Questions about Wireless Networking

[sarjekemo]

So I am relatively new to professional IT. I have been given control of a ton of things with the company I am with. One of those is our Wireless Network. We are not a huge company. About 200 in office workers total. We have 4 main buildings containing the bulk of those employees and a few warehouse with 2-5 people in them.

Currently we have one access point deployed in each building which seems to give enough coverage for the people in them. I have been focused on getting the new APs up and running with the WLC as when I came on with the company that had not been done yet. As I am past that now I am working to get the deeper settings configured on the WLC. One of the things I am a bit foggy on is CleanAir. I have had a few people I know that work in tech rave about it to me. I have been reading up on it and it seems like you need a dedicated CleanAir AP that does not transmit for the network. This seems like it doesn't fit our need. Mostly looking for confirmation here if I am correct on this.

My other question here is does RRM take care of some of the same things in a more limited way without the extra monitors?

Currently we have one AP per location and each AP is in a separate WLAN with its own VLAN. Given that these locations are pretty far apart would it be feasable and/or a good idea to merge these all into a single network with a single SSID so if someone is traveling in the company their devices will link up at all locations with no additional config.

And finally can someone link a guide or reference to setting a guest network that is isolated from the internal network? I will be honest that I have not even done a cursory google search on this issue yet as it is a back burner issue for me at this time.

[Leo Laohoo]

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@sarjekemo wrote:

I have been reading up on it and it seems like you need a dedicated CleanAir AP that does not transmit for the network.

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Please elaborate with "does not transmit for the network" mean?  

CleanAir is designed to detect and evaluate co-channel interference and try to move the AP's radio away.  The only industry, that I know of, that do not like/want CleanAir is the medical industry (hospital, clinics, etc).  

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@sarjekemo wrote:

And finally can someone link a guide or reference to setting a guest network that is isolated from the internal network?

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Get formal training.  

[Flavio Miranda]

"***I have been reading up on it and it seems like you need a dedicated CleanAir AP***"

No, you dont. Dont waste your money and time with dedicate AP for monitor. You did not mentioned which AP you have, but most APs can do monitor and client sercice just fine.

"***My other question here is does RRM take care of some of the same things in a more limited way without the extra monitors?***"

RRM does the job pretty fine with no extra AP

"***Given that these locations are pretty far apart would it be feasable and/or a good idea to merge these all into a single network with a single SSID so if someone is traveling in the company their devices will link up at all locations with no additional config***"

This is recommended. This done for company witth sites around the whole world and work just fine. 

'***And finally can someone link a guide or reference to setting a guest network that is isolated from the internal network?***"

This is not a simple question. It depends how isolated you want. You may need another wlc to build  an isolated guest. 

But, it is possible to build a guest with some level of isolation using what you have.

Just look for " cisco guest wireless guide" there will tons of them available. 

[Rasika Nayanajith]

Clean Air - This is a feature available in most current Cisco AP models, It is a dedicated chip and does not require client-serving radios to use it. This will allow individual AP to assess RF interference and let it change the channel (also called as ED-RRM, event-driven RRM) independent of controller level channel change (where RRM comes to play)
Here is a feature summary document, have a look
https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/solutions/collateral/enterprise-networks/cleanair-technology/aag_c22-594304.pdf

RRM - Radio Resource Management, will cover a broader perspective, WLC assesses all of the APs power & channel number and then model what is best for the whole enviornment. These are bigger impacts as channel changes implement across the board. However, if the worst affected AP does not get certain improvements, these changes won't go ahead. if you have enabled CleanAir with ED-RRM, then single APs can make channel change decisions, without the controller making it for the whole environment at RRM interval.

In summary, it is recommended to enable both (RRM & CleanAir) features on your WLC

"Given that these locations are pretty far apart would it be feasable and/or a good idea to merge these all into a single network with a single SSID so if someone is traveling in the company their devices will link up at all locations with no additional config"

That is the common practice where you keep the same SSID name (across multiple sites), so traveling user devices are configured for your SSID & it works wherever they go within your company sites.

"And finally can someone link a guide or reference to setting a guest network that is isolated from the internal network?"

Typically SSID is mapped to a VLAN interface (SVI), if you ok with VLAN level segmentation, then make sure that interface VLAN got ACL to prevent it from accessing other resources in your company.

If you want complete guest traffic isolation, then there is a concept called "Guest Anchoring" where you have to have 2 WLC (one in your inside network to manage APs & other in DMZ to terminate guest traffic). Refer below page for more detaila

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-5/Enterprise-Mobility-8-5-Design-Guide/Enterprise_Mobility_8-5_Deployment_Guide/WirelessNetwork_GuestAccessService.html

HTH

Rasika

*** Pls rate all useful responses ***