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Written by Devin Akin

Thursday, 02 July 2009

I'm speaking of Paul DeBeasi. He's a serious analyst, and he's serious about Wi-Fi. He and I usually see things in the same light, and I love working with him. He's written a SMOKIN whitepaper that everyone in Wi-Fi - young and old, newbie and rockstar - should read. Just get some hot chocolate, sit by the fire (or air conditioner), and read it. Here's a link:

http://cwnp.com/demystifyingRadio.html

It covers SCA vs. MCA architectural differences, Air Time Fairness (ATF), all of the types of Beamforming, and lots more. He spent a number of weeks on this whitepaper, and his hard work shows. Reading it is time well-spent.

Radio Management is the biggest of deals, and the landscape is constantly changing. Just this week I was on a call with Aruba about their enhancements in 3.4 code. Holy smokes batman...their new features are enough to make Wi-Fi admins need adult diapers. Band Steering, Spectrum Load Balancing, Multicast Rate Optimization, Statistical Coordinated Channel Access, Channel Reuse. I think they've taken plays from just about every playbook in the market. I can't wait to see all of this in action. Will we see Cisco's marketshare diminish with all of this innovation going on? Who knows...but if they don't start innovating like Aruba, Meru, Aerohive, Trapeze and some notable others, 60% could become 50% faster than you think.

I've always said that Radio Management is like Layer-1 QoS: without handling the RF layer well, your Layer-2 and Layer-3 QoS will never, "be all they can be." Kudos to Paul for a job well done.

Follow me at www.twitter.com/DevinAkin

Comments (9) Add Comment

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written by GT Hill, July 02, 2009

So far... only one comment. I signed up to download the paper (no complaints there) but it makes me put in an annual revenue for my company. The lowest option was something like $1,000,000 - 10,000,000. I'm not quite there yet. :)

In all seriousness, I really look forward to reading the paper!

GT

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written by Keith R. Parsons, July 02, 2009

Just in the 'wait for approval' mode...

I look forward to reading another of Paul's analysis papers.

waiting... waiting... waiting... Burton Group - do you want us to read this? waiting... waiting...

I'm feeling like the last kid picked for kickball again ;-)

OK, my credentials just arrived - weee - I can now go check out the paper.

Back now - You have GOT TO go and get this.

Paul - you rock!

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written by Low Profile, July 03, 2009

You both did a GREAT job as he also credits you :

Acknowledgment
The author would like to gratefully acknowledge the significant contribution of Devin Akin, Chief Technology
Officer at Certified Wireless Network Professional (www.cwnp.com). Devin provided meticulous review and
extensive comments on this overview. His attention to detail and enthusiasm were exceptional.

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written by Mr. Seldomspeak, July 04, 2009

Very interesting article although I think he should he called it 'Why I think SCA is better than MCA'. Not saying I agree or disagree either way, or even that I have an issue with anyone stating their opinion, but definitely the first half of the article reads like it was sponsored by a SCA vendor.

Aside from that I thoroughly enjoyed it and it now has a permanent place in my wireless library.

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written by Devin Akin, July 04, 2009

I think I can speak for Paul and me when I say that we believe that neither MCA nor SCA is better in all cases. What I'm looking forward to is seeing when the best parts of MCA and SCA live in a single system! :)

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written by Low Profile, July 05, 2009

Here here, a hybrid blend is a good idea. You should write a paper on it called------ "Mad MAC beyond Channel Roam". I won't quit my day job. :-)!

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written by Curious, July 15, 2009

Thing is, I've seen people refer to SCA (single channel architecture) not as really being about being single channel (more importantly, single BSSID), but using the term to refer to any sort of infrastructure client control. I don't equate SCA to infrastructure client control.....so thus those features like band-steering, spectrum load balancing, etc really have nothing to do with SCA. I'm curious why the constant comparison (especially in your Hybrid Channel blog posting) to SCA with these features.

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written by Devin Akin, July 15, 2009

Well, I think the reason for the constant comparisons is that vendors go round-and-round over 'who's best.' SCA vs. MCA equates to a religious or political discussion - very polarizing. Aruba has even written a very large whitepaper attacking SCA. You're right about many things getting wrapped up into the SCA moniker, but all-in-all, it's designing the network purposefully to use a single channel that gives SCA its name. Virtual BSSIDs are an additional benefit that doesn't have to be deployed over the single channel.

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written by Mikael R., July 20, 2009

All in all a decent technical article. Though a product or tech should not be called out as "niche" without any legitimate backing. Just because they don't have the same market share as Cisco (I doubt most ever will), is not grounds for saying the tech and vendor will "always be a niche product". SCA has yet to be called out for any real negatives from what I've seen so far. The same cannot be said for MCA. Conclusions could have been worded better. I was left finding myself wanting for a fully backed conclusion. Nothing definitive seemed to come from the findings of the comparison or that there was a fear of putting down MCA since "95% of the market has deployed it". Curious that so many faults were found with MCA, little to none with SCA, but that SCA "will always be a niche product"?!?!? WHAT?!

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