Client Roaming Analytics
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Overview
Wireless roaming is a feature that allows you to maintain connectivity to the network as you move from one place to another. This technology allows your device to switch between different wireless networks, ensuring that you stay connected even if you're not in one place for an extended period of time.
Learn more with these free online training courses on the Meraki Learning Hub:
Roaming behavior is often complex and difficult to troubleshoot. More often than not, users are forced to rely on timelines or connection logs, manually filtering and tracking entries for the client device(s) they’re interested in. This is what the current interaction might look like on the timeline:
With the introduction of Roaming Analytics, Meraki Health transforms a static log of network events into a highly engaging, interactive, visualization of roaming behavior. Roaming analytics require a minimum firmware version of MR 29.4. Access point firmware updates can be scheduled on the General Configuration page under the "Firmware upgrades" section. For more information, see: Managing Firmware Upgrades.
Features
Available as a new tab for all wireless clients, Roaming Analytics offers a variety of features designed to make troubleshooting roaming events easier than ever.
Event Categories
Using the time range selector, users can visualize roaming events during the last 6 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, or last week. All roaming events during the selected period are automatically categorized into five event types. When hovering over event type tiles, the following descriptions are displayed:
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Bad roams
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any roam where the roam time is >= 3000ms (3 seconds); or
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any roam where the RSSI on the arriving AP is >10dBm worse than the originating AP
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Suboptimal roams
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any roam where the roam time is between 250ms and 3s; or
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any roam where the RSSI on the arriving AP is 6-10dBm worse than the originating AP
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Good roams
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Any roam where the roam time is <250ms and RSSI is better or no worse than 5 dBm than the originating AP
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Ping pong clients
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Any roam where the client is only roaming between two APs; and
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A minimum of four roams occur between these two APs; and
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Roams are, at most, 10 seconds apart
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Sticky clients
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Any client where its current SNR is <15 dB while there is an alternative at least 10 dB better; and
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The transmit (Tx) power of the alternative is within 5 dBm of the current connection; and
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The above is true for at least 10 minutes
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Client disconnects
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Client device left the network, and no roaming behavior was detected
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Roaming Events Timeline
All roaming behavior during the selected time period is presented as a chronological ribbon of roaming events. Each event is color-coordinated to its event category. By dragging the blue range selector, users can visualize the specific times or events that are most relevant to them. As the range selector moves, the below visual automatically adjusts to display roaming events during that time period.
When hovering over specific roaming events, users are presented with a popover that details that particular event: date, time, APs, bands, RSSI, roaming protocol, and roam time.
Note that at any point in time, users are able to use their cursor to “zoom” into the timeline from a 1-hour interval to 2-minutes, by clicking on an event in the timeline.
The Roaming Event Timeline captures roaming events when there is an AP to AP handoff, indicating a roam from one AP to another. Certain SSID security types such as; Open SSID, VPN tunnel to concentrator, Ethernet over GRE mode, Open + Splash, or when CoA is enabled will result in a series of disconnection and connection events instead of the roaming events seen for other SSID types.
Roaming Event Log
In addition to the visualized events, the user is presented with a log of all roaming activity for the client device. Note the blue focus state indicator. This indicator tracks the position of your cursor in the visualization to intelligently draw your attention to the corresponding event in the table. This also works in reverse; your cursor position in the table will intelligently focus the visualization.
The combination of an event log with visualization, along with intelligent focusing, presents roaming events in context. This enables users to quickly determine whether their roaming issues are isolated or will require additional troubleshooting.
