How To: Integrate Meraki Networks with ISE

[Tom Cecil]

1. There are three symptoms which have been reported and I myself have tested and seen on site.
1. Short, 1-3 second audio dropouts whilst the phone is roaming in several locations around the hospital. This happens on multiple handsets. (I have a Meraki Packet Capture of this issue)
2. Large bi-directional audio dropouts when the phone moves into specific locations (I have been told that this happens in other locations in the hospital, however I only saw it happen once at the nurse’s station). We will be on a call (8821 <> Mobile) and the handset will move into a particular area and the audio in both directions will completely drop out but the call will sustain. Upon moving back out of that area, the audio is restored and the call continues as normal. This was replicable multiple times, however once we rebooted the handset, the problem went away and we couldn’t replicate it. This happened only on a single handset (that we tested). (I have a Meraki Packet Capture of this issue also).
3. This is the major issue and can happen when both moving or stationary. It has been reported and I have tested this happening on multiple handsets. The phone (whilst staying associated to the wireless network and having adequate RSSI signal strength and no channel overlap, interference or noise), will un-register from CUCM and therefore be unable to make or receive calls. This can happen during an active call or simply while the phone is just sitting there. I observed that sometimes by moving around, the phone will eventually register to CUCM and re-gain it’s call functionality, while other times a reboot of the phone is required – after which the phone behaves normally. This has happened in multiple locations around the hospital (at least three that I know of). The scenario where this was seen happening is that a nurse was sitting at her desk (directly next to an AP) and successfully making calls, when during one of her calls (as she remained sitting), the phone unregistered from Call Manager and had to be rebooted. (I have the ability to get RTMT logs of me replicating this event, however I don’t have Meraki Packet captures of this issue happening – my fault for not getting this).

1. Some key considerations
1. This entire environment (8821 handsets with Meraki APs) was tested and considered stable by both us and the customer as of January this year. Since that time, neither the 8821 handset firmware or the Meraki AP firmware, nor the CUCM firmware has changed since that time. We don’t know if anything within the Meraki Dashboard itself has changed and this would have to be something Meraki can tell us.
2. The wireless environment has been validated. Meraki Dashboard and phone configuration are both adhering to best practice based on Meraki and Cisco documentation.
3. I have attached  a link to a video of the main (third) problem which I recorded on the 8821 whilst I was there onsite: https://architechnetworks-my.sharepoint.com/

Interested to hear people's thoughts on possible causes for this. I currently have a Meraki and Cisco TAC case open.

[Rasika Nayanajith]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for detail explanation. Having a TAC case with both Meraki & Cisco is the best way to move forward.

Is there any fast roaming mechanism (802.11r or CCKM) implemented in this SSID ? Did you check power & channel plan changes over the time ?

Do you have any packet capture (WiFi or UCCM side) while that phone un-registering (issue#3) happening ?

Interesting to see what would be the solution for you from TAC. Pls keep us update

HTH

Rasika