I will take a stab at some of these... I hope some of this will help. A little background on our network. We upgraded about 300 older APs to LWAPP. We upgraded the following AP models: 1121, 1131, 1231 (a couple of variations of this one). We are using WiSM (Wireless Services Module) based 4404 controllers. This provides two controllers on a blade in our 6509 switches and each controller can handle 150 APs. We currently have three of these blades and another one on order. We have about 450 APs online now with hundreds more planned. Answers below...
On Tue, 19 Sep 2006, Lee Badman wrote: > Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:53:09 -0400 > From: Lee Badman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: 802.11 wireless issues listserv > <WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU> > To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU > Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Cisco LWAPP > > Now that we are into a Cisco LWAPP conversion/rollout, wondering if > anyone else has found these issues to be obstacles to > deployment/support, or if in the grand scheme you've found them to be > non-issues: > > 1. Can't schedule configuration jobs- is no scheduling provision from > WCS We have reported this to Cisco as a feature request. > 2. No master view from WCS of all controllers configurations to compare > for uniformity of config We are addressing this internally. We have written scripts to query various configurations via snmp and insert the data into a mysql database. We can then generate reports of potential problems. > 3. No wild card searches for clients or APs when searching in WCS You can use % as a wildcard for your searches. It is still not great, but it helps. We have written our own code to help with this too. > 4. AP radios come up in transmit, before proper vlan is assigned to > them- meaning that clients might associate to a non-functional cell > (meaning there might be confusion and help-desk calls) We never noticed this one. > 5. No view of the Ethernet port on the AP from the WCS or controller, > which means you can't tell if it negotiated speed or duplex correctly We have never needed this. We can always look at the switch port to get this data. > 6. ACLs in the WCS have to be built line by line, no copy and edit or > text file input > 7. MAC address searches have to be colon delimited Correct, AND they are also case sensitive which we found thanks to a cut and paste search for a rogue AP. > 8. Mispellings in the WCS GUI, usually on error popups > 9. Difficult debugging, like from an AP you have no knowledge of what > controller it associated to or tried to associate to If an AP is currently associated with a controller, the controller IP address is shown in WCS if you search pull up a list of APs. I suspect you are talking about APs that don't connect successfully. Early in our migration, we just brought those back to the office and got on the console and watched to see what was happening. This was very helpful. > 10. No view from the AP or WCS on what switch and port the AP is on > (CDP type view) That would be a useful thing except for one thing. We turned off cdp on all our ports with lwapp APs on them. This was the simplest way to enable the radios on some of our APs. Our switches are 802.3af aware, but they don't provide POE (we use the injectors). By default the radios would turn off and unless you went in and configured them individually. > 11. Inconsistant AP association behavior, certificate issues on > converted APs (mostly 1200s) not registeriing with controllers and > having to be manually added We upgraded our older APs with the upgrade tool provided by Cisco. This tool would put the self signed certificates on one controller. This worked farily well. We would then have to go into WCS and refresh the WCS config from the controller that had the certificates. Then, in WCS go to controller templates -> Security -> AP Authorization and the certificates would all be there. These are templates and can then be pushed to all other controllers easily. > 12. Converted APs drop their pre-conversion system names and go to mac > address for name I don't know any way around this one. > 13. No ability for AP groups VLAN templates for multiple controllers > 14. Cannot use static WEP and AirFortress clients together on an > SSID/VLAN as you can in the autonomous world > > There are more... and I'm not bashing the product, believe it or not. > We bought it and will squeeze great value out of it. But I am wondering > if others see these issues as problems, or if I'm expecting too much as > I move from the autonomous world to this new LWAPP stuff. Even better- > are there any here that I am wrong about? > > Please do not take this as an invitation to call me about WLAN > management products! > > Regards- > > Lee > > Lee H. Badman > Network Engineer > CWNA, CWSP > Information Technology and Services > Syracuse University > 315 443-3003 > > ********** > Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent > Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. > -- Todd M. Hall Network Analyst Information Technology Infrastructure Mississippi State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] 662-325-0728 (phone) ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
