Clear To Send: Wireless Network Engineering

Today’s wireless networks can be built using controller-based hardware or controller-less (cloud managed). Which solution is best for your needs depends on what the requirements are. Wi-Fi Question Thanks Matt for submitting a question to the podcast: Hi Guys, I’m fairly experienced with networking but just starting to focus on wifi for my current employer. I’ve been listening for a few months now and have heard mentioned a couple of time in regard to the placement of APs in an office environment that they should be in hallways not rooms, also, that in dense environments some 2.4 radios should be turned off. We have an upgrade happening at the moment and I am considering the AP placement, particularly around larger meeting rooms (~20 seats). Most of our offices are open plan with a large meeting/board room at one end so AP’s are generally in the open but would it also be best to include one in the large meeting room itself? More generally, what is the technical reason for hallways not rooms and why disable some 2.4 radios and how to calculate which APs to disable? Really enjoying a different focus and the podcasts have been a great source of knowledge, also considering sitting the CWNA exam soon. Looking forward to future podcasts, keep up the great work and content. Listen to the episode for our responses to Matt’s question. Controller vs Controller-less What’s the best model to go with today. Should a controller be purchased for the network and utilize centralized traffic forwarding? Or should a controller-less model be a better fit. There’s no hardware controller involved to purchase and updates are done regularly. François and I tackle some of these points at a high level. Here are some of the topics we discuss: Controller-based * Centralized * Tunneled traffic * Hardware costs (CapEx) Controller-less * Locally switched traffic * Features added regularly * No controller hardware * Licensing (OpEx) * Examples * Meraki * Mojo * Aerohive * Open Mesh * Ubiquiti Other * Cisco Mobility Express * Aruba Instant * Virtual controller * Can be tunneled or locally switched Which is better for you? The universal answer is, it depends. There are many questions to ask which involves your technical team and management. Do you prefer to have granularity over your WLAN and have ultimate control? Does your team have the expertise to manage a controller? Maybe you need that extra troubleshooting you get when accessing the command line interface. Many times cost is a big factor. Purchasing a physical controller can take a big chunk of your budget. If you need redundancy you have to buy more than one controller. Cloud-based management of access points gives you less control or flexibility due to the vendor owning the cloud. But on the upside, you get updates much faster, newer features, and easier management of your wireless network. So it always depends on your needs and requirements. What do you think is the best model and why?

Wi-Fi monitoring is an important aspect of operating a WLAN. Where hard-wired is easy to do nowadays, how do you monitor a network connection of hundreds or even thousands that use an invisible signal to connect back to your network? David Wilson of Cape Networks talks about how it can be possible to monitor Wi-Fi in any environment.   Wi-Fi Monitoring with Sensors David Wilson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cape Networks which develops wireless sensors. These sensors can be placed anywhere on your network and can perform tests as if they were a wireless client. The benefit of having wireless sensors is to get insight into specific environments. You can use this information to find out how Wi-Fi may be performing, get statistics, and act accordingly. Be sure to listen to the podcast about the free sensor giveaway.. or scroll down to the bottom of this post

This is Roundtable II, where we gather other Wi-Fi professionals in our industry to talk about a topic we all are passionate about – wireless. Roundtable II Thank you for listening to today’s episode. We have gathered three individuals to share Wi-Fi issues with the listeners and to discuss how they resolved them. That is the topic of the roundtable. In this episode we have: * Glenn Cate * Gurpreet Singh * Jon Foster We all come across issues on the wireless network. Some are the most common issues you’ll come across while others are a little farfetched and out there. Wi-Fi Issues Glenn Cate, CWNE #181 and from Episode 061, gives provides us with the context of a perfect storm. Everything that can go wrong went wrong. And none of it was on the technical side! Gurpreet Singh works for a VAR in Canada. He gave us two Wi-Fi issues which required use of spectrum analysis. Who doesn’t like doing SpecAn?? His issue shows us we need to know everything used in the environment. I’ll give you a hint.. It has to do with conference rooms. Jon Foster is a presales engineer for a VAR in the UK. Like Rowell, Jon provided an issue from higher education. A lot of the best issues come from there. Another has to do with physical security and who doesn’t like putting physical security components on the wireless network? François talked about a cold situation. And I mean that too, physically cold. What could go wrong. Just select an AP and put it up, right? François also provided two issues, the second issue prevented someone from sleeping. Now what does that have to do with Wi-Fi? Rowell talked about SpecAn at a hotel during a conference. And someone from the audience even asked why Wi-Fi was slow. Well let us show you! Links and Resources * Glenn Cate’s blog * Gurpreet Singh’s blog * Jon Foster’s blog

