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Switches and Wi-Fi are the strong backing of wireless networks

Why the switch is a key part of a powerful Wi-Fi deployment. Let us analyze the network upgrade case of Dalian Neusoft Institute of Information. The college has 14 teaching institutions with more than 14,000 students and a total construction area of ​​399,000 square meters. Previously, due to the limited investment of operators, the solutions adopted could only solve the most basic wireless access requirements. With the passage of time, no matter from the availability of the network, the stability of the connection, or even the speed of the network connection, it has been unable to meet the needs of school teachers and students.

Ruckus Networks has fully upgraded the campus network of Dalian Neusoft Institute of Information. The coverage area includes all 25 dormitory buildings, as well as public activity areas such as classrooms, libraries, and canteens. A total of more than 1,500 Ruckus access points and 65 Two Ethernet switches Ruckus ICX 7150 and Ruckus SmartZone virtual WLAN controller.

The low-latency, non-blocking architecture of the Ruckus ICX 7150 series switches can ensure ideal throughput for the most demanding content such as video, unified communications, VDI, and mobile applications. Combine it with Ruckus smart Wi-Fi access points. It not only obtains gigabit data transmission speed, but also achieves more powerful performance and more stable network connection, thus bringing the best experience for the teachers and students of the school.

Wireless requirements

In many cases, customers choose to update their wired network infrastructure when upgrading their wireless access points (AP). This is because it is very important to ensure that the underlying switch network can support new wireless deployments. Specific considerations include performance, Power over Ethernet (PoE) requirements, upgradeability, network management, and future-oriented requirements.

The wired infrastructure needs to provide fast enough speed for the switches: from access points, uplinks to aggregation and core switches, and then to the cloud (or data center). Although high-performance APs are important, if there is no underlying network that meets the requirements, the full value of APs cannot be realized. In an ideal network, all components (including Internet pipes) can work well with each other to handle network traffic. Any bottleneck in the user's connection to the cloud (or data center) will reduce application performance and negatively affect the user experience.

Let us take a closer look at the data flow. Starting from the user equipment, the first step in a wired network is the connection from the access point to the switch. In the past 5 to 10 years, most enterprise-level switches have 1 Gigabit (Gbps) access ports to support Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n) and access points below the standard. The total throughput of Wi-Fi 4 access points is less than 1 gigabit per second (Gbps), so a 1 gigabit (Gbps) port connected to the switch is sufficient. Any faster port will not have any impact on performance, because AP is still the limiting factor for performance.

Wi-Fi 5 (802. 11ac) performance

Wi-Fi 5 (802. 11ac) APs provide potential speeds exceeding 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) throughput, which means that 1Gbps a

ccess ports are gradually becoming a bottleneck for optimal performance. In fact, the latest Wi-Fi 5 Wave 2 AP can reach 2.3Gbps per second, although due to practical limitations, this rate will be slightly lower. The Ruckus laboratory test confirmed that the throughput of Wi-Fi 5 Wave 2 AP is 1.5 gigabits per second (Gbps), so the 2.5 gigabit (Gbps) port can completely avoid the access port becoming a bottleneck, at least for Wi-Fi 5 In terms of AP.

Wi-Fi 6 (802. 11ax) performance

However, the next-generation Wi-Fi 6 AP (802.11ax) has begun to ship. IDC predicts that the deployment of Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) will increase significantly in 2019 and become the main enterprise Wi-Fi in 2021. standard. This is because many organizations find themselves still subject to the previous Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) standard, especially in high-density venues such as stadiums, conference centers, transportation hubs, and auditoriums.

The Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) access point (AP) deployed in a dense device environment supports a higher level of service level agreement (SLA), more concurrently connected users and devices, and more different usage configurations document. This is achieved through a series of technologies that optimize spectrum efficiency, increase throughput, and reduce power consumption. These technologies include 1024-Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), Uplink and Downlink Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO), BSS coloring mechanism, and target wake-up time TWT. The new Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) standard provides four times higher throughput than its predecessor Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac), so users need to consider upgrading to Multi-GE access in advance Port to eliminate the potential bottleneck of wired switches.

It should be emphasized that the transition to gigabit switches to adapt to Wi-Fi 6 APs does not necessarily require large-scale infrastructure upgrades. Enterprise organizations can gradually add several wired switches that support Multi-GE interfaces as needed. In addition, many current multi-gigabit (Multi-GE) switches have both multi-gigabit (Multi-GE) ports and gigabit (1Gbps) ports. Only those ports connected to 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) AP need multi-gigabit (2.5Gbps/5Gbps/10Gbps) access speed, while other gigabit ports are used for computers, printers, VoIP phones, Cameras and other Ethernet devices.

in conclusion

In order to take full advantage of the speed advantage (up to 5Gbps per second) provided by 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) APs, our customers have begun to install Multi-GE switches to replace or supplement the old infrastructure. This is because system administrators cannot simply upgrade part of the network (access point) to ensure a high-quality user experience. To get the advantages of 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6), you also need to upgrade the switch. From our point of view, enterprise organizations should now prepare to transition to Multi-GE switches. Since the average lifespan of switches is 5-7 years (the average lifespan of switches in many educational institutions is as long as 10 years), organizations will definitely need multi-Gigabit (Multi-GE) connection services during this time.

Author: Nie Xiaoyun, Technical Director of Ruckus Networks China