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- [Instructor] In this
segment, we're gonna take

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a closer look at wireless heat maps

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and why they're so important.

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Now, to do this, we're
gonna use a demo site

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that's been stood up by SolarWinds.

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So here we are at the
SolarWinds demo site.

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There's a number of dashboards
that you can look at

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that reflect what their
various products do.

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We're gonna go over to
the network dashboard

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because that's where the
wireless networking is shown.

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And I'm just gonna
scroll down a little bit.

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And there are my wireless heat maps,

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a heat map of the first
floor that's named as good,

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the second floor, mediocre,
the third floor, poor,

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and of headquarters.

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Now, you can see it also tells
me how many access points

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I have, how many clients, and
when it was last generated.

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So let's take a look at both
the first floor that's good,

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and then we'll look at the
third floor that's poor.

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And as you're looking at this,
think about how easy it is

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to recognize, you know, the
service that you're providing,

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that the access points
are providing, you know,

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areas that could be improved,

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areas that need to be
remediated, you know,

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how you're providing the
appropriate level of coverage,

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you know, to both users
and to conference rooms.

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And then imagine if you
didn't do this visually,

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what it would look like if it was perhaps

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in a spreadsheet or database,

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how you wouldn't be able to
have that immediate response,

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that immediate understanding
of how you should respond,

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what you need to do.

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So let's first look at the
first floor that's good.

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It's gonna look for those access points.

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We had five access points
there, and here we go.

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We have the overlay over the floor plan.

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Each of these icons represent
an active wireless client

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at the time that the map was drawn.

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Little green dots are going
to be my access points

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and telling me if my
access points were up.

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So I get this quick view
of where are the clients

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and where are the access points.

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But more importantly,

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I get a view of the
wireless signal strength,

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starting with kind of the reddish

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telling me that's really good.

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Going into orange, going to
yellow, light blue, blue, white,

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kind of degradating, that
wireless signal strength

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is degradating as I go
down that color chart.

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So again, I look at this

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and I don't have any white
or blue or light blue.

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That's pretty awesome.

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I can see that I've got
some really strong orange,

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you know, or the dark
orange or red, you know,

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getting into the lighter orange
and into yellow, you know.

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But then I can also notice
that even though this is good,

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I've got some conference rooms over here

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on the left hand side
that may have a number

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of people who wanna be using
wireless and it's good,

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but perhaps it could be better.

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Maybe I just need to pop
an access point somewhere

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over here where the conference rooms are.

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Again, I can see where the
usage is and how we're doing.

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That's awesome.

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Let's do a comparison now to a
floor that has poor coverage.

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So I'm just coming back to my dashboard.

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We're gonna choose third floor, poor.

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So only three access points on that floor.

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And wow, what a difference, right?

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The white is telling me that
we've got really poor coverage

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and, yeah, I've got users in those areas.

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The blue and the light
blue, not so good, right?

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Areas of yellow and orange,

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and then the darker orange or red.

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I only have three wireless access points.

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I can see exactly where
they are, you know,

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and I can see whole areas
that's missing coverage

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even though I have users that are there.

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So right away I get a sense

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of where I'm missing an access point,

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where maybe I wanna move an access point,

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or maybe I'm surprised that, you know,

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that the signal is actually pretty weak

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even around some of the access points,

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and maybe that's indicative of a problem

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with the access point itself.

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So I can't stress enough the
importance of heat maps, right?

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You quickly look at this map

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and you understand what the problems are,

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you recognize the problems,
and you get that quick sense

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of what you need to do to
remediate or to improve.

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You know, one of the nice things

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about in the SolarWinds site is

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that you can actually
download their programs

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for I believe it's a
30-day eval, a free trial,

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and just start building your
own and see what it looks like

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and get a sense for how
important heat maps are.

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Now, whether they're
SolarWinds or any other vendor,

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I'm not pushing a particular vendor,

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but I think trying this
out in your environment,

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really important, and I guarantee
once you've got heat maps

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going in your wireless environment,

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you will never be able
to live without them.

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And that, my friends,

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is a closer look at wireless heat maps.