topic Hi Rasika, in Wireless

Ask the Expert: Lessons Learned Deploying an All-Wireless Office

Cisco Moderador — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 13:32:32 GMT

This topic is a chance to discuss more about how to deploy a successful and reliable wireless office. Learn more about the good, bad, ugly and hurdles that is needed to overcome for a successful and reliable process. Ask about methods, components, products and best practices to implement an all-wireless office (AWO), which is considered the next evolution of true Wi-Fi mobility in the enterprise.enterprise.

To participate in this event, please use the button below to ask your questions

Ask questions from Tuesday, February 14th to February 24th, 2017

Featured Expert

George Stefanick is a Wireless Architect employed by a large healthcare system in the Texas Medical Center. His Wi-Fi engineering experience spans nearly two decades and in that time he has provided consulting to many Fortune 500 companies in industries such as healthcare, mining, and hospitality. He maintains a popular Wi-Fi engineering community, the blog MY80211.com and he holds many vendor and vendor neutral certifications.

Also, he has been Technical Editor for two books related to Wireless Network technology: ”CCNA Wireless Study Guide” by Todd Lammle and ”Designing and Deploying 802.11 Networks: A Practical Guide to Implementing 802.11n and 802.11ac Wireless Networks for Enterprise-Based Applications” by Jim Geier .

As a member of the Cisco Support Community, George has been awarded with a Cisco Designated VIP status, a recognition that Cisco bestows upon the most valuable and influential members of their official technical support community.

George might not be able to answer each question due to the volume expected during this event. Remember that you can continue the conversation on the Contact Center Community

Find other https://supportforums.cisco.com/expert-corner/knowledge-sharing.

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Hi George,

Rasika Nayanajith — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 23:42:39 GMT

Hi George,

It was a really great presentation and through those live Q&A session valuable info came out.

You mentioned that you did some trial with 3800s. Based on your experience, if you given an opportunity to do a AWO now, what would you pick ? 3702 or 3802 ?

I know from life time perspective we should go with 3802, but not sure technical point of view is that the right choice

Rasika

Great presentation with some

chad.drier — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 04:34:40 GMT

Great presentation with some great questions. I learned a lot.

You mentioned you have some Ap's in sniffer mode and I thought you said you have some in monitor mode. Do you do anything with those access points in monitoring mode or are they just to help out the Ap's in production? I have read it is recommended to have one Ap in monitor mode for every 5 to 6. Wondering if there is anything you can do with the data those are collecting. Thanks!

Great presentation with very

chaitu.kranthi — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 13:26:11 GMT

Great presentation with very useful information.

I am working in a financial sector and one of the main concern is number of connection made to wireless access points. All our AP's are either 3702 or 3802 model with 5508 controller.

All AP's are installed below celling with 6 meter radius, Now one of the request made by business is they want to perform the real time monitoring for all their sites.

1. Business need the information on AP wise user count real time.

2. SSID wise user count per WLC.

Currently we are able to get this information through NCS Prime (3.1version), But this is more reactive mode , since we have to generate it manually and it is historical only. Is there any way to monitoring this parameters real time. I am not sure is this the right place to post the question.

Excellent presentation George

ajc — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 17:41:25 GMT

Excellent presentation George,

I have two questions because I liked the approach you followed troubleshooting the wireless cards and drivers for the majority of the hospital owned devices in order to create an standard so I would appreciate if you share with us a guideline/tips about the process that you made/followed on that part as I would like to replicate that standardization process on the wireless environment I manage where it is possible.

My second question is:

I found that error 5440 on ISE is directly related to roaming and the fact that a brief disconnection happens due to the EAP and WPA Key mgmt process no matter if you have session resume enabled. In order to minimize this behavior, it is recommended to use 802.11r so I was wondering if you have that in place (I would say yes as you have WoWLAN) and any suggestions that you could share with us. Due to our BYOD environment implementing 802.11r could only apply to the SSID for School owned devices.

thanks

Hi George ,

wyfy-2015 — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 17:53:56 GMT

Hi George ,

Throughput test counters will help in an enterprise ?

