Why Enterprises with WiFi Automation have Better WiFi

The enterprise WiFi network is the backbone of any business. Damage it in any way and the ripple effects will be felt by every customer, employee, executive, and partner. This makes optimizing and safeguarding the entire network in real time a top priority, and for that you need next generation WiFi automation. 

What is next generation WiFi automation?

WiFi automation technologies restore time and energy to IT teams by automatically providing real time analytics for the health and performance of the network ecosystem.

Depending on the technology, these platforms will:

• Analyze the entire RF environment, which includes a company’s network, any neighboring networks sharing the airspace, and non-WiFi sources of interference
• Use artificial intelligence to recognize normal and abnormal network performance
• Run scheduled and on-demand network tests
• Proactively alert IT to any issues
• Provide root cause identification and actionable resolutions
• Automatically save historical wireless traces and capture long-term health and performance trends

How does WiFi automation complement WiFi monitoring?

Here are a few key ways that these platforms enhance network monitoring:

With these capabilities, AI-based WiFi automation protects operational efficiency, business processes, and the end user experience.

Is WiFi automation considered passive or active?

These platforms are classed as both passive and active depending on the task they are performing.

1. Passive Analytics

WiFi automation platforms automatically gather WiFi network analytics, 24/7. These analytics are used to determine what specifically needs to be done to optimize the network so that it is high-performing and reliable.

Analytics, therefore, need to accurately represent the end user experience. This means that automation solutions need to watch and listen to network traffic rather than add themselves to the traffic, changing the network’s dynamic. This watching and listening is passive. 

2. Active Testing

WiFi testing switches the platform from passive to active. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it. On the contrary, scheduled, consistent testing is one of the greatest solutions you can have in place if you care about improving your WiFi. What it does mean is that you need to implement it smartly so that you don’t detract from your passive analytics benefits.

Why is testing an active task?

Whether you are testing WiFi speed, signal strength, or other performance metrics, your testing solution will have to actively connect to the network, and receive and transmit data. It now becomes a part of your network’s traffic, rather than a passive observer.

What is the best way to test the WiFi network?

First, you want your WiFi automation platform to connect to the network as an end user device. This allows it to experience the network as one of your end users and provides your IT team with end user metrics.

Secondly, you want to run tests frequently and consistently. How frequently depends on what you are testing. You may want to run some tests as often as every 15 minutes and others only once a day. The key is to keep to a schedule once you determine what will return the most benefit.

Finally, you want your platform to automatically alert IT to any failed tests.

When you work with a platform that provides all three of these capabilities, IT always has eyes on the network, teams can resolve WiFi problems faster, and it’s easier to see where resources need to be allocated.

Can you still analyze the network while you are testing?

Yes, as long as you have a multi-radio solution in place to handle both tasks. 

• One radio monitors the 2.4GHz network
• One radio monitors the 5GHz network
• One radio connects to the network as an end user device and runs network tests

If a solution only has one or two radios, it will have to stop analyzing one or both of the frequency channels whenever tests need to be run. This results in IT missing data and analytics needed for optimization efforts.

How often should the network ecosystem be analyzed?

Network performance should be constantly analyzed because it is constantly changing. It is not only impacted by end users, but also by factors such as software updates, degrading infrastructure, and nearby networks.

Whether or not employees are onsite doesn’t matter. To gather the most complete picture of network health, IT professionals need data 24/7.

They also require instant access to data. This is why WiFi automation platforms should provide:

• Remote capable access from anytime and anyplace
• Saved historical analytics

Ready to bring WiFi automation to your enterprise?

Experience the benefits today with a free demo or trial of the AI-powered Wireless Intelligence Platform™ (WIP).

WIP is a three-radio, vendor agnostic solution that both passively analyzes the entire RF ecosystem and provides real-time, actionable insights.

Its analytics are:

• End-to-end: so that there are no network “dark spots” or mysteries
• Focused on the real end user experience
• Proactive: so that IT can take steps to resolve issues before end users are affected
• Automatic: to save companies the most time and money
• Real-time: so that performance and behavior improvements can be made in real-time
• Saved: so that administrators have access to historical analytics and can identify long-term performance and health trends

Enterprises that use WIP report:

• 90% faster Mean-Time-to-Resolution
• 80% fewer remote site visits
• 70% fewer WiFi problem tickets