Example for Configuring Static Load Balancing
Service Requirements
Enterprise users can access the network through WLANs, which is the basic requirement of mobile office. The enterprises also need to prevent one AP radio from being heavily loaded. Furthermore, users' services are not affected during roaming in the coverage area.
As shown in Figure 5-59, before load balancing is configured, 30 users are connected to AP area_1, and 10 users are connected to AP area_2.
Networking Requirements
- AP area_1 and AP area_2 are managed by the same AC.
- STAs can detect SSIDs of both the APs.
Data Planning
Item |
Data |
|---|---|
Static load balancing group |
|
Configuration Roadmap
Configure static load balancing based on the number of users to prevent one AP from being heavily loaded.
Configuration Notes
- Load balancing takes effect during the STA association stage. In scenarios with complex user service types and unstable traffic, loads cannot be balanced as expected. In this case, load balancing based on the channel utilization is not recommended.
- If dual-band APs are used, traffic is load balanced among APs working on the same frequency band.
- Each load balancing group supports a maximum of 16 AP radios.
- Under the agile distributed network architecture composed of the central AP and RUs, you only need to add radios of the RUs to a static load balancing group.
- No ACK mechanism is provided for multicast packet transmission on air interfaces. In addition, wireless links are unstable. To ensure stable transmission of multicast packets, they are usually sent at low rates. If a large number of such multicast packets are sent from the network side, the air interfaces may be congested. You are advised to configure multicast packet suppression to reduce impact of a large number of low-rate multicast packets on the wireless network. Exercise caution when configuring the rate limit; otherwise, the multicast services may be affected.
- In direct forwarding mode, you are advised to configure multicast packet suppression on switch interfaces connected to APs.
- In tunnel forwarding mode, you are advised to configure multicast packet suppression in traffic profiles of the AC.
Configure port isolation on the interfaces of the device directly connected to APs. If port isolation is not configured and direct forwarding is used, a large number of unnecessary broadcast packets may be generated in the VLAN, blocking the network and degrading user experience.
In tunnel forwarding mode, the management VLAN and service VLAN cannot be the same. Only packets from the management VLAN are transmitted between the AC and APs. Packets from the service VLAN are not allowed between the AC and APs.
Procedure
- Configure static load balancing.
- Create the static load balancing group wlan-static and set the start threshold for static load balancing to 10 and load difference threshold to 5%.
# Choose . The Static Load Balancing Group page is displayed.
# Click Create. On the page that is displayed, enter the profile name wlan-static, and set the start threshold for static load balancing to 10 and load difference threshold to 5%. Add AP area_1 and AP area_2 to the static load balancing group.
# Click OK.
- Create the static load balancing group wlan-static and set the start threshold for static load balancing to 10 and load difference threshold to 5%.
- Verify the configuration.
- Choose . The number of STAs on different APs is displayed under User Statistics List by AP.
- When a new STA requests to connect to AP area_1, the AC uses a static load balancing algorithm to redirect the STA to the AP area_2 with a light load based on the configured load balancing group.
