RRM helps in providing seamless wireless connectivity to end users or clients and provides a real-time RF management of a wireless network. RRM enables switches to continuously monitor their associated APs for the following information:

• Traffic load—The total bandwidth used for transmitting and receiving traffic. It enables wireless LAN managers to track and plan network growth ahead of the client demand.

• Interference—The amount of traffic coming from other 802.11 sources.

• Noise—The amount of non-802.11 traffic that is interfering with the currently assigned channel.

• Coverage—The Received Signal Strength (RSSI) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for all the connected clients.

RRM performs the following functions to provide the best RF quality of wireless access to end users:

• RF Grouping

• Transmit Power control (TPC)

• Dynamic channel assignment (DCA)

• Coverage hole detection mitigation (CHDM)

The following figure is used is to explain a converged access topology and for referencing configuration examples. It represents a typical converged access deployment scenario which covers most use cases. The Mobility Controller is found at the top of the diagram and is set up in as a stack for redundancy purposes. The switch stack connects to eight Mobility Agents which service the wireless clients. The eight Mobility Agents are divided equally into two different Switch Peer Groups (SPG). The entire setup belongs to a single mobility sub-domain. The access points connect directly to Mobility Agents, thus terminating CAPWAP tunnels on the Mobility Agents.

Figure 1. Converged Access Topology

We recommend you to enable the wireless AP features because it helps in providing seamless roaming and connectivity.

802.11ac provides enterprise networks with reliability and superior performance by supporting up to three spatial streams and 80-MHz-wide channels for a maximum data rate of 1.3 Gbps.

11ac feature allows companies to grow their network bandwidth dynamically for pervasive coverage or spot coverage, based on the high bandwidth demands of their user base, for example, in areas of high user congregation, such as libraries, cafeterias, and auditoriums. Companies have full control for how, where, and when to expand their wireless network.

11ac allows the bonding of 20–MHz channels into an 80–MHz–wide channel for 802.11ac usage and all clients must support 80–MHz. We recommend that you have 80–MHz–wide channel bandwidth set to utilize the 802.11ac functionality.

You must carefully plan the process to disable or enable data rates. If your coverage is sufficient, you can incrementally disable lower data rates one by one. Management frames such as ACK or beacons will be sent at the lowest mandatory rate (typically 1 Mbps), which slows down the entire throughput (the lowest mandatory rate consumes the most airtime).

We recommend that you do not have too many supported data rates so that clients can downshift their rate faster when re-transmitting. Typically, clients try to send at the fastest data rate they can, and if the frame does not make it through, they retransmit at the next lowest data rate, and so on until the frame goes through. The removal of some supported rates means that clients who retransmit a frame directly, downshift several data rates, which increases a frame's chance to go through at the second attempt.

• If your design does not require low data rates, consider disabling the 802.11b data rates (1, 2, 5.5, and 11) and leave the rest enabled.

• You by make a conscious decision to not disable rates below 11 Mbps in order to not stop the support of 802.11b-only clients.

Note	The following example should not be used as a strict guideline for every design. Note that these changes are sensitive and dependent on your RF coverage design. Conversely, if you are designing for a high-speed network that already has good RF coverage, disable the lowest data rate.

The following example shows how to disable low data rates (5 GHz and 2.4 GHz):

 Device(config)# ap dot11 5ghz shutdown 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 5ghz dot11n 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 5ghz rate RATE_6M disable 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 5ghz rate RATE_9M disable 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 5ghz rate RATE_12M disable 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 5ghz rate RATE_18M disable 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 5ghz rate RATE_24M mandatory 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 5ghz rate RATE_36M supported 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 5ghz rate RATE_48M supported 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 5ghz rate RATE_54M supported 
 Device(config)# no ap dot11 5ghz shutdown 
 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 24ghz shutdown 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 24ghz dot11g 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 24ghz dot11n 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 24ghz rate RATE_24M mandatory 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 24ghz rate RATE_1M disable 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 24ghz rate RATE_2M disable 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 24ghz rate RATE_5_5M disable 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 24ghz rate RATE_6M disable 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 24ghz rate RATE_9M disable 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 24ghz rate RATE_11M disable 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 24ghz rate RATE_12M supported 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 24ghz rate RATE_18M supported 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 24ghz rate RATE_36M supported 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 24ghz rate RATE_48M supported 
 Device(config)# ap dot11 24ghz rate RATE_54M supported 
 Device(config)# no ap dot11 24ghz shutdown