If yes what measures we need to take when doing a throughput test

Thanks

Hi Rasika,

George Stefanick — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 20:20:11 GMT

Hi Rasika,

I think transparency is important. While we had the opportunity to test he 3800 we have not done any major deployments of the 3800 at this point. You might remember we just got done installing $1M worth of 3700 access points. I will say the micro cell (SDN) radio allowing 2 5GHz radios will allow for higher density where before you would have to consider 2 access points.

Abraham, Thank you for the

George Stefanick — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 20:59:31 GMT

Abraham, Thank you for the kind comments Im really glad you enjoyed it.

Device testing is a very a important consideration when deploying reliable WiFi. Once you have a mental check box that the RF and wireless configuration is optimal and your config is simple and there was no changes on the network you can quickly start looking at the clients.

Back to the testing ... Its not an easy task and it takes time to baseline client devices and drivers. Once you have your data base full of testing data you can then really feel comfortable and compare results.

1) Baseline receive sensitivity of the device. We do this by testing at different distances from the ap and different orientations of the device. We can see quickly for example the iPhone hears the network 7-9 dB lower then say the average device. This is telling and might mean we need to consider a denser deployment.

2) Roaming test - Look at 802.11 and 802.1X roaming - Collect logs on the device, OTAC (Over the air captures), and controller side.

- Make sure 11r, OKC is supported and working

- Baseline the time from the last data frame sent on the old ap to the first data frame sent on the new ap

- Check roaming triggers and baseline

3) QoS markings

- If your device and app is suppose to mark QoS make sure it is and that it is marking correctly.

4) Allow the device to sit for 24-48 hours and see how the device behaves - do a constant ping do we lose pings and if so why

5) Elevator ride / off campus on campus -- take the device on a long elevator ride does it quickly recover when coming back into coverage

6) Does the device / app support Multicast confirm with multicast hammer OTAC, debugs

7) What 5 GHz channels does it support. Test connectivity on all bands UNII1/2/2E/3

😎 Does the device UAPSD/PS POLL or some custom power save. Identity this and observe it working and baseline.

9) Does the device probe aggressively -60 or lower you can see this with transmitting probes as the device is building a neighbor list. If a device is off channel probing its not servicing the client

10) Does the device support 11k if so confirm this ...

The list goes on. What is key, after you collect a lot of devices and or device and driver info you will see a pattern. If you test a device that is way out of spec compared to other data you collected you can start to question -- Humm will this device work in my environment. Then test and see.

I hope that helps.

If you are using EAP then either your device will support NO advance roaming features or it will have some flavor of OKC, PMK cache (fast roam back) or 11r. If a device doesn't support advance roaming protocols you are 100% correct. The device will have to do a FULL 802.1X, which is very much like pulling a cable from the wall and plugging it back in. That all said the controller by default supports OKC. In a BYOD environment where there is little control you are really challenged. Apple and some flavors of android support 11r. But I find some vendors who say they do but once we test we find out they dont support or have issues supporting 11r.

You my friend are in one of the most challenging environments. You know all to well and better then most about BYOD. When I think of wireless devices and education I think of the Guns and Roses song - Welcome to the jungle baby ..

My suggestion is this ... You will never be able to control or manage these devices. While we want the best experience for our users. Find out the larger quantity of devices and NICs and test these drivers. When a student calls in and has an issue and they match say a 7265 INTEl NIC you can tell them we suggest driver XYZ.

I hope this helps bud .. Thanks again for spending the hour with me and the cisco team on the webex.

Wow great question. I think

George Stefanick — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 21:14:48 GMT

Wow great question. I think the inner geek in us want as much as we can. Lets pin the needle in the red so to speak!

