WLAN Design for Mobile Apps #AirheadsConf Italy

WLAN Design for Mobile Apps
Balajee Krishnamurthy, Ashutosh Dash
June 2014

CONFIDENTIAL
© Copyright 2014. Aruba Networks, Inc.
All rights reserved
2 #AirheadsConf
Agenda
• Design Guidelines for WiFi grade Location
• Design Guidelines for WiFi grade Voice
• Design Guidelines for WiFi grade Video
• QOS and Traffic Optimization
• Enterprise Diagnostics and Troubleshooting

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3 #AirheadsConf
Agenda
• Analytics and Location Overview
• ALE System Overview
• Indoor Location Technology
• Probing
• Recommendations
• Summary

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Analytics and Location Overview

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Analytics & Location Ecosystem
Big Data
Analytics Partners
Network
Applications
Cloud
Applications
User Context
(who, what, where, when)
Location
Applications
(Wayfinding, etc)
Context:
1. Location
2. Applications
3. Destinations
4. Identity
5. Device types
ALE (Context
Aggregation)

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ALE System Overview

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Analytics and Location Engine (ALE)
Overview
ALE
Unified context for
each user (user name, IP,
MAC, device type, App
visibility, etc.)
1
Seamless, secure
cloud connectivity
4
Real time location
engine
2
Standard, high
performance northbound
APIs (publish/ subscribe,
polling)
3

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Data Collected & Provided by ALE
• Presence feed
• Events when a device is detected crossing a Geofence
• Device information
• User information from authentication to the network
• Applications used
• Destination URLs

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ALE Enabled Use Cases
ALE Use
cases
People movement,
congested paths
1
Way-finding (turn-
by-turn directions
2
Way-finding (turn-
by-turn directions
Busy times by
location
Web
analytics
Energy
management
4
3
5
6

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ALE System Overview
Local
Controller
Remote
Controllers
NETWORK
Instant
APs
Campus/Rem
ote APs
Visual
RF
SERVICES
Context aggregation,
location engine
ALE VM
Location data for
visualization
on maps
APPLICATIONS
Context visualization,
analytics
Northbound APIs:
REST, Protobuf/OMQ
Context
Data

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Understanding Probe Flow and
Location
ALE
Client pulls its
location from the
cloud every __
seconds?
Probes between few
seconds to 10s of
minutes
1
AP sends RSSI on a timer,
default is 30 secs, can be
set to 1 sec (6.3.1.1)
(Future: Will be
instantaneous)
2
Controller sends the
data on a fixed
timer of 10 seconds
(Future: Will be
instantaneous)
3
ALE calculates the
location, latency
varies based on the
settings.
4

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Indoor Location Technology

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Indoor Location Technology
Overview
• Satellite-based GPS does not work indoors
• Two main approaches to
indoor positioning technology:
– Device-based scans of radio signals (software/hardware)
– Network-based scans of device radio signals (Wi-Fi)
• No standard indoor positioning solution exists today
• Indoor positioning (relative to the venue layout)
requires indoor maps
• Layouts within locations often change

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Device vs Wi-Fi Network
Based Location
Device-based software
The device performs signal scans of
nearby network signals to analyzes signal
strengths to calculate position
Wi-Fi network based
The network APs perform signal scans of
Wi-Fi traffic and analyzes the device’s Wi-
Fi signal strength to calculate position

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Location Positioning
Technology
How Information
is Transmitted
GPS Geofencing
Cell Phone
Triangulatio
n
Cell
Towers
How Info is Transmitted Hardware Required
RequiresOnsiteFingerprinting
BLE
LED Light Pulses
Sensor Fusion
Device-Based Signal
Triangulation
RTLS Network-Based
Wi-Fi Triangulation
Existing Wireless APs
LED Lights With Chips
Wi-Fi Hotspots
BLE
Beacons or Nodes
Wi-Fi Hotspots
Audio Queue
Sound Emission Devices
Outside Venue
Inside Venue

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GPS –Triangulation from
Satellites

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Indoor Location Positioning
Technology
 Wi-Fi must be turned
on/enabled on the device
Network-Based Wi-Fi Positioning
• Devices are constantly scanning for Wi-Fi
• The network does the work
• Analytics can be delivered without device app
• More battery efficient for mobile devices
• Can work with any device, including iPhones,
Android, etc.
Used by:

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The Wi-Fi Location Puzzle
• Sparse samples
– Easier & better from infrastructure than from device
– +/- 5dB inter-frame variation
– Clients want to minimize radio activity > maximize battery life
– Floor-level signal differs from ceiling-level
– Absence of signal does not mean a device is absent
• Frame of reference for signal sources / sinks
– Where are the AP locations? Tx Pwr? Directional antennas? – ARM changes RF Plan
• Frame of reference – local or global (Lat/Long) or civic?
– Enterprise and indoor apps mostly use local maps
– Google, Bing etc use Lat/Long
• Parametric or non-parametric?
– Build a synthetic heatmap using RF propagation model
– Or use AP-AP and other calibration and non-parametric curve-fitting (e.g. Gaussian Process)
• Speed vs accuracy tradeoff
• Add Helpers
– GPS, celltower, Bluetooth beacons, BSSID surveys
– On-board compass, accelerometers
– Estimates for motion vectors and earlier position fixes
– Knowledge of walls, doors and snap-to-grid tramlines

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Probing
• Again….location calculation today purely relies on client
probes
– NO PROBES…..NO LOCATION!!
• Unassociated devices will Probe more than associated
– If associated device is happily connected, it will not bother Probing.
• iOS devices Probe less than Android (battery life
considerations).
– Meridian and Aruba Utilities (mobile apps) can stimulate Probes
on Android.
– iOS does not expose any such API (to cause Wi0Fi scan)
• Going on Settings->Wifi on iOS will trigger Probes. If you want
to stimulate Probes on iOS, either unassociate, or
occasionally keep going to the Settings->Wifi page.
• A device must be heard by 3 or more
APs to calculate location

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RSSI Based Locationing
• The raw data for location estimation is the
received signal strength (RSSI) of Wi-Fi
frames received from client devices
– RSSI is inherently variable due to fluctuating RF
conditions, the geospatial
attitude of the mobile device
and its proximity and
relationship to human tissue
– We expect a variation of RSSI
in the order of 6dB even when
the person holding the device
is stationary
– As the distance from the AP
increases, the RSSI - distance
curve flattens

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Location: Accuracy & Latency
Accuracy
• Impacted by various factors:
– AP density, type, mounting type
– Physical Environments, enterprise, malls,
warehouse, etc.
– RSSI variations
– Client probing behavior, device type, OS type
Latency
• Impacted by
– Client probe frequency (iOS vs Android)
– Network settings: AP/controller timers
– Engine smoothening algorithms
• Balance between accuracy and latency
ALE goal is to
be <10m 90%
of time on a
location grade
network

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Location Applications in PFE
• Location has different facets:
– Presence (Inside a Store/Zone or outside)
• Useful for push notifications
– Wayfinding (“Blue Dot”)
• Useful in ultra large venues
• Most Location applications of
practical value in PFE fall under
“Presence” category
• Location Services are the not the
only “PFE” applications
– Guest Access, support for enterprise apps,
multimedia support, device onboarding,
etc., are all applicable
to PFE
Presence
Way-
Finding

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Design Considerations for
Locationing
• Start with a good understanding of commercial
requirements
• What is the key use case and “true”
requirement?
– Self directed museum tour?
• In which case latency will not be an issue
– Ability to locate specific venue (conference room,
restaurant, etc.) within a large venue or a product with turn
by turn directions?
– “Presence detection” in stores in a shopping mall?
• Knowledge of the use case is key to
understanding location accuracy, latency
requirements

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AP Placement Guidelines (1)
• RSSI location uses triangulation techniques
– This needs at least three APs to receive a target’s
transmissions at relatively short range to give a good location.
• Best indicator of location accuracy is AP spacing
• Studies and experience show that regularly
spaced APs give the best overall location
accuracy.
– Most WLAN planning tools produce a regular
grid pattern of APs in the absence of local
propagation information
• Our best advice is to take the output of such
tools – or a wireless engineer’s design with
regular AP spacing - and adjust the output to
take account of local knowledge:
• Areas that present special challenges or where
accurate location is more important should