Why should you use external antennas in your Wi-Fi environment? There are many reasons you should use them. In this episode, we talk about what to look for in external antennas, what to watch out for when deploying them, and what details to keep in mind. We are used to internal antennas from our access points. Have you considered using external antennas to meet your Wi-Fi requirements? In this episode, we provide some educational material around external antennas. Yes, they do add some cost to a project but it’s not much compared to the solution they bring to your Wi-Fi network. There are use cases for external antennas and below are the topics we talk about during the episode. This episode is proudly sponsored by AccelTex Solutions. They are providing a special offer just for our listeners. If you head over to their products page and use promo code CTS Podcast 72 they will send you a free antenna sample of your choice. Episode Contents * Why use antennas, other than the ones built into the AP? * Aesthetics * Direct signal * To meet requirements * Use outdoor * Antenna types * Omni * Signal in 360 degrees * Semi-directional * Ranges in degrees such as 65 degrees, 120 degrees, etc * Patch * Directional * Dish * Yagi * Antenna details * Beamwidth * Azimuth and elevation pattern * Lobes * Gain * Passive * Connectors * RPTNC * RPSMA * Elements * Isolation * Antennas hearing each other * Horizontal * Vertical * Orientation * Antenna Polarization * Important for indoors? * MIMO * Outdoor PtP links * Design * When designing Wi-Fi be sure to use the right antennas * Deployment * Mount the antennas properly * Get the right angle * Consider spacing between antennas * Don’t connect two antennas to one access point, unless you’re using something like a DART connector on the Cisco 3802E * Personal experience * High density * Outdoor * Special use cases     Links and Resources * AccelTex Solutions (episode sponsor) * Planes, Gains, and Beamwidths via AccelTex * Understanding Dual Polarized Antennas via AccelTex * Omnidirectional Antennas * Cisco Aironet Antenna Reference Guide * Meraki – All About Antennas This Week In Wireless * CWNP WiFiTrek Conference in Orlando – Registration is open * Mojo Networks announces new

Our special guest, Anand Srinivas of Nyansa, joins the show to discuss Wi-Fi analytics with their platform Nyansa Voyance. As many organizations are shifting towards getting data usage on the Wi-Fi networks, Nyansa helps fill that void. Anand provides us his insight into analyzing data from our wireless networks. Wi-Fi Analytics with Nyansa Voyance Anand Srinivas is the co-founder and CTO of Nyansa, headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. He has his masters and PhD from MIT in wireless and algorithms. Anand has held previous roles at Airvana, Plexxi, Overture and now finally at Nyansa. The focus of Nyansa is to enable enterprises in different verticals to get a handle and insights into user experience on wireless networks. Anand’s team takes a look at various wireless client transactions with the network, applications, etc. and analyzes all of the collected data to bring user experience into a visual dashboard. I wanted to bring Anand onto the podcast to talk about Wi-Fi analysis because of this trend where many organizations are trying to get more data out of the network and what the users are doing on that network. Here are the topics we talk about on the podcast: * How Nyansa gets visibility * Taking the client perspective * Looking across the entire stack * Using real clients transactions as ‘sensors’ * What is “network analytics”, “big data”, “machine learning”, etc.? * Every vendor says they do analytics. How do you define or view analytics differently? Or do you? What makes Nyansa unique in this space? * How do enterprises justify the cost or value of your analytics system? * What packets, fields are analyzed by Nyansa to perform the analysis? * Interesting story from people using Nyansa. Links and Resources * Nyansa website * Get a demo of Nyansa Screenshots of Nyansa Voyance

