Load Balancing

Load balancing is vital to performance

What we mean by load balancing - in layman’s terms – is if a particular Access Point is under pressure it is crucial for performance that the excess laptops be moved to an AP that is not doing any work.

First generation systems cannot do this because in a 1st generation system each access point is “dumb” ie: unaware of the existence and location of the other access points within the network. This is because there is no central control of the network and the configuration is held on each individual access point. A 1st Generation system relies on a small, free piece of software which comes built into Windows XP called the “Windows Zero Client” to make a decision as to which access point to connect to. This is a fundamental flaw in 1st Generation Wireless, as the windows zero client will try to connect to the closest AP every time.

2nd generation, being a far superior technology, has the ability to realise when an AP is under pressure and is able to move connections away from the under pressure Access Point to another AP which is close by, in spite of the windows zero client trying to connect to the closest point.