Should the ZD hand clients to a neighbouring access point when the client limit is hit?

[ben_sparkes]

Hi, we've recently had to store a lot of iPads in our office and the 7372 AP we have is hitting it's 100 client limit at the end of the day when they all get returned to us.

This prevents our own laptops and phones from connecting.

There is another access point in the room next door, and our AP reports seeing 77% signal strength from it.

Shouldn't the ZD be allowing clients to connect to this access point instead if ours is full?

[monnat_systems]

Hi Ben Sparkes,

Bandsteering and Load balancing is enabled by default on all versions on ZD software so that should not be a issue however there are situation when devices which won't get bandsteered or load balanced because they are adamant (Read: client behaviour) which ZD can't do anything about it.

Even if for a second IPads are considered to be adamant devices and when AP hits the limit why is that your laptops and phones not going to next door AP. Whats different? I know IPADs are the ones which should get balanced among AP's.

Are these on 2 AP's same channel?
have you tried to force to connect to SSID from next door to see what happens?
which version of code, ZD model and AP's you got?

One reason i think is that next door ap may be free to load however ridden with Layer 1 issues hence client don't like to go THAT dirty AP because they find nearest one clean and good to work with.

it would be interesting to see how this gets sorted. Please publish screenshot of those two AP's for quick comparison. See below link and you can find this at Zd GUI >>> monitor >>> AP >>> radio info

http://prntscr.com/4ujad3

[ben_sparkes]

Hi, Both access points are broadcasting the same SSID's and clients can connect to it when under it, the channels are different but both AP's are in the same group on the ZD.

Screenshots below, you can see the two access points see each other with 99% strength:

Busy office AP: http://prntscr.com/4yvp2d

Next door classroom AP: http://prntscr.com/4yvp5a

You can see the difference in throughput with all the iPads connected.

Users can walk all over the site and stay connected, I've no doubt this will end up being something simple on our office AP!

ZD Version is 9.6.1.0 build 15

Thanks
Ben

[michael_brado]

If certain fruity clients are adamant about sticking to the first AP they learn an SSID
on, they may be resistant to client load balancing (band balancing would not help
an AP at the max user limit), so you might also add 'smart-roam 3' or 'smart-roam 5'
to the WLAN they use, from a ZD CLI, configure WLAN mode. If they don't get a
probe response back, their driver/supplicant algorithms may kick in and do a roam.

Otherwise, with no other AP to roam to, a maxed out client count AP will not accept
new client associations. (you don't kick off already associated clients)

[gary_jobe]

Why not just increase the "Max clients" on the ZD in your WLAN, advanced options, I think this defaults to 100 but Ruckus say the 7372 should support upto 500 clients.