Virtualization for Load Balancing on IEEE 802.11 Networks

In IEEE 802.11 networks composed by multiple APs, before a station can access the network it needs to make a decision about which AP to associate with. Usually, legacy 802.11 stations use no more than the signal strength of the frames received from each AP to support their decision. This can lead to an unbalanced distribution of stations among the APs, causing performance and unfairness problems. This work proposes a new approach that combines the number of associated stations and the current load of each AP plus the virtualization of client wireless interfaces. In this approach, stations permanently switch of association among the APs, staying on each AP for a time that takes into account the number of associated stations and the current load in each AP. Simulation results confirm the improvement obtained in the load balancing and fairness on network capacity allocation, while keeping the maximum network utilization.