Getting Wireless Right: An Essential Guide For Schools- Henry Batten

Henry Batten, HE/FE and Healthcare Manager, UK & Ireland

MERU PROPRIETARY INFORMATION. © Copyright 2013. Meru Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.

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+447904 381 977

Getting Wireless Right: An Essential

Guide for Schools

mailto:[email protected]

MERU PROPRIETARY INFORMATION. © Copyright 2013. Meru Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.MERU PROPRIETARY INFORMATION. © Copyright 2013. Meru Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.

Customer Acquisition slide (since Q4

2008)

2

Business Highlights

•Founded in 2002

•2005 first customer shipments in

US

•UKI started 2008

•4000+ education customers,

growing by 20 per week

•11ac already 95% of product

shipments and revenue

•Education forms 90% of UK &

Ireland Revenue

•Largest Education cloud network in

EMEA in Northern Ireland

•Over 100,000 access points

deployed


The Evolution of Teaching

and Learning Over Wireless

Low Cost

Easy!

Low Cost

Easy

Device Density

Performance

Slow Log In!

Whole School

Teacher Devices

Shared Laptops

Whole Class

1:1

School Coverage

Mobility

Performance

Reliability

Drop Offs

Poor performance

Not Roaming

AP Density

Class Coverage

Performance

Reliability

Slow Log-in

Drop Offs

Coverage, AP Density, Device Density, Mobility

Relia

bili

ty,

Perf

orm

ance


UK & Ireland Edu Customer growth

4

Excludes

1100 Schools as

part of Northern

Ireland Schools

Project Q2 2012


Commitment to education

5


Principle means of connectivity is now Wi-FI

The transition from Laptops to Tablets and Smartphones

6

Laptops

Tablets &

Smartphones

MERU PROPRIETARY INFORMATION. © Copyright 2013. Meru Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.MERU PROPRIETARY INFORMATION. © Copyright 2013. Meru Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. 7

Tablet Adoption

MERU PROPRIETARY INFORMATION. © Copyright 2013. Meru Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. 8

Tablet Adoption


Tablet adoption reflected in schools

9

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20930195

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20930195


Air Traffic Control Video – start thinking

of Wi-Fi in transport terms

10


Sticky devices / BYOD / Devices in control

• Point to note: consumer devices are designed to hang on to access points for home use.

• As your wireless devices travel around the network, are you controlling how smoothly they do so, or is the device in control? (device led, or network led?)

• Are there mechanisms to ensure devices move between access points as smoothly as possible with no performance or user experience impact?

11


IOS Roaming

12


Top 4 Reasons for 802.11ac Now

13

Better 11n Uses Existing Power

Future Proofing Similar Cost

11n Clients

5 to 30% Throughput

improvement

PoE802.3af

$$$

$$$2013 2014 2015 2016


Data Rate Table

Standard BandwidthSpatial

StreamsPHY Data Rate Real Throughput**

802.11a 20 MHz 1 54 Mbps 24 Mbps

802.11n 20 MHz 1 65Mbps 46 Mbps

802.11n 40 MHz 2 300 Mbps 210 Mbps

802.11n 40 MHz 3 450 Mbps 320 Mbps

802.11ac Phase I 80 MHz 1 293Mbps 210 Mbps

802.11ac Phase I 80 MHz 2 867 Mbps 610 Mbps

802.11ac Phase I 80 MHz 3 1300 Mbps 910 Mbps

802.11ac Phase II 160MHz 1 867 Mbps 610 Mbps

802.11ac Phase II 160 MHz 2 1730 Mbps 1200 Mbps

802.11ac Phase II 160 MHz 3 2600 Mbps 1800 Mbps

802.11ac Phase II 160 MHz 8* 6933 Mbps 4900 Mbps

• *Currently there are no commercial implementations that use more than 3 spatial streams

• ** in lab conditions


DFS

Not allowed in

Europe

Wider channels: 80Mhz and 160Mhz

15

Available Channels for 802.11ac

48IEEE channel #

20 MHz

40 MHz

80 MHz

5170MHz

5330MHz

5490MHz

5730MHz

5735MHz

5835MHz

160 MHz

36

40

44

60

52

64

116

56

136

132

124

120

108

100

104

128

112

165

161

157

140

153

149

144

Dynamic Frequency Selection

Using DFS Channels Without DFS Channels

Channel Size US Europe US Europe

40 MHz 8 9 4 2

80 MHz 4 5 2 1

160 MHz 1 2


Why are my IPADS not connecting as

well?

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•Original design was for coverage with 2.4Ghz capable

devices

•Access points in corridors covering 2 or 3 classrooms

•Now 5Ghz preference IPADS INSIDE the classrooms


Some Lessons learned

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Lesson 1: Bandwidth and switching

• How fast is your current WIRED network?