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AP Placement
Recommendation (2)
• Do:
– Place AP every 2500 sq. feet or 50 feet apart
– Cover the extremities!
– 65 dbm coverage (“Voice Grade)
– Ensure AP placement on floor plan is accurate
– Stagger AP placement in multi-floor buildings
• Do Not:
– Place AP in straight lines
– Design for coverage only & not enough density
• The standard topology is a ‘square’ grid pattern of APs,
but there is research indicating a hexagonal pattern gives
better results
• Aruba is testing this configuration

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AP Placement: Voice Overlay
Design

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AP Placement Recommendations
Summary
Recommendation Priority Comments
Voice Overlay 1
This is a must in all deployments to achieve
triangulation which is core requirement of
location calculation.
AP every 2500 sq. feet or 50
feet apart and cover the edges
1
This is help achieve a good coverage
pattern and triangulation and is must for
most deployments.
Hexagonal pattern for AP layout 2
This is recommended but might be hard to
achieve in certain scenarios due to the
physical layout.
-65 dbm coverage
2
This is strongly recommended but might be
hard to achieve in certain parts of a building.
In those cases, ensure that there is at least
a -75 dbm coverage in those areas.

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RF Design Guidelines for Voice & Video

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Multimedia over WLAN Challenges
 RF Challenges
 End-to-End QoS
 Battery life & Roaming
 Scaling Challenges
 Unreliable protocol
 Low speed transmission
Video Data
 RF challenges
 End-to-End QoS
 Bandwidth management
(CAC)
 Mobility and Roaming
Voice
 RF Challenges
Voice + Video + Data???

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Pervasive RF Coverage
• 100% coverage in all areas of Voice use
• Capacity based Wireless network design recommended
– Higher number APs operating with low TX Power
– Small Cell sizes, clients use higher data rates
Coverage design with 7.2 Mb/s cell edge Capacity design with 216.7 Mb/s cell edge

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ARM Features for Voice
• Interference Aware
• Band Steering
• Spectrum Load Balancing
• Voice/Video Aware Scanning

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Clientmatch
• Deterministic steering of clients based on the SNR and signal
level information gathered from client's perspective
• Steering decision is based on the probes request
from the client
• Periodic load balancing
• Resolves Sticky-client issue

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RF Design Best Practices for Voice
• Pervasive RF Coverage
• Distance between APs to not exceed 50 Ft
• Minimum RF signal (RSSI) levels of -65 dBm
• Minimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 25 dB
• Minimum and maximum AP power difference no greater
than two steps
• Disable lower data rates
• In the Adaptive Radio Management™
(ARM) profile
– Enable voice/video aware scan
– ClientMatch™-enabled

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RF Design Best Practices for Voice
(continued)
• Configure Supported Beacon rate to higher rate
• Enable WMM Traffic Management
• Give higher of bandwidth to Voice and Video
• Enable Fair access
• Provide high % of bandwidth to a VAP (For example, assign higher %
bandwidth to Corp VAP than Guest VAP)

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Best Practices for Video
• RF Best practices for Voice applies to Video as well
• Best practices for Delivering multicast video
• Enable IGMP Snooping Or IGMP Proxy
• Enable Dynamic Multicast Optimization (DMO)
• Enable Decrypt-tunnel Dynamic Multicast Optimization (D-DMO)

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Designing a Roaming Network

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Designing a Roaming Network
• Difference in power levels on the deployed APs should not be
too high
• Airtime fairness is recommended in an environment with
mobile clients to avoid slower clients taking too much airtime
• In a dot1x environment, enable EAPOL rate optimization
• For faster roaming, use OKC and 802.11r
• Enable ClientMatch to help with sticky client problem
• Match QoS markings that the devices are using

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Authentication/Encryption Guidelines

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Authentication/Encryption Guidelines
• 802.1x based authentication through radius server may introduce delay
during re-association/roaming
• Use Opportunistic Key Caching with 802.1x for faster roaming
• PSK works better for voice devices (less delay), but not a preferred
method due to weak security
• EAP-TLS provides the best security and is preferred in enterprises rather
than EAP-PEAP

