Wireless Access

Upgraded recently to 6.3.0.2 and noticed that the Plan Tab was removed.  Is that gone for good?  Currently not running an Airwave Server in my environment.  Liked having that basic tool in 6.2 and earlier.  Also noticing the Events and Reports Tab aren't there as well.

 

That is not longer supported under AOS 6.3.x

 

 

I have attached  the 6.3.0.2 release notes 

Ah till you pointed out what to look for didn't catch that in the release notes when I read through it.  They certainly didn't point it out to much.  Certainly is a feature I will miss having.

I was told on some traing a long while ago, that ARM used the information in the plan tab to adjust the power levels and channels for the APs.

 

I had my doubts about that at the time, but does anyone know if that is actually true?  The removal of the plan tab sort of implies that it wasn't the case and ARM worked independantly of the plan.

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@Michael_Clarke wrote:

I was told on some traing a long while ago, that ARM used the information in the plan tab to adjust the power levels and channels for the APs.

 

I had my doubts about that at the time, but does anyone know if that is actually true?  The removal of the plan tab sort of implies that it wasn't the case and ARM worked independantly of the plan.

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That was true at one time, but the dependency was removed.

For those who were using it for true Planning purposes, the VisualRF standalone tool is much more accurate and has been updated to include planning for differing construction materials and attenuation.

 

It's available on the support site:

 

http://support.arubanetworks.com/DOWNLOADSOFTWARE/tabid/75/DMXModule/510/EntryId/4830/Default.aspx

 

This is the direction Aruba has taken in the past 5 years.  Take away base features and roll that functionality into other tools that you have to pay an additional cost for.  I'm done recommending Aruba for small businesses because they simply can't afford that kind of "progress".  That's where Ruckus and others have far better simple reporting tools INCLUDED in the product.  And it doesn't take a Phd in astrophysics to configure an AP either.

Sorry you feel that way but the VisualRF Plan tool is free.

Yes, but free is never free. 

1)  It's PC only, we're a mac shop.  Before I could pull it up just fine (as could any of my team), but now I'll need to install it in a VM somewhere.

2)  All of the maps will need to be redone.  That's 3 buildings with multiple floors, with 80 APs to be placed on the map.

 

 It's just frustrating.  Many of us just need simple reporting tools. 

 

I do agree with Watermarkgeek to certain extend as some of the simple tools should remain so that customer that purchased Aruba because of the those features do not feel "cheated" after the upgrade as the new features may not necessary fit what they need.

The RF plan exists in the Aruba Controller from ArubaOS 2.5 up until ArubaOS 6.2.  If anyone wanted to keep the RF planning tool, they would stay on ArubaOS 6.2.  The release notes clearly reflect major changes made in the product so nobody should feel cheated.

RIGHT... so just because it's in the release notes, you shouldn't feel cheated.  Let's apply that to the real world shall we?  I go to the grocery store and buy some cheese... when I get home, I realize that the cheese is past it's expiration date.  So now I've paid for something but I can't use it.  Clearly it was printed on the expiration date, so the company that sold it to me isn't at fault.  I should have paid more attention to the notes.

 

No, that's not how it works.  I paid for a feature.  Now Aruba wants me to pay again for Airwave. 

 

Aruba WILL lose business over this.  When I have showed off Aruba to many of my collegues, the ONLY wow factor has been the planning and deployment tool built into the gui.  Wow... you mean I can see where my radios are on a map!?  Wow, I can hover over them and quickly see how many clients are attached?  That's a wow factor.  And it was in the base product.  The rest of the gui is a cluttered, overcomplicated mess.

 

Now, you either need to configure another (windows only) tool, or buy additional licensing for Airwave.  (which is also a cluttered mess)

I understand that Aruba is only concerned with making money (gotta keep the shareholders happy first)  and that there is much more money to be made selling software than hardware.   Aruba will continue to buy companies to expand their product offerings, and we will end up paying for it.

 

(And cjoseph, you made my point for me.  It was available on the aruba controller from 2.5 up to 6.2.  It was there for 7 years.  And it's laughable to think that people actually read the mess that you guys call release notes.)  Terrible.

I was told with new function such as APPSRF Aruba will need to resource for the newer features and the not so much in use features will be gone. These features are currently in Airwave. This is definitely a feature that I will miss as it has help me won a lot of deals in the past,

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@Normal Guy wrote:

I was told with new function such as APPSRF Aruba will need to resource for the newer features and the not so much in use features will be gone. These features are currently in Airwave. This is definitely a feature that I will miss as it has help me won a lot of deals in the past,

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What features are referring to?  APPRF runs on the controller GUI.  It also happens to be monitored via Airwave, but it runs independently on the controller.

Nobody is forced to upgrade to the version without the RF plan. You can stay in the same train and get software updates with RF plan. If you purchased a controller with 6.3 it did not have the plan. If you purchased it with 6.2 or lower it has it and you can upgrade within that train for fixes. Even the newest controllers run 6.2 GA.

Just an observation.

 

Over the last 10 years, I've probably installed or overseen approximately 400-500 customer Aruba deployments.

