AirMatch

Running within HPE Aruba Networking Central, AirMatch has the duty of computing an optimal radio frequency (RF) network resource allocation. AirMatch runs on a 24 hour cycle, first collecting RF network statistics and then developing an optimized RF network plan, which specifies channel, bandwidth, and EIRP settings for each radio, that is deployed once every cycle. As a best practice, the RF plan change should be deployed at the time of lowest network utilization so that radio channel changes have a minimal impact on user experience. In addition to the planning done every 24 hours, AirMatch also reacts to dynamic changes in the RF environment such as channel quality, radar, and high noise events. AirMatch results in a stable network experience with greatly minimized channel and EIRP variations. AirMatch is defined by the following key attributes:

• A centralized RF optimization service
• Newly defined information collection and configuration deployment paths
• Models the network into partitions and then solves the different partitions as a whole
• Results in optimal channel selection, bandwidth size, radio operating band (for Flex Dual Radio APs), and EIRP plan for the network

If the link between the access points and Central goes down, then features which require the coordination of Central, such as scheduled updates for RF optimization, will be lost. The current RF solution will continue to function and reactive changes resulting from high noise events and radar will still occur.

AirMatch Workflow

The AirMatch workflow occurs using the following steps:

• APs send RF statistics to Central
• The AirMatch service in Central calculates the optimal RF solution
  • AirMatch divides the network into separate partitions
  • AirMatch then calculates the optimal channel plan for each partition
  • AirMatch evaluates if the new channel plan for this partition is a sufficient improvement or not
  • If sufficiently improved, AirMatch pushes the solution to the access points at the scheduled time
• Provides neighboring APs list to the Key Management Service
• Provides AP partition information to the Live Upgrade Service

AirMatch Configuration

AirMatch was developed to operate with no user input, but instead based on readings taken from the RF network, and as such offers very little in terms of configuration. Constraining the parameters used to help fine tune the behavior is possible, but AirMatch should function correctly without any additional or specific configuration in most cases. Please consult the AOS 10 configuration guide to find this information.

Wireless Coverage Tuning

By default, the wireless coverage tuning is set to Balanced. This can be adjusted so that a channel plan improvement quality threshold which ranges from 0% (aggressive) to 16% (conservative) can be configured. By default, the Balanced setting represents 8% quality threshold improvement.

To determine the channel plan improvement index, the average radio conflict metric is computed. For each radio of an AP, channels that overlap with neighbors are calculated and path-loss is used to calculate a weighted conflict value. The closer the AP with the overlapping channels, the lower the path-loss and consequently, the higher the conflict. After AirMatch comes up with a new channel plan, the conflict value is compared with the current operating network and an improvement percentage is calculated. If the improvement percentage is higher than or equal to the configured quality threshold (8% by default), then the new channel plan is deployed to the AP at the scheduled time as configured.

Channel Quality Aware AirMatch

Channel quality, which is represented as a percentage, is a weighted metric derived from key parameters that can affect the communication quality of a wireless channel, including noise, non-Wi-Fi (interferer) utilization and duty-cycles, and certain types of retries. Note that channel quality is not directly related to Wi-Fi channel utilization, as a higher quality channel may or may not be highly used.