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End-to-End QoS

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QoS with Aruba WLAN

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End-to-End QoS: WMM
Support
1. Voice Data
2. Video Data
3. Best Efforts
4. Background
“Air”
High Priority
Low Priority
Application
Data
1. WMM Specifies how priority queues map to DSCP and dot1P tags
2. Different access categories, different contention parameters
3. 4 queues per radio; 8 queues total; supported on all APs
4. Voice and video gets priority over data

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Incoming traffic is unmarked,
and controller is not configured
for any classification

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and controller is configured for
classification

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Re-marking Traffic

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and Lync heuristics is enabled
on the controller

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Aruba Lync Solution
1. Heuristics based detection – Lync traffic is identified based on
known characteristics of Lync Voice and Video. As the Lync traffic
traverses the controller it is inspected and classified as either Voice
or Video and the appropriate QoS settings are applied to them.
1. SDN API based detection – Lync traffic is identified through the
integration between the Lync Front End server and the WLAN
controllers via Microsoft’s SDN API. The Lync front End server sends
messages to the Aruba Controller identifying Lync traffic by type and
endpoint.

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Lync Heuristics
• Called “Classify Media”
• Create an ACL to trigger deeper inspection of traffic
• ACL triggers on ports used for UCC
• May need to include IP address or hostname as well
• Once the ACL triggers, we analyze traffic from the
client
• If the traffic looks like a supported audio or video
stream format, we will QoS it appropriately
52

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What does an administrator
get with Lync Heuristics
today?
Today information available to an administrator is as follows
– Visibility into video and voice calls
– QoS for voice and video
– CDR info(partial – no name of user, direction of the call)
In a future release (6.4.2, July/August timeframe)
– Calculation of UCC score, delay, jitter and packet loss
– UCC dashboard on controller can be used for real time correlation,
visibility, troubleshooting and diagnostics
– UCC score would be a metric calculated over the wireless link for
downstream direction only
Why would a customer use Heuristics over SDN API today
– Does not have the capability to use SDN API
– Office 365
– Aruba Instant based network in place

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Beyond Heuristics: Direct Integration
with Microsoft Lync Server
• Heuristics are never perfect
• Microsoft SDN API Integration
• Uses information directly from the Microsoft server for
fine-grained application identification
• Allows separate detection and QoS for Voice, Video, Desktop
Sharing, and File Sharing in real time
• Eliminates the need for deep packet inspection on the controller
• Adds Lync “Quality of Experience” (QoE) metrics for
debugging

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Lync SDN QoS Flow
1. User establishes Lync call to
another device
– Call setup is through server, call is
peer-to-peer
2. Lync server sends session
information to Controller
3. Controller uses data for QoS
and AppRF visibility
– Voice gets DSCP 56 (0x38)
– Video gets DSCP 40 (0x28)
– Desktop Sharing gets DSCP 40
(0x28)
– File transfers get DSCP 24 (0x18)
4. Controller sends app usage
data to AirWave
AirWave
2
1
4
3

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Lync SDN– Collecting call
data
1. At the end of each call, the
call participants send data on
call quality to the Quality of
Experience (QoE) server - a
component of Lync
2. The QoE server reports stats
to the controller
3. Controller builds monitoring
pages
1
2
3

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What does an administrator
get with Lync SDN API
Today information available to an administrator is as follows
– Visibility into voice, video, desktop sharing and file transfer
– QoS for voice, video, desktop sharing and file transfer
– UCC score for real time correlation
– Offer MOS scores for end-to-end visibility
– Complete CDR which includes caller names, different legs of the call etc.
In a future release (6.5)
– Work with Lync SDN API 2.1 for in-call quality metrics
• MOS or UCC metric can be used for correlation
– Discussion around what other information can be used from QoE server to
enhance visibility/debug ability is in place
Why would a customer use SDN API over heuristics
– No guesswork, 100% confirmed data
– End-to-end visibility etc.
CONFIDENTIAL ©

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Troubleshooting Guidelines
• Are RF and other Configuration Best Practices in place?
• Does your Network have end-to-end QoS?
• Can you isolate if it is an RF Network issue Or Wired Network?
• If required, enable debugging at controller to get detail logs
• For example, if you are using Voice ALGs (Sip, Lync), enable the
following command to troubleshoot voice issues:
(SE_PFE_1) (config) #logging level debugging user process stm subcat voice
(SE_PFE_1) (config) #show log user all

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