Large campus network: best practices for Airplay (+ issues with lots of Apple TV's)

[pieter_schepens]

We have a large campus network: ZoneDirector ZD1200, ± 50 AP's R500 and R510, ± 100 Apple TV's, lots of iPads (1:1 and shared iPads). The Apple TV's and iPads are on the same SSID, but in small VLAN's/subnets. The backbone of our network has high performance. WiFi speed and reliability are perfect.
We use AirPlay mirroring to the Apple TV's to cast the screen of the teachers iPads to the projector or TV screen. We don't use Bonjour Gateway. From time to time, we experience drop outs or lag in the Airplay streaming. 

We'd like to know, when configuring a WiFi network for AirPlay with lots of Apple TV's:

• What are the best WLAN settings?
• What are the best settings for things like self healing, background scanning, load balancing, etc...?
• What are the best settings for the AP's?
• Any other best practices to make AirPlay reliable?

Any help or advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[fghzuio]

That's quite a list, thanks for sharing! I must admit though, that with 20+ AppleTVs a lot of the problems you described just seem to be exactly what I would expect in that environment, and I hardly doubt that you will find a more perfect solution than the one you've already figured out.

What I mean is that AppleTVs are home devices for the living room, and as a necessary means of action from Apples point of view they are designed to work exactly in that environment: the living room. Or the bed room. Maybe another one in the childrens room.

But for the professional and high demanding environement you (and I further above)  are describing, I would simply suggest looking for a professional solution that's made for this environment. We can and will figure out a way to work around Apple's home design, but it will only get us so far.

A software product that we are using and which has brought us better results is the AirServer application: https://www.airserver.com/ 

With good server/pc design (positioning, network design and so on) you might find it better suited.

EDIT: I am not working for airserver 😄 after reading the post I just had to point that out.

[pieter_schepens]

Since we use VLAN pooling, the average amount of Apple TV's in one VLAN is ± 5 or 6. 

AirServer as a software solution doesn't suit our setup: we don't want to place an extra pc or Mac in every classroom. The hardware solution looks promising, but is much more expensive than an Apple TV. If it's 100% reliable to use for Airplay in a peer to peer setup, we could consider replacing our Apple TV's gradually over time. 

[fghzuio]

the VLAN pooling does'nt really change the rest of the environment though (high density, a lot of Wifi, probably higher demand in reliability, so on). I'm still struggeling with the thought that there "always has to be away to make home-devices work" in a not-home environment.

I've come around the argument "but it works at my home, so why doesnt it work with this expensive IT stuff here" way too often, so please excuse the argument - it might be a little subjective.

[francis_aromin]

I feel your pain.  We also experienced the same frustrations over the years.  It's easy to blame the network for every slowdown they experience. 
 
We found that some of the dropouts were likely because of hardware and iOS version and not the network.  This is especially true with older units (think AppleTV 3, Mini 1 and 2).   So far, AppleTV on peer-to-peer is working well enough for us.

Yes, the AppleTV is a home product. But until we find a better alternative that's about the same cost, we're stuck with it.  It's still much better than using miracast with Windows / Android devices (we're a BYOD school)

[eightohtwoeleve]

Did some testing today with one of our Apple TVs. Was on our internal network with my phone, put the Apple TV on another SSID (our guest network). It seemed to use peer-to-peer. One thing I noticed however, is on my phone, doing a speed test I was getting really slow speeds 5Mbps-8Mbps.. and while this is probably sufficient for most traffic, I suppose this could have some implications as well. Once they were on the same WiFi network (non peer-to-peer) I was getting 60Mbps+ on the speed test. Just something to consider.

Seems our method to ethernet all Apple TVs and just use the Wi-Fi for mirroring/internet will still be what we do.