We welcome Thomas Baudelet from France. Together, we talk about network and Wi-Fi troubleshooting in general and we go over the Mac OS application called Debookee that Thomas created which could be use to troubleshoot a Wi-Fi network. Thomas Baudelet works as an independent Network Engineer and specializes in troubleshooting. He has been involved in the Wireshark community and he created a network analyzer application for MacOS called Debookee. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @debookee. Content * Presentation of the Debookee tool, Thomas gave us a little bit of history on how he decided to create the tool * Presentation of the different modules (including the Wi-Fi Monitoring module) * Presentation of what is coming next (New SSL decrypt module) * Thomas explains how he studied Wi-Fi in order to be able to create a tool that would be used by WLAN professionals * Troubleshoot methodologies * What tools does Thomas uses on the field Screenshots of Debokee   Resources Here are some useful links related to this week episode: * Debookee website: https://debookee.com/ * Debookee Tools: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/debookee-tools/id1110355801 * Download and test Debookee: https://www.iwaxx.com/debookee/debookee.zip * Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/debookee * Thomas’ really cool Business Card: https://twitter.com/tomlabaude/status/838747925052260354 Upcoming Episode on Wi-Fi Issue Want to participiate in a future episode? Here is the link to the Wi-Fi issues submission form for one of our upcoming episode: Wi-Fi Issue Submission This Week in Wireless * WikiLeaks says it has obtained trove of CIA hacking tools * WikiLeaks has gained access to CIA hacking arsenal. * The document shows that the CIA turn devices into collection devices (iPhones, iPad, Smart TV…). * Additional unlicensed spectrum needed to deliver future Wi-Fi® connectivity * The “Wi-Fi Alliance® commissioned the Wi-Fi Spectrum Needs Study to assess whether available spectrum resources will be sufficient to support Wi-Fi connectivity in the future. The study indicates that by 2020, Wi-Fi networks around the world will need access to significantly more mid-band spectrum than is currently available in the 5 GHz range to satisfy expected growth in Wi-Fi data traffic.” * Download the study: http://www.wi-fi.org/file/wi-fi-spectrum-needs-study * New CWNEs!! * Tom Van Driessche from Belgium is now CWNE #219 * Aren Gates, who I believe works for Aerohive, is now CWNE #220 * CWTS Discontinued (Certified Wireless Technology Specialist) * It has been announced by the CWNP this week, the CWTS will retire at the end of the year. * This certification is a lifetime certification and you can still write the exam if you would like before the end of the year.

Jussi Kiviniemi, Senior Vice President of Ekahau, joins the show as our special guest as we record together in Santa Clara. Jussi goes over the conferences he attended and the upcoming updates to Ekahau Site Survey. Interview with Jussi Video demo of Ekahau Site Survey version 9.0   * Attending WLPC and Aruba Atmosphere * Great presentations at WLPC, especially on 802.11ax * Maker sessions were exciting at WLPC * Very hands on * Assembled an odroid * Building a software defined radio (SDR) * Jussi’s presentation at Aruba Atmosphere on Wi-Fi Network Design – 10 Essentials * Ekahau Site Survey Updates * Using macOS version * Can do active/passive surveys * Need a compatible adapter for active surveys * Haven’t found a reliable adapter to use * Read-only version? * Ekahau will be taking reporting and read-only to the next level so tune in * Updates coming to reporting * Version 8.7 will be released soon * Includes copy and paste of walls, APs, and predictive elements * New APs and antennas included in release * Version 9.0 * Insight into the amount of management vs data vs control frames * New capacity planner * Accurate analysis of how capacity is distributed * Seeing distribution between 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz * Auto Planner is overhauled * Added intelligence * Able to disable excessive 2.4 GHz radios * High capacity areas can be defined with different capacity requirements * Airtime utilization * Able to see impact of data rate selection, number of SSIDs, AP placement, channels, and overall number of clients impacting airtime * New dialog * Includes selection of data rates * Number of SSIDs on the network * Enable/disable of RTS/CTS * Bandsteering Links and Resources * Ekahau Site Survey * Jussi on LinkedIn and Twitter * Episode 9 with Jussi * WLPC * Aruba Atmosphere

