Agreed with Dale on WLSE/WLSM. We have abandoned the WLSE/WLSM platform
and selected to migrate to the WCS/WiSM platform. All our newly built
buildings since September have been on the new platform (we call it
Generation 2 wireless).
For sites who have invested in the previous Aironet platform, Cisco has
commented on investment protection. The nice thing about the Airespace
platform is that it's a shipping product that appears to work. The
WLSE/WLSM never did, it's one of the reasons Cisco bought Airespace for
half a billion dollars (not a small commitment to the space).
One of the driving factors for moving to a more "tuned" or "self-tuned"
platform is to support the next generation wireless devices. My next
cell phone/PDA will have both 3G (EV-DO) and Wi-Fi. I hope to be able
to use VOIP when on campus and tuning becomes much more important when
supporting these next generation devices and applications.
With the Airespace folks taking over the Wireless BU leadership, the tea
leaves indicated where the development is going. Cisco has recently
confirmed this by quietly been phasing out the older platform on
Cisco.com in favor of "Unified Wireless Network" (which is based on the
Airespace platform).
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/wireless/
... Jonn Martell, Manager - UBC Wireless
on 12/6/2005 9:35 AM Dale W. Carder said the following:
On Dec 6, 2005, at 8:55 AM, Lee Badman wrote:
I am contemplating piloting a rather large new building to use
Cisco's WLSE/AP "self healing" features- have had some success with
it in small test areas. Wondering if anyone is using it on a larger
scale and has either gotten comfortable with it or has experienced
pain as a result.
I'll be blunt.
Our opinion of the WLSE and WLSM stuff is that it is largely a solution
looking for a problem in this arena. We tried a WLSE for a while a year
ago and it was nothing but worthless pain and overall a half-baked piece
of junk.
For how often you actually expect the RF footprint to change, an AP
go down,
for all of the effort to set up and deal with all of the WLSE/WLSM crap,
importing map graphics, I can have a 24x7 tech log into and set power
levels,
reboot an AP remotely via a POE switch, or even do a truck roll to
replace
an AP for a lot less cost and all using monitoring infrastructure
already
in place.
Select your channels and coverage maps with good pre and post deployment
site surveys. Have those maps available to the NOC. You can set client
power levels (for clients that obey) via the IOS cli. We have large
buildings (libraries in particular) with 100% coverage, lots of AP's,
lots of clients (A,B and G), some 24x7, and nothing that has ever
required
"self healing" mumbo-jumbo. Save your money on marketing buzzwords, and
spend it on quality RF design and tools.
Note that for all of the Aironet engineers' effort, more or less all of
the CCX/WDS/WLSE/WLSM architecture is or will be junk now with the
Airospace equipment and the lightweight AP model which all of the
vendors are at or are moving towards. Cisco has always lagged behind
other vendors in wireless technology (which is fine by them, as it lets
the others take the risks in a fast moving market).
Dale
----------------------------------
Dale W. Carder - Network Engineer
University of Wisconsin at Madison
http://net.doit.wisc.edu/~dwcarder
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