Performance Indicators in a 802.11 WLAN Deployment

Organizations and Institutions across the world are increasingly deploying 802.11 based WLAN (in short Wi-Fi) to have mobility benefits in their operations. However, due to the nature of 802.11 technology, there are more number of challenges for an administrator in ensuring the optimum performance levels for the deployed WLAN compared to a wired network. Degraded performance leads to connectivity problems and low data throughput for wireless clients using the Wi-Fi network. In the presented work, we have identified a set of indicators whose values at any point of time signals a possible degradation in WLAN performance. Each of the identified indicators is explained and the behavior of same is illustrated using an example with respect to presence or absence of performance anomalies in a WLAN deployment.