Chapter 9 Wireless
NWA3000-N Series User’s Guide
126
Load Balancing
Because there is a hard upper limit on an AP’s wireless bandwidth, load balancing
can be crucial in areas crowded with wireless users. Rather than let every user
connect and subsequently dilute the available bandwidth to the point where each
connecting device receives a meager trickle, the load balanced AP instead limits
the incoming connections as a means to maintain bandwidth integrity.
There are two kinds of wireless load balancing available on the NWA3000-N series
AP:
Load balancing by station number
limits the number of devices allowed to
connect to your AP. If you know exactly how many stations you want to let
connect, choose this option.
For example, if your company’s graphic design team has their own AP and they
have 10 computers, you can load balance for 10. Later, if someone from the sales
department visits the graphic design team’s offices for a meeting and he tries to
access the network, his computer’s connection is delayed, giving it the opportunity
to connect to a different, neighboring AP. If he still connects to the AP regardless
of the delay, then the AP may boot other people who are already connected in
order to associate with the new connection.
Load balancing by traffic level
limits the number of connections to the AP
based on maximum bandwidth available. If you are uncertain as to the exact
number of wireless connections you will have then choose this option. By setting a
maximum bandwidth cap, you allow any number of devices to connect as long as
their total bandwidth usage does not exceed the configured bandwidth cap
associated with this setting. Once the cap is hit, any new connections are rejected
or delayed provided that there are other APs in range.
Imagine a coffee shop in a crowded business district that offers free wireless
connectivity to its customers. The coffee shop owner can’t possibly know how
many connections his AP will have at any given moment. As such, he decides to
put a limit on the bandwidth that is available to his customers but not on the
actual number of connections he allows. This means anyone can connect to his
wireless network as long as the AP has the bandwidth to spare. If too many people
connect and the AP hits its bandwidth cap then all new connections must basically
wait for their turn or get shunted to the nearest identical AP.
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