Users Guide

Table Of Contents
466| Adaptive Radio Management Dell Networking W-Series ArubaOS 6.5.x| User Guide
detects an acceptable RSSI value from an 5GHz AP radio, and the signal from the 5Ghz radio is not significantly
weaker than the RSSI from the 2.4GHz radio.
This feature also takes into account the current load on each radio of a dual-band AP. The band steering
feature will not steer more clients to 5G on that AP if there are many clients associated to the AP, and
significantly more 802.11a clients than 80211g clients.
The band steering feature supports both campus APs and remote APs that have a virtual AP profile set to
tunnel, split-tunnel, or bridge forwarding mode. Note, however, that if a campus or remote AP has virtual AP
profiles configured in bridge or split-tunnel forwarding mode but no virtual AP in tunnel mode, those APs will
gather information about 5G-capable clients independently and will not exchange this information with other
APs that also have bridge or split-tunnel virtual APs only. The band steering feature will not proactively
disconnect clients that are already associated with a radio. All band steering occurs when a client is trying to
associate to a new AP radio.
Best practices are to use either the Band Steering or the Client Match feature to balance client loads, but not both at
the same time.
Steering Modes
Band steering supports the following three different band steering modes:
l Prefer-5GHz (Default): If you configure the AP to use prefer-5GHz band steering mode, the AP will not
respond to 2.4 Ghz probe requests from a client if all the following conditions are met.
n The client has already probed the AP on the 5Ghz band and therefore is known to be capable of sending
probes on the 5Ghz band.
n The client is not currently associated on the 2.4Ghz radio to this AP.
n The client has sent fewer than 8 probes in the last 10 seconds. If the client has sent more than 8 probes
in the last 10 seconds, the client will be able to connect using whatever band it prefers
l Force-5GHz: When the AP is configured in force-5GHz band steering mode, the AP will not respond to 2.4
Ghz probe requests from a client if all the following conditions are met.
n The client has already probed the AP on the 5Ghz band and therefore is known to be capable of sending
probes on the 5Ghz band.
n The client is not currently associated on the 2.4Ghz radio of this AP.
l Balance-bands: In this band steering mode, the AP uses client load and RSSI information balance the
clients across the two radios and best use the available 2.4G bandwidth. This feature takes into account the
fact that the 5Ghz band has more channels than the 2.4 Ghz band, and that the 5Ghz channels operate in
40MHz while the 2.4Ghz band operates in 20MHz.
Enabling Band Steering
Band steering is configured in a virtual AP profile. Use the following procedures to enable or disable Band
Steering using the WebUI or command-line interfaces.
In the WebUI
1. Select Configuration > Advanced Services > All Profiles. The All Profile Management window opens.
2. Select Wireless LAN to expand the Wireless LAN section.
3. Select Virtual AP profile to expand the Virtual AP Profile section.
4. Select the name of the Virtual AP profile for which you want to enable band steering.
(To create a new virtual AP profile, enter a name for a new profile in the Profile Details window, then click
Add. The new profile will appear in the Profiles list. Select that profile to open the Profile Details pane.)