• Am I giving the wireless the best possible networking foundations?

• How fast is your broadband connection?

• Where are you accessing information from, where are you sending information to, local or external?

• Where is the traffic going, internally or externally?

• What traffic management systems have I put in place to ensure segregation of traffic?

• What Power requirements will you need?

• Does my cabling support the speeds I need?

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Typical Day’s Usage at ESSA Academy

Per 1000 students in a school using mobile devices in teaching and

learning, a minimum of 100Mb/s is required of WAN connectivity


Radley

Hi Paul, Thanks for the quick reply I'm very well so is the Meru which is great news. We now have nearly all

points installed just a few odds and ends to sort out we now have on average 1000 devices connected and it peaks at 500Mb throughput

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Peak of 500Mb/s

at 10.30pm with

nearly 1000

concurrently

connected

devices.

570 boarders!!!


Radley – school day

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Lesson 2: What type of car am I buying?

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Lesson 3: Just because the device is a well

known brand doesn’t mean it’s fast

• Just because devices are from well known brands doesn’t mean they have brilliant wireless cards in them

• It is often difficult to determine from the device manufacturers WHAT performance wireless cards are in a device

• Ask the manufacturer EXACTLY what chipset is in the device

• Take it for a test drive, if you can, take lots of them

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Lesson 4: Look under the bonnet

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Lesson 4: http://www.wi-fi.org/

• Look under the bonnet

• Determine EXACTLY what wireless card the device has in it

• Check the wifi alliance website

• You are looking for a minimum of 11ac and

dual spatial streams……..

25


Lesson 5: Do you regularly MOT

(SERVICE) your cars?

26


Lesson 5: Wireless drivers

• Wireless best practice means you should MOT your devices and you should encourage your users to do so too

• It’s law for a car, so why not instigate best practice within your users

• Devices, and therefore the overall network, will perform better with up to date drivers, like tuning a car.

• Check adapter manufacturer, device manufacturers websites

27


Lesson 6: Driving through mist slows all the

cars down

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Lesson 6: Check your environment before setting off,

conditions might change during the journey as well

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Lesson 7: Can I put slow cars in one lane, and faster

cars in another lane and keep the network moving?

• If you introduce a BYOD policy, you will have little control over what devices the students bring in

• Some will be fast, some will be slow, some will ONLY be able to operate in only one lane

• Most will be consumer style cheaper devices due to student/parent affordability.

• Without proper planning, both wired and wireless, these could affect the performance of curriculum owned devices

• Band steering, keeping curriculum devices in their own lane are all solutions.

• Segregate Traffic and restrict bandwidth on different SSIDS

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Lesson 8: Who’s in control of the network, the

cars or the system?

• Point to note: consumer devices are designed to hang on to access points for home use.

• As your wireless devices travel around the network, are you controlling how smoothly they do so, or is the device in control? (device led, or network led?)

• Are there mechanisms to ensure devices move between access points as smoothly as possible with no performance or user experience impact?

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Lesson 9

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Lesson 9

• Train the teachers on how to use devices and software applications first

• Accept that the students may well know more about ICT and its use than the teachers.

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Lesson 10

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• Roads wear out

•When you have the ability to upgrade the roads, take the

opportunity

•Firmware updates available from all manufacturers with

support contracts.


Rules of Thumb to remember for 1:1

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•Per 1000 students in a school using

mobile devices in teaching and learning, a

minimum of 100Mb/s is required of WAN

connectivity

• If your numbers of access points in your

school is LESS THAN the number of

students divided by 17 OR, less than

number of classrooms + 20% then you are

probably under-provisioned.

•Primary = classrooms + 5


The Eleven Commandments

Today 11ac is the standard to purchase.

2. Gigabit POE is essential from an edge switch perspective, some vendors will insist on 802.3at for 11ac access points – there is a premium for this.

3. WAN connectivity and capacity is critical, and become more so as 11ac devices proliferate , particularly in boarding schools.

4. Takes 2 to tango – device quality

5. Keep devices up to date as well as wireless software

6. Things can change in the RF environment…..

7. Who’s in control? Network or device? Head or student?

8. Train the teachers first…

9. Do not roll out until network is ready….

10. Coverage vs Density? Who is now connecting? Was network designed for what you have today

11. Patience. Wireless in an education environment is far more complicated than at home. ENGAGE WITH YOUR PARTNER / MANUFACTURER

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Thank You!

Any Questions?

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Getting Wireless Right: An Essential Guide For Schools- Henry Batten

Education

Transcript of Getting Wireless Right: An Essential Guide For Schools- Henry Batten