We were introduced to 7Signal from their presentation at the Wireless Field Day, and seeing them on a few listserv conversations. We currently have ~15 sensors (eyes) scattered around our network, mostly in residence halls. There is an upfront cost, and yes, their licensing seems a little more complicated than it really needs to be. That aside, it is a very powerful tool. To be honest, we don't use it as much as we should. More on that in a moment.
7Signal Eyes gather tons of statistics, some passive (signal strength, percentage of retries in the air, etc), others collected by connecting to the AP (TCP throughput, DNS availability). The data is passed back to a database, where a web-based analyzer allows you to slice and dice into graphs and SLAs. We purchased the product for two main purposes. First, to help investigate student complaints. If someone complains that wireless is sluggish every night between 2:00 and 3:00 AM, we can deploy an Eye to gather statistics. Is it just a matter of load? Airtime exhaustion? Interference? Second, to help guide us in making tweaks to our AP configuration. What happens when we enable 40-MHz wide channels? What gains were made when we enabled DFS channels? How about tweaking the beacon interval? These are all changes that theoretically help the network, but we don't have a way to actually measure their effect. They sell the product with a hefty professional services overhead. I see two reasons behind this... First, they want to show you how to use the product, then make suggestions on how to improve your wireless network, and show you how to verify that the improvements resulted in performance gains. None of their suggestions were groundbreaking, but their engineers (at least those I worked with) knew their stuff. We're reasonably intelligent wireless folks, but they deal with tweaking networks every day. We felt it was money well spent. The second reason points to our major complaint with 7Signal. Their web-based analyzer has a very steep learning curve. It's akin to learning the US tax system by reading the IRS tax code. Sure it's possible, but you really need a CPA to help guide you along. You're dealing with a very powerful GUI with lots and lots of knobs, not all of which are clearly explained or even relevant to what you're doing. I get the impression that the product was developed over many years by very smart wireless people who used it every day, but never bothered to step back and look at it as a product a customer would buy / learn / use. We've expressed this concern, and have been assured that they are working on a new analyzer platform. But until it's running on our servers, it's vaporware :-/. So, all of that said, it's a powerful tool. We've gotten useful information from it, and they have guided us through a number of tweaks. We have not seen a gigantic performance improvement, but feel our ability to monitor performance justifies the product. I'm happy to answer other questions or jump on a call. Norman Elton p.s. I'm really convinced that 85% of their statistics could be gathered by the AP directly. I'm pushing our vendor, Aerohive, to implement SFlow with 802.11-level information. Instead of collecting information from a few sensors, every AP could report a statistically-meaningful amount of sampled packets. If anyone else feels this would be useful, let's get that conversation going! On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 12:27 PM, Lee H Badman <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks, Norman. I'm thinking a lot of people are curious. I know one glaring > point is that there seems to be heavy push for professional services, and I'm > not real keen on needing multiple licenses to bring an Eye to life > (seemingly to spread costs out) but those are my personal biases. Anything > you can share would be appreciated! > > -Lee > > -----Original Message----- > From: Norman Elton [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2014 10:18 AM > To: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv > Cc: Lee H Badman > Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Epitiro StreetWise, 7signal > > Lee - > > Just saw your email. We have 7Signal at William & Mary. Would love to > chat about our experience. Let me know if you're still interested. > > Thanks, > > Norman Elton > College of William & Mary > > On Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 3:14 PM, Lee H Badman <[email protected]> wrote: >> Greetings to the list- >> >> Wondering if anyone is using or has taken a serious look at (to the point >> where you’ve gotten quotes) either 7signal or Eptiro StreetWise for wireless >> performance measurement. Epitiro is newer to Wi-Fi game, less PR to date, >> but established in mobile carrier world. >> >> We can chat on list or off, as you’re comfortable with. >> >> For those using either: >> >> >> Which one? >> For how long? >> How “bad” did your network need this sort of help before you started? >> Biggest win? >> Any frustration? >> Perspective on company, support, etc? >> Now that you’re in it with them, has the investment been worth it? >> Has the time commitment to get value been acceptable? >> >> >> For those shopping: >> >> Which one? >> Actively considering? >> Did sticker shock chase you away? >> >> >> Any other thoughts or comments on the general topic welcome as well, as we >> research whether to go this path. >> >> Thanks- >> >> Lee Badman >> Syracuse University >> >> >> ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE >> Constituent Group discussion list can be found at >> http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
