TheDevopsGuy
Posts: 681 +195
What are Wireless Mesh Networks?
Wireless Mesh networks are networks which consist of wireless nodes connected together in a mesh topology layout. This can either be setup in a partial mesh topology, where not all the nodes are connected with all the neighbors and also in full mesh, where all the nodes are connected to all the neighbors. The standard which specifies the creation and development of wireless mesh networks developed by IEEE is known as the 802.11s amendment, this is an extension to the IEEE 802.11 amendment which is the standard for wireless networking.
Why should you use Wireless Mesh Networks?(As depicted by literature)
Wireless Mesh Networks(WMN) provide wireless scalable solutions, cheap deployments and reliable network connectivity.
So after all the rambling. Why should you even consider deploying a Wireless Mesh Network and where shouldn't you?
Where should you deploy WMN's
Where you shouldn't
Performance degradation inside a Wireless Mesh Network is too impactful. With every mesh hop you introduce a 50% Bandwidth degradation or higher is expected. Unless you really require the need of 100% connectivity the network is simply overkill and is killing most of the bandwidth per Access Point.
Conclusion
Wireless Mesh Networks is a very reliable network with low roaming latency and self healing techniques which provides great uptime and device connectivity reliability which can also be deployed cheap. Although the above is true this could not be deployed without any limitations. As discussed bandwidth degradation is one if not the most important issue inside a WMN.
Thread still in progress might've missed something.
Wireless Mesh networks are networks which consist of wireless nodes connected together in a mesh topology layout. This can either be setup in a partial mesh topology, where not all the nodes are connected with all the neighbors and also in full mesh, where all the nodes are connected to all the neighbors. The standard which specifies the creation and development of wireless mesh networks developed by IEEE is known as the 802.11s amendment, this is an extension to the IEEE 802.11 amendment which is the standard for wireless networking.
Why should you use Wireless Mesh Networks?(As depicted by literature)
Wireless Mesh Networks(WMN) provide wireless scalable solutions, cheap deployments and reliable network connectivity.
- The network scales extremely easily as to further expand the network a new access point also known as a MAP(Mesh Access Point) can be added to the mesh network by forming a mesh neighborship through a WDS backhaul.
- Why is it cheap? Any protocol compatible AP can be used inside the mesh network.(It should be noted that most mesh systems are running non 802.11s(Vendor Specific Protocols such as Microtiks HWMP+) specific amendment protocols thus unless you're using the open source 802.11s stack you're stuck by a vendor specific eco-system). Also, less cabling means less capital used and easier installations.
- Reliable Network Connectivity-Mesh Networks advertise roaming latency of between 1 packet lost and less.
- Real time protocols such as a Storage Attached Network Shares and VoIP are feasible solutions inside WMN due to its low latency during roaming you can expect next to no downtime. Also the protocol incorporates self-healing techniques which routes the traffic to arrive to its destination (the Mesh Gateway) through a functional path and amends broken links on its own.
- Although Mesh Networks are said to be scalable a 54% performance degradation in bandwidth was noted after 1 Mesh hop distance from the Mesh Gateway(The AP which is bridging the wireless mesh network to the Modem). After 2 Mesh hops 76% performance degradation was noted.
- Careful planning and deployment of a WMN should be done beforehand. The network is highly reliant on the interconnection and the data rates which are exchanged between AP's. Also when we factor that most Wireless Mesh protocols mandate the use of the same Wireless Channel on a particular wireless band (2.4GHz or 5GHz) it is simply harder to control interference between the AP's inside the network. This would result in a poor performing network.
- Different Network Cards with different drivers were not performing correct mesh roaming. A wireless adapter which is 802.11 certified on windows was fully functional whereas when the same device was used on Linux with two separate drivers one was fully functional whereas one of the drivers was completely incompatible.
So after all the rambling. Why should you even consider deploying a Wireless Mesh Network and where shouldn't you?
Where should you deploy WMN's
- Businesses with RTP protocol requirements and Wireless connectivity uptime SLA's
- Metropolitan Areas
- Schools
- Home networks ONLY if you have a Network Attached Storage or a Storage Attached Network.
Where you shouldn't
- Home networks
Performance degradation inside a Wireless Mesh Network is too impactful. With every mesh hop you introduce a 50% Bandwidth degradation or higher is expected. Unless you really require the need of 100% connectivity the network is simply overkill and is killing most of the bandwidth per Access Point.
- Note All the above is Considering a purely Wireless Based Mesh Network. Solutions for the bandwidth issue can be solved by connecting further nodes away with an uplink and the issue would be somewhat mitigated.
Conclusion
Wireless Mesh Networks is a very reliable network with low roaming latency and self healing techniques which provides great uptime and device connectivity reliability which can also be deployed cheap. Although the above is true this could not be deployed without any limitations. As discussed bandwidth degradation is one if not the most important issue inside a WMN.
Thread still in progress might've missed something.
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