topic Re: All SSIDs NOT visible on all Access Points in Access Points - Indoor and Outdoor

All SSIDs NOT visible on all Access Points

joseph_harvey_j — Fri, 10 May 2019 10:03:32 GMT

I have 11 SSIDs/WLANs configured on my Zone Director.
I am not getting all of these showing up on all 17 of my access points.
I have a variety of r510, h510 and r310 access points which according to the spec sheets can do up to 16 SSIDs.
All of the WLANS are in their default groups.
I have tried deleting the AP's from the Zone Director and re-adding them and tried restarting the entire network. Nothing seems to be working.
Any ideas/help/advice would be appreciated.
TIA

Re: All SSIDs NOT visible on all Access Points

DarrelRhodes — Fri, 10 May 2019 10:20:46 GMT

Hi Joseph,

To be clear; are you stating that ALL 17 access points are transmitting ALL 11 SSIDs?

If so, this is massively inefficient and a huge amount of your Wi-Fi capacity will be taken up with overheads rather than client data. It's recommended to keep the number of SSIDs transmitted by any single AP to as little as possible (fewer SSIDs = better efficiency), with a general rule of thumb of 3 to 4 being the most before a noticeable performance impact. This link might help you understand the impact further: http://www.revolutionwifi.net/revolutionwifi/2013/10/ssid-overhead-how-many-wi-fi-ssids-are.html

What version of ZD software are you running? When you click into the AP on the ZD, is it showing that the WLAN is provisioned on the AP?

Thanks,
Darrel.

Re: All SSIDs NOT visible on all Access Points

michael_brado — Fri, 10 May 2019 21:53:52 GMT

Sound best practice advice, thanks Darrel!

Re: All SSIDs NOT visible on all Access Points

david_black_594 — Fri, 10 May 2019 22:46:18 GMT

The posts by Michael and Darrel are exactly right. You might want to consider using role based access to consolidate users requiring different policies into a single SSID for each method of authentication (combine the psk networks together, combine the 802.1x networks together). If you're not using radius, you can use DPSK to map users to different roles. Each role can specify the ACL, vlan, operating schedule, rate limits, OS policies, and application policies. You can control just about everything with role based access.

Re: All SSIDs NOT visible on all Access Points

joseph_harvey_j — Sat, 11 May 2019 01:51:43 GMT

Hi David and Darrel, Thank you for the reply. I understand your thoughts on having 11 SSIDs. We are not using radius or any other management software for user access aside from the standard SSID login. Yes, I agree 11 sounds like a lot but out of the 1.2Gb capacity can you accurately say how much bandwidth or spectrum utilization a single SSID uses? I would suspect it is an insignificant amount but i'm just assuming...
I've not used DPSK or radius before. Maybe there is a better way. Below are a few of the must have requirements. Can you advise if Radius or DPSK or other would work.

The requirements for our network are 11 VLANs for network separation of devices. Each VLAN must have a unique password. VLAN must have one password for all users. Must not require IT assistance for users to login. We are using R510 with zone director 1200.

Re: All SSIDs NOT visible on all Access Points

david_black_594 — Sat, 11 May 2019 05:01:16 GMT

Other than SSID name and pre-shared keys, are there any differences between the 11 WLANs?

Re: All SSIDs NOT visible on all Access Points

joseph_harvey_j — Sat, 11 May 2019 06:37:26 GMT

Each WLAN is attached to a unique VLAN. ex. SSID 1 = VLAN 10, SSID 2 = VLAN 20 and so on. We do use the bonjour gateway to allow inter vlan service discovery of apple devices. The remainder of the settings are default.

Re: All SSIDs NOT visible on all Access Points

joseph_harvey_j — Thu, 16 May 2019 04:18:10 GMT

I have resolved this.
It turns out that when the spec sheet for the Ruckus h510 and r310 says it can do 16 SSIDs it means that it can do 8 on 2.4Ghz and 8 on 5.1Ghz so really you only get 8 if you're using both bands. How it decides which 8 of your potentially configured16 SSIDs you thought you could have (thanks to the clever marketing) remains a mystery. I ended up creating WLAN groups of the SSIDs I would prefer over others in certain areas which has the 8 SSIDs broadcast in that area.