Cisco’s WLC AirOS 8.0 has been released!

Earlier today Cisco released a new software train for the AirOS based wireless lan controllers (WLC’s); the 8.0 train. For me the highlights for this software train are:

  • Increased scale to support up to 6000 clients on Cisco Virtual Wireless LAN Controller
  • Native IPv6 support
  • CleanAir Express on AP1600 (I will dedicate a blogpost on this subject in the near future)
  • Change the AP mode from local to flex-connect without a reboot, yay!
  • Configuring flashing AP LEDs from the GUI (Can be handy to identify that one access-point without a label or to annoy that person who has complains about the fact the the AP’s are not pretty enough to hang on the ceiling.. πŸ˜› )
  • High Density deployment features:
    • Optimized Roaming
    • RSSI Low Check
    • RX-SOP

Oh and I don’t know who requested this particular feature, but you can from now on also use set a red Web Color Theme ..

Cisco WLC AirOS 8.0

I have to say that my experience with the now released version (8.0.100) on a 5508 WLC is that the code feels and acts a little buggy; not a release that you want to run in a production environment. My advice is to wait for a maintenance release, but it is always fun to test the new features in the lab πŸ™‚ .

CCIE Wireless… we have a liftoff!

It started in my early years as a kid. I was curious about how stuff actually worked, especially radio technology had my interest. Two years ago I passed my CCNA Wireless certification and since than I did a few deployments with a lot learning on the job.

The problem with working for a relatively small Cisco partner is that you don’t have a real specialty; you need to know a lot about a lot. It is not that I do not like that. I love to do consulting, create designs and actually implement that firewall or Nexus solution. I do have my CCNP R/S and CCDP, but I always loved the wireless technology.

And now the moment is here. I scheduled all of the four CCNP Wireless exams four the next few months, every month a exam starting with the site survey one next Wednesday. The CCNP should give me a foundation for the CCIE. My plan is that I at least try the CCIE Wireless lab once before I turn 25 in September 2015. They say it is the hardest CCIE exam, I guess I will find out!

My plan is to read as much as possible on the Cisco Supportforums and blogs and by actually doing wireless projects. If I find something interesting I will write a blogpost about it. So, let’s start with my home lab:

The controllers
1x 5508
1x 2504
1x vWLC (not on the blueprint, but the technology is cool)

Access-points
1x 3702I (with the WSSI module)
1x 2602I
1x 2602E (with some external antennas)
1x 3500I
1x 1242AG

Switches
1x 3650CG-12P
1x 3560-8PC

Phones
2x 7925G

For running WCS / Prime, MSE and ACS I have a VMware server collocated in a datacenter connected with a VPN on a ASA firewall.

It is not enough for CCIE, but it will be for CCNP and it is a nice start.. πŸ™‚

Cisco CCNP / CCIE Wireless lab

External antenna and power levels in a Cisco wireless environment

Lets start this post with some theory about wireless and regulations for wireless networks. Here in Europe we have the ETSI who decides which frequencies you are allowed to use for wireless communications and with how much power you may send signals into the air.

For the 2.4Ghz frequencies (802.11b/g/n) this is 20dBm maximum EIRP which is the same as 100mW. For the 5Ghz frequencies (802.11a/n/ac) it depends on the actual channel you are using (for the UNII-1 and UNII-2 frequencies the maximum EIRP 23dBm, for UNII-2 extended this is 30dBm). The EIRP value is calculated as follows: transmitter power (dBm) – cable loss (dB) + amplifier (dB) + antenna gain (dBi).

Lets say you have a Cisco WLC, a Cisco 2602E-E access-point and you are going to use external antennas. How does that work and what do you need to configure so your deployment is legal?

For the Cisco 2602E-E access-point, the WLC calculates default a minimal 2dBi gain for 802.11b and 4dBi gain for 802.11a. This gives for 802.11b the following power levels:
(Cisco Controller) >show ap config 802.11b APb838.61b1.85a3
Tx Power
Num Of Supported Power Levels ............. 5
Tx Power Level 1 .......................... 18 dBm
Tx Power Level 2 .......................... 15 dBm
Tx Power Level 3 .......................... 12 dBm
Tx Power Level 4 .......................... 9 dBm
Tx Power Level 5 .......................... 6 dBm
Tx Power Configuration .................... AUTOMATIC
Current Tx Power Level .................... 1
Tx Power Assigned By ...................... TPC MAX Default

Lets say we are going to use a dual-band directional AIR-ANT2566P4W-R antenna. This antenna has 6dBi gain for both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, which is much higher than the default values and would give a too high EIRP value (18 dBm + 6 dBi = 24dBm). In this case we need to tell the WLC what the gain of this antenna is, so that it can lower the access-point power which ensures that the EIRP in no case is going to be too high.

On the GUI you can find this configuration under the tab “Wireless -> Access Points -> Radios -> 802.11a/n/ac / 802.11b/g/n -> click on configure for the correct radio -> Antenna Parameters -> Antenna Gain”. Please look below for a CLI example.

(Cisco Controller) >config 802.11a disable AP01
(Cisco Controller) >config 802.11b disable AP01
(Cisco Controller) >config 802.11a antenna extAntGain 12 AP01
(Cisco Controller) >config 802.11b antenna extAntGain 12 AP01
(Cisco Controller) >config 802.11a enable AP01
(Cisco Controller) >config 802.11b enable AP01

The value you are going to enter needs to be twice the size of the actual antenna gain! If you are running some extra cables between the antenna and the access-point, you can lower the gain value to compensate for that loss.

So now we configured the antenna gain, we can validate the the WLC did actually adjust the power levels:
(Cisco Controller) > show ap config 802.11b AP01
Tx Power
Num Of Supported Power Levels ............. 4
Tx Power Level 1 .......................... 13 dBm
Tx Power Level 2 .......................... 10 dBm
Tx Power Level 3 .......................... 7 dBm
Tx Power Level 4 .......................... 4 dBm
Tx Power Configuration .................... AUTOMATIC
Current Tx Power Level .................... 1
Tx Power Assigned By ...................... TPC MAX Default

The access-point power is (maximum) 13 dBm now + 6 dBi antenna gain gives a EIRP value of 19 dBi πŸ™‚