Every Wi-Fi vendor talks in their marketing material about scaling up for enterprise service, but how many actually walk the walk? We found out after conducting our largest Wi-Fi test ever.

Aruba conquers challenge of Wi-Fi scalability
Every Wi-Fi vendor talks in their marketing material about scaling up for enterprise service, but how many actually walk the walk? We found out after conducting our largest Wi-Fi test ever.

How we conducted Wi-Fi scalability test
The "enterprise" in "enterprise Wi-Fi scalability" implies a larger system than a handful of access points, each supporting a few clients. Accordingly, we asked each participating vendor to supply 25 access points, at least two controllers and/or switches with enough ports for all the access points, plus power over Ethernet for the access points.

Audio: Interview with David Newman
Keith Shaw talks with Network Lab Alliance member David Newman about his recent test of wireless gear including how it was tested, who came out on top and what flaw in the 802.11 standard was found during testing.

Breaking the standards
We are used to breaking products in lab testing, but this time we broke 802.11 itself. Our tests uncovered a design flaw in the Wi-Fi protocol that affects performance testing, not just for current 802.11a/g products, but possibly in upcoming 802.11n gea

Running scared?
Everything about this Wi-Fi test was large, including the large number of vendors that declined to take part.

Picking the 'best' packet size
It's a common benchmarking practice to take multiple measurements of throughput or latency, each using a different packet size. There's no one right answer as to which packet size represents the 'best' result.

Complete test results: download Excel file
Complete test results: download Excel file at /reviews/2006/110606-wlantestresults3.xls.

Complete test-bed diagram: download Visio file
Complete test-bed diagram: download Visio file at /reviews/2006/wlan06bedv2.vsd