What we really need and should understand is what are the user requirements. What applications will be in use and how many users will be using these applications. I can tell you in a normal office environment not everyone is doing FTP file transfers or intensive bandwidth hogging on WiFi. If they are and this is normal for them they would be better serviced with a wire.

You would be surprised, I think, when I tell you we've seen Aps with 25 or more clients and we could still pull 60Mbps up and down with no problem. It was because the applications and users didnt have demanding requirements.

The question is hard to answer. All depends really.

Thank you Im glad you enjoyed

George Stefanick — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 21:21:52 GMT

Thank you Im glad you enjoyed it. That is a rather interesting request in that it has to be real time. Keep in mind PRIME allows you a customize dash board and I remember seeing some options for displaying client counts on SSID etc. Have you looked at customizing the dash board ?

You could get fancy with linux flavors of network mounting like Cacti or NMS. I like NMS myself.

If I had to deploy the office

George Stefanick — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 21:26:59 GMT

If I had to deploy the office again I would not likely use monitor APs, because we already have sniffer APs. Our normal designs do consider monitor access points and we use the same 5-6 as well.

Assuming a new or old deployment I would consider monitor aps. These allows you to quickly turn them into sniffers as need. Monitor aps allow you to get quicker environmental information rather then waiting for the production APs to do the short off channel scanning.

Hi Geroge

Hilda Arteaga — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 17:30:00 GMT

Hi Geroge

Thank you so much for participating at the community, it has been quite a great session.

I would like to share with you some of the questions that were not answered during the event:

• Q: What tool did they installed on the iPads?
• Q: How do you address QoS on wireless?
• Q: Do you have any critical Wi-Fi policies that you would like to share?
• Q: In 1572 installation, I don’t get ac speeds when the ap is 10-15m away, can you help me?
• Q: Is there any way to prevent users to connect to 2.4 Ghz an force them to use 5Ghz. via WLC or any Supplicant?
• Q: What version of WLC code are you currently running?
• Q: In the end, was there cost savings over a wired office? (Including time spent troubleshooting, lost productivity, etc.)
• Q: In healthcare you have a lot of proprietary equipment, where vendors don't want to co-exist with other vendors (healthcare equipment); how many prod SSIDs do you have, and how did you manage the healthcare vendors?
• Q: I found error 5440 on ISE is directly related to the disconnection experienced when roaming which is caused by EAP + WPA Key Mgmt process, did he solve this using 802.11r? But 802.11r is not widely supported
• Q: What do you think about 802.11r combined with session resume for PEAP/EAP-TLS on ISE?
• Q: Do you expect IoT devices to also share 5 GHz space or would these be better suited to use a low power 2.4 GHz transmission so voice and priority data gets the nicer 5 GHz band.
• Q: From an organizational buy-in, how cost effective is the all-wireless office? Since the organization has absorb increased engineering/R&D to overcome issues, does this outweigh running drops and switches; especially when each design may be unique?
• Q: Were you budgeted form the start?
• Q: Have you to took advantage of Network Programmability to automate some tasks? If so, which ones?
• Q: Did you make any modifications for allowing user backups to occur over Wi-Fi?
• Q: Is that applicable to this model AIR-CAP3502I-A-K9?

Q: In an AWO did you find applications that didn't fuction on wireless?
Q: How many poeple do you have in your team?

Hi

Cisco Moderador — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 17:42:00 GMT

These are some of the questions that were not answered during the alive session:

