User Guide

Wi-Fi Array

Configuring the Wi-Fi Array 263

15. Load Balancing:

The Xirrus Wi-Fi Array supports an automatic load balancing feature

designed to distribute Wi-Fi stations across multiple radios rather than

having stations associate to the closest radios with the strongest signal

strength, as they normally would. In Wi-Fi networks, the station decides

to which radio it will associate. The Array cannot actually force load

balancing, however the Array can “encourage” stations to associate in a

more uniform fashion across all of the radios of the Array. This option

enables or disables active load balancing between the Array IAPs. For an

in-depth discussion, see the Xirrus Station Load Balancing Application Note

in the Xirrus Library

Choose On to enable Standard Load Balancing. If the Array decides that

an IAP is overloaded, that IAP will not respond immediately to a client’s

Probe request. After a few seconds, if the client has still not associated the

IAP will respond, assuming that this client is determined to associate to

the overloaded IAP. Overloaded IAPs will always respond to Association

and Authentication requests.

If you select Aggressive Load Balancing and an IAP is overloaded, that

IAP will never respond to Probe, Association, or Authentication requests.

This mode is useful because it prevents determined clients from forcing

their way onto overloaded IAPs. Note that some clients are so determined

to associate to a particular IAP that they will not try to associate to

another IAP, and thus they never get on the network.

Choose Off to disable load balancing.

16. ARP Filtering: Address Resolution Protocol finds the MAC address of a

device with a given IP address by sending out a broadcast message

requesting this information. ARP filtering allows you to reduce the

proliferation of ARP messages by restricting how they are forwarded

across the network.

You may select the following options for handling ARP requests:

• Off: ARP filtering is disabled. ARP requests are broadcast to stations.

This is the default value.