Network- and Client-Facing WLAN Management

StableNet^® Use Case – Performance & Service

Discovery &
Inventory

Network Configuration & Change

Fault Management &
Root Cause Analysis

Performance &
Service

Network- and Client-Facing WLAN Management: A holistic, automated approach to getting the most out of your multi-vendor wireless infrastructure

Put an end to unstable Wi-Fi connections and resource-intensive troubleshooting and start using reliable measurements and automated discovery for comprehensive monitoring.

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Background & Motivation

There is no doubt that your healthy, thriving business is a cause for celebration. But as your success grows, so too does the complexity of your wireless network – new devices, access points, switches and clients are added every week. Given the sheer number of cross-technology devices and manufacturers with different configurations (and user interfaces!), the network uptime and management workflow can vary significantly. Delays and unstable connections can massively limit the work in your company and, in the worst of cases, shut it down entirely through network failures. Network troubleshooting, extensive data collection and manual monitoring of this complex network structure costs resources that you don’t have.

The StableNet^® network and service management platform offers you an automated and reliable discovery with which you can manage your network efficiently. With access to extensive measurement data and information, it is possible to take the performance of your Wi-Fi network monitoring to a new level. To manage this, we have already opened up the possibility of client-facing measurements of your network based on the StableNet^® Embedded Agents (SNEAs). They collect data on Wi-Fi performance from a user perspective, such as the connection to networks and the stability and success of common user operations. Client-facing measurements such as these are a critical component to a holistic management tool. Equally important, however, is the discovery and performance of your network infrastructure, especially your access points and access controller.

Fig. 1: Illustration of the workflow for network- and client-facing WLAN management

StableNet^® Solution

Automated network-facing discovery ensures that you have efficient processes in place to monitor and manage your infrastructure. With StableNet^®, WLAN controller scripts make it possible to get information about the Wi-Fi network, such as connected Access Points and clients, in addition to the data from the aforementioned SNEA solution. Taken together, both Wi-Fi measurements provide reliable troubleshooting of connectivity issues, with the scripts focusing on the physical side and the SNEAs focusing on the service and its quality.

The StableNet^® WLAN controller scripts enables you to discover WLAN access point networks from multiple vendors and to integrate them into StableNet^®. The scripts designed for this purpose use the SNMP protocol to extend the discovery functionality by not only retrieving information about the WLAN controller but also all access points connected to it. Using the connectivity information detected during discovery, the network structure can then be visualized in StableNet^®. The scripts not only update you about the functioning of your Wi-Fi network, but also regularly provide the measurements with current measurement data by querying the controllers. Network-facing discovery makes it easier to manage and integrate new devices into the network and enables reliable troubleshooting.

Benefits & Results

Discovery is one of the key pillars of StableNet^®, and is a cornerstone for the efficient design and management of your network resources and structures. With the network-facing discovery of StableNet^® WLAN Controller Scripts, it is now possible to radically improve the performance of your Wi-Fi network through the use of technically sound information derived from regular measurements. Complementary to the already existing StableNet^® Wi-Fi Portal, both solutions open up the possibility of easy management and optimization of your wireless network. These Wi-Fi measurements finally put an end to tedious troubleshooting and time-consuming network management and instead enable reliable and accurate monitoring through a variety of measurement data about the access points. It’s time to get the most out of your Wi-Fi performance…it’s time to get StableNet^®.