Users Guide

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.)
5. In the Profile Details pane, select Band Steering to enable this feature, or uncheck the Band Steering
checkbox to disable this feature.
6. Once band steering is enabled, click the steering mode drop-down list and select the desired steering
mode.
7. Click Apply.
In the CLI
Use the following commands to enable band steering via the command-line interface.
(host)(config) #wlan virtual-ap <profile> band-steering
(host)(config) #wlan virtual-ap <profile> steering-mode
Dell Networking W-Series ArubaOS 6.4.x | User Guide Adaptive Radio Management | 526