I have seen the face of the wifi gods and it's name is Ekahau.
by TheRealEdwin on 21/04/09 at 4:47 pm
I’ve been in the IT field for quite a number of years. Over the years I had a saying that “Computers are less of a exact science and more of a black art.” Nothing could be more true than with setting up a WiFi network. The hours of setting it up only to find out it doesn’t work as well in certain spots really can destroy your morale. Well this year the stumbling in the dark like a Daredevil without the badass sonar vision ends. Ars Technica posted an article about Ekahau that intrigued me. I signed up and downloaded the application to try it out on my laptop. Sadly the program doesn’t work with Windows 7. So I stole my co-workers Dell M1220 running Vista to try it out. After using it for a bit I signed up for a hour long product demo from Ekahau and what I saw is invaluable. This software, I think would help anyone that has to deploy, or troubleshoot networks. First thing they have a HeatMapper program for mapping out a location. Here is a completely over the top trailer.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaosqBuU354]HeatMapper gives you two options when you turn it on. Load a jpeg of a floor plan or a blank grid that you can use. At the time we were visiting a new client so we had no way of getting the floor plans. We used each tile in this condo for a grid in HeatMapper hopping to get a rough layout of the place when we ran out of room. The two of us couldn’t even figure out how to scroll it so here is a tip; When you run out of space in the HeatMapper window, right click to stop recording data, and then scroll the window. It wasn’t intuitive to me but once a Ekahau rep told me how it works, it made more sense. Overall that day it worked pretty well. I do want to say though that if you don’t have a tablet PC or UMPC, this program will be annoying to use.
The next thing they have is a Site Survey program that does multi-story 3D mapping, planning, and all sorts of awesome stuff. The way it works is that it uses your built in wifi card on your laptop. A side note here, native support for AutoCAD files is on the road map according to the company so for now you need to export a JPEG or bitmap of your AutoCAD drawing. The difference between Site Survey and HeatMapper is that you can plan and test with more variables and GPS. Multi-story buildings are also supported unlike in the free HeatMapper. Here is a link on how to use the software. Once you are done walking around the parts you most likely will be using WiFi you get a similar map as seen here. Now you can easily tell where you need to improve coverage and where you can put AP’s for better coverage. Keep in mind this is a rough run down on all the features. I implore you to watch the video below for more details.
The site survey app is really useful. Built in GPS support, has built in profile for network health, range, SNR, etc, etc.
The last one is a truly badass real time location system (RTLS). It’s a small credit card sized device that let’s you track the location of equipment or people. Another useful thing for those in health care or large factories.
Ekahau also runs a website for promoting their products called WiFi That Works. Here you can find some flash videos that shows the HeatMapper, RTLS, and Site Survery in action.
I know I will be using this invaluable tool once I can save up enough cash for one pus a tablet. Ekahau reps all use Thinkpad x300 for internal testing and use but really and UMPC or tablet PC will work. Sadly this is Windows only.
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[...] forget to read my previous coverage of Ekahau, the tool every IT person needs to Wi-Fi deployments. [...]