In this episode, we welcome Andrew Chappelle from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. We talked about network access control focusing on securing the Wi-Fi network. He shared his experience with complex NAC systems such as Cisco ISE or Aruba ClearPass and also share his view of what the future of access control will look like. Andrew Chappelle (CCIE-W #42377) works as a System Engineer for Aruba HPE out of Calgary. In his previous positions, he worked a lot on complex network access deployments. He is very knowledge about Wi-Fi and will soon be CWNE! I guess, we are going to have to bring him back on the show when he does! You can find him on twitter at @AngryWrelessGuy. He blogs at angrywirelessguy.wordpress.com. Wi-Fi Network Access Control The WHY: Why do we need a network access control for the WLAN infrastructure? Let’s talk about customer’s requirements: * Offer different access and level of security for different type of users & devices * Enable easy & secure BYOD * Segment the Wi-Fi network so guest traffic is isolated * Make the user experience is easier The WHAT: What are the solutions to meet these requirements? * SSID for corporate users (would do both BYOD and corporate access) – SSID consolidation * SSID for guest * Profiling The HOW: How do we implement it? What do we need to make it happen? * NAC server * Certificate PKI We talked about the most common EAP methods used today. What is coming next? What can we expect seeing in these NAC solutions in the near future? Resources Links to ISE documentation: * ISE community: https://communities.cisco.com/community/technology/security/pa/ise * ISE Demo videos: https://communities.cisco.com/docs/DOC-63878 * ISE YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/CiscoISE/playlists Links to ClearPass documentation: * ClearPass Documentation: https://support.arubanetworks.com/Documentation/tabid/77/DMXModule/512/EntryId/6864/Default.aspx * ClearPass Demo (require credentials): https://clearpass.arubademo.net/tips/tipsLogin.action Upcoming Episode on Wi-Fi Issue Here is the link to the Wi-Fi issues submission form for one of our upcoming episode. This Week In Wireless Cisco – New AireOS version – released the 8.3.111.0 Adaptive 802.11r 802.11r is the IEEE standard for fast roaming and this concept of roaming is also known as Fast Transition (FT). Here the initial handshake with the new AP is done even before the client roams to the target AP. The feature allows you to set up a network without choosing Enable for Fast Transition (FT). The Apple devices (iOS 10 clients) signal the Cisco APs to identify this functionality. Cisco APs mutually signal that adaptive 802.11r is supported on the network and perform an FT association on the WLAN. Legacy wireless clients that do not support 802.11r can still join the same network however does not benefit from faster FT roaming. Legacy devices that do not recognize the FT AKM’s beacons and probe responses join as an 11i/WPA2 device. This feature is supported on the following Wave2 APs:

