1:1 wireless setup

[mrbios]

If we go down the 1:1 device route we could potentially end up with an additional 1000+ devices on our wireless over the current 500 that are on it.

 

Is there any need to worry about the size of the vlan for this? Should I be looking at the possibility of segregating the wireless in some way? Our site is split into 4 main buildings, so i could make a wireless vlan per building similar to how we do it for desktops? Though I'm assuming hand off from one AP to another wouldn't like that? So maybe do it based on users in some way? Do i need to worry about this at all?

[HTCPCP]

For us, we have 2 VLANs for the wifi - the curriculum VLAN which can host up to 500 devices - for staff devices and laptops etc. Then we have the public VLAN which has over 4000 addresses available to it.

 

The main things to think about a 1:1 scheme that we picked up are:

 

- Bandwidth - We have really struggled with our internet connection here, bouncing off the top limit

- Where the use is going to be - We found areas where we thought there would be more than adequate coverage, struggle where you had too many devices connecting which caused issues

- What you want to do with it - We have our student devices on one VLAN, segregated from our network, and was something we realised that we should have done right from the start. Also had the advantage of meaning we didn't have to enter any proxy settings etc.

- The APs themselves. Really advise you to make sure you have a good managed wifi connection. Makes your life so much easier. We went for Meraki, and made sure we got someone in to survey the site for us. Made our job a lot easier. We have 38 APs spread around the site, mostly with high use, with some extras put in to ensure total coverage even if the demands aren't there, just stops complaints!

[Wave9_Stuart]

Hi Mr Bios,

 

Hope you are well.

 

The company I work for have supported schools and Academy's considering rolling out a 1:1 solutions. If you would like to bounce some idea's around dropped me a PM as I'm sure we could help and support you with some of our experiences of delivering this kind of solution.

[geezersoft]

General rule of thumb for any ip v4 subnet is no more than 500 devices in a broadcast domain.

 

You could separate out year groups onto dedicated vlans. That may have benefits for firewall / webfilter rules.

[Meldrew]

If you are going down the ipad route, you will need to take into account bonjour traffic. From memory over 1000 iOS devices (as a rule of thumb) causes serious broadcast traffic unless you are splitting your network into separate VLANS to keep the broadcast traffic under control. The 500 above sounds like a good idea to me.