Q: Was the bleed through showing 2.4 GHz or 5?
Q: Do you use a qualification document for your client NICs?
Q: What is your suggestion when designing for large open space with lot of surrounded AP'S? For example a person standing in the ground floor of a mall, surrounded by shops and he get almost same RSSI from the shops from the ground floor
Q: Cfr to the Wi-Fi office deployment - was the implementation a hard cut? Meaning stopping all LAN, and moving to WLAN all at once or was it an implementation on a "stage-by-stage"?
Q: Can you provide some pros/cons of why they have chosen utilizing AirMagnet vs, say Ekahau? Maybe just some high level talking points?
Q: Let’s assume the tpc value for the 5 ghz 11 (Min),What is the optimum value for 2.4 Ghz ?
Q: What is the intel driver version that he posted as the most stable at this point?
Q: I found error 5440 on ISE is directly related to the disconnection experienced when roaming which is caused by EAP + WPA Key Mgmt process, did he solve this using 802.11r? But 802.11r is not widely supported.
Q: What do you think about 802.11r and session resume for PEAP/EAP-TLS?
Q: Did you adjust any 802.11a optimized Roaming or DCA times to say every 8 hours for a full shift work day?
Q: Would gpo push for 5ghz limit Wi-Fi connectivity when users have their devices outside the corp office? Is there a preference option for 5ghz priority then 2.4ghz.
Q: Can you share comments or experiences regards Chromecast on Apple Devices and their deployment? (In case they have experience doing it)
Q: Whether 200mw power is allowed for the AP's? I thought 100mw is max power.
Q: Are you running 20Mhz channels throughout the hospital?
Q: Is it possible to rename for multiple ap's in prime? And how?
Q: What are the recommended certifications to fulfill the competitive wireless Job market requirement nowadays?
Q: Is there any plan to introduce 3800 into this AWO office in near terms?
Q: Did you ever want to give up and just pull a cable?

Hi George ,

wyfy-2015 — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 22:33:52 GMT

Hi George ,

One of the common complaing we used to get from the BYOD users are ( I am just round off maybe only few users ) , they need to reauthenticate always ?

what is your suggestion ?

Thanks

Hi George ,

wyfy-2015 — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 22:41:16 GMT

Hi George ,

"Roaming test - Look at 802.11 and 802.1X roaming - Collect logs on the device, OTAC (Over the air captures), and controller side."

You said collect logs on the device ,If a windows device we could run some native tools and collect logs

What if it is android iphone device ?

What are the few log which will help us to qucikly identify the device did not roam

Thanks

On Android it depends how

George Stefanick — Sat, 18 Feb 2017 02:18:00 GMT

On Android it depends how much the vendor exposes. Example if you use a Zebra MC40 they have their own flavor of Andriod. The expose a lot of the logs to the admin. Not being an Android guy I dont have that specific experience with the consumer grade device.

Well we can assume these are

George Stefanick — Sat, 18 Feb 2017 02:20:20 GMT

Well we can assume these are more consumer grade devices. We know apple iOS and some flavors of Android support 11r. You could enable 11r on your WLAN and see if that helps. I would caution in that some clients, when 11r is enabled, may have connection issues. I would work with specific users and see first hand what devices you are dealing with.

Hi,

wyfy-2015 — Sat, 18 Feb 2017 07:18:04 GMT

Hi,

Thank you george

Could you post some log from your air captures which help us to identify roaming issues

Thanks again

Hello, we have some 3702,

steve255.0 — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 10:29:26 GMT

Hello, we have some 3702, 1852, 3802 in office, WLC is 2504, we are happy with 1852, it's performance is so good, iperf could have 700+mbps, but both 3702 and 3802 only have 300-400mbps, it seems Marvell chip based AP never get well with Macbook(Broadcom wifi chip) through 3702 to 3802 with any WLC version(8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3), any suggestion for this issue? Can Cisco fix this issue?

hi george,

johnlloyd_13 — Tue, 21 Feb 2017 07:16:23 GMT

hi george,

great timing that you had this ask the expert session.

there's a design question raised at work wherein 2504 uplink needs to be redundant on 2 switch. i was able to aggregate (LAG) before on a single switch before but not on 2 separate switch.

is it possible to do have redundant uplinks on a 2504 to 2 cisco switch? my google search is failing me today. thanks in advance!

p.s. - i'm a fan of your site and read some them during my ccna wireless study