Splitting a flat network into separate WLANS

hargi

hargi

hargi

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Im trying to get to the bottom of this.
Think there is two problems. One is we only have a 8mb connection coming in to school. --> we are trying to up the bandwidth as we regularly reach this limit and the network just goes to a crawl.

When I try to update the ipads with meraki, it takes ages and normally fails. Same if I go to the app store and try to download the apps that way ( pages update 20 mins to a hour) So I'm assuming that a more bandwidth into school would fix this?

The main problem is we have used airserver and now we are on apple TV's which the staff use to mirror the ipads to the projector. Randomy the airplay freezes then kicks the mirror off. I'm assuming this is a wifi problem as none of this traffic is leaving the school?
Both the apple TV and the ipads are connected wirelessly.
We currently have Netgear 360 N dual band AP's one per 2 classrooms roughly any ideas?

Some one has suggested its a bonjour issue and thats flooding the network.
We resolved most of these issues by segmenting our WLAN into 14 seperate "departmental" WLANs, each with an unique IP range (yet using the same WiFi controller) to reduce the number of ATVs that can see each other. The maximum we now have on any one WLAN is 14, which seems to be ok with the approx. 20 iPads that regularly connect to the same WLAN. (we've also limited the DHCP range to 65 devices to reduce the chances of flooding the networks). We're only broadcasting an individual WLAN to the area of the school where that subject it taught.
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How would I go about splitting the up wifi into separate WLAN's as reccomended in the quote above?

Thanks
 
I'm guessing you're thinking of VLANs, not WLANS.

This could potentially be a very big project. If you have a look on the Edugeek.net forums you will find plenty of people who have done similar things.

A few Qs.

How big is your network?
Do you have managed switches throughout?
What core switch are you running?
Is your internet connection provided by a Regional Broadband Consortium?
Do you have a proxy server on site, and is all your web traffic going through it?
 
I asked the question on Edugeek and thats where I got the quote from about the wlan.

Network we have 70pc's 2 servers 15 Apple TV's bout 200 or so iPads.
No managed switches. HP procurve 2810's and 2650's
Internet comes in at 10mb from NGFL... this is filtered offsite via a smoothwall filter all internet traffic goes through this. ( diffent ports for different filtering requirements, if no port /proxy is set it defaults to the BYOD port)

Netgear 360 N dual band AP's one per 2 classrooms
 
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That netgear is probably not able to handle the amount of dhcp assignments from all the ipads.

You could look at adding in additional wifi access points and use one for the teacher and airplay and the rest of iapds go on to the other wifi ap. As long as the ipad don't need to be on the same subnet as the teacher one.

This won't solve the lack of wan bandwidth but may stop internal network problems.

Where is dhcp currently handled from? a serveR? the smoothwall or each netgear?
 
Im guessing that the bandwidth coming in is affecting the updates/ app downloads.
The main problem is the Airplay dropping out from the Apple TV's this is whats putting the teachers off as they are not reliable.

As far as I'm aware dhcp is handled exclusively from our DC (2008R2)
 
If it handled from the dc then you could have just installed some wireless access points, instead of the expensive Netgear 360 N. For example TP-Link TL-WA901ND.

As everything will be on the same subnet as you have the dhcp coming from a windows server, you could in theory add as many wap as you want off the switches to improve the WIFI performance.

I would consider adding one new wap per room and put the teachers and apple tv on those wap, that way they have more dedicated internal network bandwidth.

Although those tplink ones are rubbish in my opinion, the D-link Wireless N are meant to be better or the Linksys WAP300N.
 
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Sweet jesus, a school with only 10mb bandwidth?
Can you not have another line put in? or 2?

What content do you project onto the large screens from the ipads?
Although it sounds like a random question but i ask because depending what content it is you could use WePresent WAPs instead of appleTV. These WAPs also allow for multpile vlans.
WePresent is a wireless solution that pushes content from apple, android and windows devices to other screens (as well as many other features). I use 2 in our office and they are really good. The ipad apps are slightly restrictive though hence the question.
But, these things could help solve some routing issues as they can sit on your main network and offer internet connections whilst isolating the clients on a different subnet.
Might be worth looking into, but maybe more as an I.T. upgrade type of thing.

edit: i had 3 of the TP-link WA901ND waps in place......they kept crashing. So got rid.
 
OK this is where Im going to start getting confused. I like the unifi AP ( I have them in my other school with very low wifi usage and they work no bother)
If we go get some of these and put one in every class what would happen at the moment we have the 14 AP that all use the same SSID. Would you add different SSID's to split it up?
 
Yes 10mb and we are stuck with that for a few more years :( .
I have asked about and we can get 100mb from a different supplier for roughly the same costs. Its stupid as soon as a few get on it brings the whole school to a crawl.
we have tried a bit of software called airserver before and had the same issues, the AppleTV's are more reliable then that but still not up to scratch.
They mirror anything from apps, pages documents, web pages to video.
 
You could do that, but you do need to pay attention to the channels your SSIDS are on otherwise it can get messy.
If you have an adroid device, get hold of wifi analyzer, its great for helping to sort your wifi networks out.
 
hargi said:
OK this is where Im going to start getting confused. I like the unifi AP ( I have them in my other school with very low wifi usage and they work no bother)
If we go get some of these and put one in every class what would happen at the moment we have the 14 AP that all use the same SSID. Would you add different SSID's to split it up?
Click to expand...

You said that you only had two AP? maybe i read that wrong.

If the teachers want more bandwidth on the internal network then you can add some wifi ap (any) in and dedicated them to the teachers. Just make sure the channels are different if they are in the same physical range. I would probably start with one room and test it first to make sure that it will actually solve the problem the teachers are having. As for SSID i would make the teacher SSID different to the student SSID only so you can differentiate them but if you want them to move between class rooms then make all the teacher SSID the same. Otherwise the student ipad will just connect to the teacher wifi and defeat the point of adding additional wap.
 
Most schools are legible for free internet. A large secondary school with 1200+ pupils that we look after has a 70Mbps free of charge.

With the correct hardware and knowledge it should be easy. VLAN'ing departments or floors can have it's benefits in that it can minimise broadcasts from flooding the network. The switches are then just set to act as a DHCP relay from whatever it may be like a Windows server.

Having multiple different SSID's per access point is asking for trouble and would be a pain in the arse to manage. You'd be best of getting a proper wireless lan controller from Cisco or going for a cloud managed wireless solution like Cisco Meraki. This way you can have multiple SSID's like Private, BYOD, Public for instance, and you can then limit the bandwidth they use and secure them via VLAN'ing and access lists.

How big is this school in terms of computers, staff and students? It sounds like it may be best to seek proper consultation as it isn't that complex providing you have the knowledge and budget to go with it. I know schools and budgets don't go hand in hand most of the time :D.
 
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First off you want to connect the apple TV devices via Ethernet to minimise wireless traffic then I would;

Switch side, VLAN off the ports for the Apple TV
WAP side, split into two VLAN's, one for devices/BOYD/PC's and one dedicated to Ipads.

Now that we have both Apple TV and Ipads on the same VLAN they are networking with much less interference.

Not too sure what bandwidth management is on em, but using the procurve it may be possible to give your Apple TV/Ipad Vlan precedence over the other VLAN'(s) enabling you to finally download those apps.
 
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