In this episode, we welcome Rasika Nayanajith (CWNE #153, 2x CCIE) from Australia. We discuss the different ways to give back to the Wi-Fi Community. We hope that this episode will inspire a lot of Wi-Fi engineers. Our Guest Rasika is the Team Leader Network at La Trobe University in Melbourne Australia. He created the well known mrncciew.com Wi-Fi related blog and he has been designated VIP by Cisco to be very active on the Cisco Support forum. He has done a lot to give back to the Wi-Fi community and we were very honored to have him on the show. You can follow him on Twitter @mrncciew. Discussions We discussed the different ways to give back to the community: * Blogging * Participating in vendor’s support forums (Cisco Support Community, Aruba Airheads Community, Aerohive HiveNation Community…) * Becoming an Instructor * Presenting at conferences * Mentoring We also deep dived into Rasika’s experience in creating and maintaining his blog. Rasika gives some valuable pieces of advice for anyone wanting to blog or participate in vendor’s support forums. Useful Links * Rasika’s blog: mrncciew.com * Cisco Support Forum * Aruba Airhead Forum * Aerohive HiveNation Forum This Week In Wireless WLPC in Phoenix * Really great event (about 250 WLAN pros) * Talks about packet analytics, machine learning, Wi-Fi analytics, algorithms used by survey tools * Videos and presentation will be made available publicly by Keith Parsons this coming week Upcoming WLPC dates: * WLPC_LATAM in Bogota August 1-2 (En espanol) * WLPC_EU in Lisbon October 3-4 (In english) Aruba Atmosphere * Aruba Atmosphere will take place this coming week and is held in Nashville. * Aruba should be covering their new os ArubaOs 8 in more details. Update next week! * To follow, hashtag #ATM17 on Twitter Arris to Acquire Ruckus Arris and Broadcom jointly announced that they have entered into an agreement for Arris to acquire Brocade’s Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business for $800 millions in cash. Arris, which is currently mainly offering equipment intended to the home market, hope to expand its presence into other markets such as education, public venue, enterprise and hospitality. Link: https://www.ruckuswireless.com/press/releases/20170222-arris-acquire-ruckus-wireless-and-icx-switch-business-800-million-cash FCC Lets Wireless Carriers Use Wi-Fi Airwaves Critics Worry about Interferences FCC has officially gave the green light to carriers for them to be allowed to use LTE-U over the 5GHz band. Carriers will then be able to offload some of their traffic to the unlicensed 5GHz band used by other technologies such as Wi-Fi. Technically speaking, this is not really a good news for our Wi-Fi networks, since LTE-U is a less polite protocol, and Stations will start broadcasting a the less occupied frequency without waiting for a channel to be open. Most Wi-Fi experts are skeptical and a lot of debates and talks have been happening on Twitter since the announcement. This is week is the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and we will see if people will be talking about it. Link:

Joel Crane is our special guest on CTS and he has a lot of knowledge bombs on spectrum analysis. Be sure to listen to this episode. Interference. The invisible killer of your spectrum. It creates a terrible user experience and your network is to blame for it. Spectrum analysis is how you’re going to identify what is kicking your Wi-Fi to the side. I’ve used this process to find issues the users are experiencing. Often times the fault is placed on the WLAN but it is either done unintentionally or on purpose. You will usually find out that there is a misbehaving device or a consumer level hardware causing issues with the WLAN. In this episode, Rowell and François ask Joel Crane questions about what spectrum analysis is and why is it useful. Spectrum Analysis with Joel Crane * Detecting, identifying, and locating non-WiFi interference * Gauging co-channel/adjacent interference * Who uses it * Cool stuff to know about * The troubleshooting process * Duty cycle vs. utilization * Real-time FFT vs Swept-Tuned Resources Mentioned * Chanalyzer * PotatoFi * How To Connect Chanalyzer to Cisco CleanAir * HackRF * Cisco CleanAir Sample Spectrum Captures This Week In Wireless * Qualcomm Announces End-to-End 802.11ax Wi-Fi portfolio * Carrier Waves News * WLPC

This is a new series on the podcast where we bring together a group of Wi-Fi professionals for a roundtable discussion of industry topics, casual banter, and camaraderie. Insults are on the house

This is a new series on the podcast where we bring together a group of Wi-Fi professionals for a roundtable discussion of industry topics, casual banter, and camaraderie. Insults are on the house

CTS 063: Wi-Fi Security – Securing Access - Clear To Send: Wireless Network Engineering Podcast

CTS 062: K12 Wi-Fi Deployments - Clear To Send: Wireless Network Engineering Podcast

CTS 061: Wi-Fi For The Non-Profit Community - Clear To Send: Wireless Network Engineering Podcast