if there are multiple ethernet cards in the mesh), it does work well. Traffic engineering is much easier (and works better) than straight bridging (WDS). If the meshed wireless card is also providing access, I have seen the mesh stability rapidly ebb away. I believe this is due to the fact the fact that the radio I was testing with (a laptop) has a tendency to remodulate from time to time. I don't think it's outside the realm of "real world" to see modulation speed change with clients, either. Another thing I noticed in my testing was that performance occasionally went into the toilet. I am not sure why this was happening. It had nothing to do with RF when I noticed this. I believe it had to do with the mesh recalculating the paths when one link or another remodulated after sitting idle for a time, though I never "caught it" doing this. Generally speaking, I'd say that the mesh is working, but it is still very beta. If your configuration is backhaul devices with an AP (dual radio OR single radios), then I don't think you'll have much trouble with it. I would not call the current implementation production ready, however. -- ******************************************************************** * Butch Evans * Professional Network Consultation* * http://www.butchevans.com/ * Network Engineering * * http://www.wispa.org/ * WISPA Board Member * * http://blog.butchevans.com/ * Wired or Wireless Networks * ******************************************************************** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
