Hamina – Client View

Previously I wrote about Hamina and some of the features. There are a couple of features I want to discuss that I find unique and a great addition/part of the overall solution.

• Client View
• Reporting

Client View:

When this appeared, I understood what it was, but paid little attention to it.

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I was talking to a customer one day; we were discussing outdoor Wi-Fi and antennas. And that is when I realized how excellent this tool can be. It can show the correlation and client behavior when using different antennas, AP locations, Signal Strength, Power levels, data rates, roaming.

There are different clients listed under “Client Experience”. And you can check the “Show Association Area” box to view the association area of each access point. Small box displays the Signal and Data Rate values as you move the client around throughout the building.

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This short video shows the Hamina – Client view in use

Look at the different areas:

• Since “Show Association Area” is checked, shaded area shows the association area of that particular access point
• Bold dotted blue line shows which AP client is associated to
• Light black dotted lines show possibly APs that client can roam to and see at that particular point. This will change as the client moves
• Small box shows some good details:
  • RSSI
  • Data Rate
  • Frequency (this may switch to 2.4 GHz depending on the setup)
  • MCS rate
  • Spatial Streams
  • Channel Width (I have APs using 40 MHz)

Back to the outdoor wireless discussion with the client. I used a sample football field map, thanks to Brian Powers showing this to me a while back. Just makes it easier.

For this predictive test I imported a football field map and scaled it accordingly. Next I placed two access points in the two corners at 20′. Bottom left hand side shows the legend for the RSSI values.

This short video shows the client experience while roaming outside when there isn’t enough signal coverage/overlap. Video also shows what happens when you add access points and change the TX Power levels on the access points.

These quick screen shots display the Signal and Data rate from when the client was near the access point vs when it was at the edge. As the client moves past that edge, there will be no connectivity and client will need to reconnect and get close enough to one of the two access points.

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Keep in mind that this is a predictive planning tool and we can’t expect the client roaming behavior seen here to be 100% accurate, but it gives us some excellent educated data and point of view when planning a wireless network and/or reviewing the design with the clients.

I no longer have to white board this stuff out, write, erase, redraw etc. Just another way Hamina saves my time when I am working and/or collaborating on a design. My wish list:

• Ability to change client height just like I can with the access points
• Ability to specify data rates, from what I can tell client will jump when it hits 34 Mbps.
• Possibly crowd source client data to improve this.
• Integration with Mist/Aruba/Nile and using some of that data to analyze roaming.
• Integration with the survey app.

Next up …. Hamina Reporting