 

I can remember 3 customers that used the plan on the controller GUI, and that's about it.

 

Those that were really concerned with such things (with associated KPIs) always required something more grand to hit key deliverables (like Airwave) for longer term stat analysis and metrics. SME's would look at the controller plan for 5 minutes, say "that's pretty" and then never look at it again.

 

I personally don't miss it.

 

Thanks.

 

Ok... I guess we are the only ones who actually used that feature.  Plan to me is different from deploy (although they both existed under the plan tab).  We didn't use it for planning, just for knowing when an AP is offline, where it is, etc.  I'd be curious to know how customers WHO HAVEN'T PURCHASED AIRWAVE actually keep up with the locations of 100+ AP.  How does an IT staff of 4 people keep up with that data?

 

Are there other things about Aruba that we should be using to track this kind of location information?

 

I'm struggling to provide full IT services to a facility spread over 13 acres with 4 staff IT people.  So yeah, we need every tool we can get.

 

Even customers who have purchased Airwave, we stress coming up with a naming convention for access points that specifically say where they are.  Whether it is Campus-Building-Room-1 or something else that everyone recognizes, that is the key to understanding immediately where a device is located.

 

 

We do a pretty good job of naming.  But in a large auditorium with a ton of access points, it gets more difficult to pinpoint.  Catwalk-East-Front, Catwalk-Southeast-Back-Center, SeatingArea-A-row4.  Much easier to place once, and look at the map to see exactly which one is faulty.

I hope you don't have a ton of access points in a large auditorium..  There is only so much re-use you can get with limited channels.  http://www.arubanetworks.com/vrd/HighDensityVRD/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm

 

A good naming scheme does not replace Rf Plan, but an as-built with the correct access point names on them can be just as good, paper or electronic.  Most people that choose airwave do not do it because of RF plan:  they do it for historical reporting.

Yeah, done a few conf centres/auditoriums.

 

Working with those customers specifically looking at this challenge (i.e. APs up/down, where the heck is it), we decided as follows.

 

Documentation regarding AP install was critical. I.e. we ensured the cabling guys errecting APs, took photo evidence of their location (with landmarks) and aligned this data into central docs. We then created naming that married this data into the monitoring platform in use (Airwave or otherwise). Then finally, do some form of alerting. Again Airwave or otherwise. Basically, this removes the problem of "where is it" as you have correlated granular info, and a quick "there's a problem".

At least the built in tool worked.  RFPlan is super buggy for me.  It won't even load the floor plan I added...     I used the built in tools to place AP's initially.  I used the tools to help locate AP's that were installed above the ceiling before I came here.  I also used it to track devices.    Being a school we don't have the funds for airwave -  the plan tab going away was a big loss for me.    The "you don't have to upgrade" statement doesn't always apply.  If you don't upgrade you never get the bug fixes or support for newer devices that might not play nice with 6.2.    That said,  if you never upgrade past 6.2, and that is a supported solution - what would be the point in paying Aruba yearly...  

There is always a way to get Airwave at a discount. Why don't you speak to your SE or channel manager and see what they can do for you before ruling out Airwave completely.

Just to clear up one thing, I'm talking about the whole RF/map/plan/deploy feature in the controller. Never could find a sensible business use case for it.

 

Generally speaking, I've found a couple of ways of hitting deliverables.

 

Operational availability

Can you afford Airwave? Then buy it. If not, often times if a customer is budget challenged, you usually find they have a monitoring platform already which needs adapting to accomodate. I'd have to dig out the details regarding what platforms I worked on, but I remember having to do this with syslogs once, and SNMP traps another time. Once you've identified the traps/logs associated with certain events (takes a little work, but not much) you can then get the monitoring platform (if it's half-decent) to turn those messages into real alerts.

 

Planning

I'm still an advocate of real surveys. Nothing else technically comes anywhere close, but even I have to charge for my guys to do it obviously. If the customer has no money for this, we could use the visual-rf or Airmagnet offline (Mac compatibility not withstanding), and advise them the output data is "in principal" and not contractual. Critically this comes down to de-risking. If a customer cannot afford for me to de-risk them, I cannot have the risk of virtual surveys being incorrect offset to my business. It's a case of informed decisions for the customer.

 

 

Bbelew,

Your opinion is yours, so I cannot challenge anything that is your opinion. Please open a case for the RF plan behavior.

You absolutely do get bug fixes within the 6.2 train. You also get device interoperability fixes as well. Please let us know what devices do not play well in the 6.2 train but is fixed in the 6.3 train...so it can be looked at.

But from another standpoint, lower AirOS will not support the newer APs and not to mention the newer controllers.

ArubaOS 6.2 is GA and  supports all of the controllers Aruba makes.  6.3 is only required for the AP225.  Again, this is about keeping what you purchased....  Anyone who purchased a controller got it with 6.2 which has the RF plan, and they are not forced to upgrade to keep what they purchased.  Anyone who considers upgrading to 6.3 the removal is clearly in the release notes and they have the option of not upgrading and possibly getting IAP 225s.  The key here is options....

I do agree with you on the options cjoseph. I had lay these options and let my customers choose which is the more critical features or hardware they need.