Wireless Access

Hey all,

I have taken over control of a very large Aruba deployment and have started to become acclimated to their way of doing things, however, their AirWave deployment seems very messy; I have APs showing client associations from across the floor plan in VisualRF, over 1,600 reports, and a myriad of other issues. So, I have some questions:

1. Why do I see clients associating with APs (via a thick, blue line) from over 300ft away? I also see a strange client association where it places the client outside of the building, however ALL of the APs are showing a connection to it, so I have all of these horrible thick blue lines running all over the floor plan. If I could figure out why that's happening, that would be really awesome.

2. Other than what I've read from the AirWave Best Practices and Procedures document, is there another resource I can read that'll give me a good overview of what I should do to better manage what I'm seeing in AirWave? I also need to figure out a good way to wrangle some reports that have been generated and are currently sending emails about downed APs, however I can't seem to find the report at all, and with that many reports, it makes it pretty tricky to find the offending report(s)...

3. There are some APs that are showing that certain radios are down, but when I cross-check them on the controller, the radio is up and working fine. I ran a search of this board and found that it can be caused by a cataloging issue, and that if the Tx power isn't in the catalogue file for AirWave, it'll report that the radio is down (the whole site.xml problem) and that by sending something to the AirWave support team, it'll take care of this issue, but it was from 2 years ago; I'm running AirWave 7.6.2 now (soon to upgrade to 7.6.4), so has a better way been devised to fix this issue since then?

4. Lastly, there was an AP 135 that went down and I did a Hardware Replacement in AirWave, and on VisualRF it doesn't show any clients associating with it, but on the controller it shows client association. What else do I need to do in order for the client association to be accurately displayed in AirWave?

If anyone else has any other comments or questions about these issues, I would love to further clarify, and thank you in advance for any help that's rendered.

1. In VisualRF, the thicker lines are lines that designate AP of association. The thinner lines are APs that hear the client. The blue line represents the 2.4 GHz band, while a green line would represent the 5 GHz band. Check that the floor plan and AP placement are accurate. You can use the floor plan measurement tool under the edit options to check the sizing of the floor plan.  As for clients being placed outside of the floor plan, it's recommended that exterior walls be drawn on the floor plan (interior walls are optional, but we typically recommend drawing just the exterior walls).

2. There's a Quick Start guide (http://support.arubanetworks.com/DOCUMENTATION/tabid/77/DMXModule/512/Command/Core_Download/Default.aspx?EntryId=9099) that can be used to get a quick idea. You should also contact your SE to see if you can get a quick demo (If your SE is unavailable, you may be able to schedule a quick walkthrough from support). I'd also suggest looking into getting some AirWave training to get a full picture of what AirWave can do. Reports are on their own tab along the menu bar. Under reports, you should have 2 tabs: generated reports and report definitions. You can edit report definitions to redirect the email destination to your address. Setting up the report emailing will have future reports sent, but not previously run reports. Also, be careful to not click the 're-run report' option as that will overwrite current report with most likely a blank report for past reports (as data is aged out based on AMP Setup -> General -> Historical Data Retention).

3. If the APs appear with red details on their info box, that's a sign that the catalogue may be an issue. To be sure that it's a catalog issue, check the output of /var/log/visualrf/visualrf.log.

4. After the hardware replacement, does VisualRF info for the AP reflect the original AP or the newer AP (check MAC address between device info and VisualRF details)? Occasionally, restarting the VisualRF process may help resolve this issue. To do this, go to VisualRF setup -> set VisualRF engine enabled = No and then save. Wait 5 minutes, then re-enable the VisualRF engine.

Rob,

Thanks for quickly getting back to me on this! :smileyhappy:

Let me reply to what you've just posted:

1. Thanks for clearing this up for me. I moused over the lines and they told me what band and dBm and that sort of info, but it is really strange to see all of these really long, thick blue lines going from every single AP on the floor plan to, what looks like, one client outside of the walls (which were previously drawn, as they have a red outline and are designated as walls, because when I click on the Walls checkbox they disappear, so it must be them!) and it really clutters AirWave and makes it really ugly. I still don't know what I should do about that.

2. This is great! I don't know how I missed this. I've already explored all of the areas that you mentioned regarding reports so I'm familiar with what you've said, but it looks like I'm really going to have to make my own reports and see how they act before I can start going through the other reports and deciding what I need and what I don't, and how the reports that remain are running and to what capacity (checking for redundant or needless reports). As far as training, I would love to do the AirWave training; I'm already an ACMA and ACMP, and I know that AirWave training is at least half of the ACDX cert, but when I checked out any available classes for AirWave training, it didn't show that any were scheduled anytime soon. Bummer. So, that's why I'm here!

3. The output shows that the Tx power is at 33, and the highest I see is 30.5 (and goes down in .5 increments), so I think that might be the issue. I'm not sure how this happens, but in another post that someone made about this very same issue, you asked them to submit a .xml file and you'd send it back to them, corrected, to reflect the Tx of the AP 125s. Does that ring any bells? Do I need to do the same?

4. I have the old AP (MAC: x:x:x:x:x:14) and the new AP (MAC: x:x:x:x:x:98), and AirWave shows the new AP (based off of MAC address). It's named the same as the old one, but I did confirm that the MAC is related to the new AP that's mounted and in production now. Will disabling the VisualRF engine impact AirWave in any way that may impact my production environment? AirWave is in monitor only mode anyway, and VisualRF is just a GUI-based convenience, but I have to ask (just in case).

Thank you!

1.  The VisualRF display can get cluttered pretty easily.  For that reason, here's what I usually have for displayed:

APs: deployed, Other devices: clients & rogues, Floorplan features: regions & walls, Relations: client association.  This gives a fairly clean view of direct client to AP associations and how locations are happening on the floor plan.  From there, toggling additional display items is on an as needed basis.  One thing to do is right click on a wall to see what attenuation type it is.  I usually set all exterior walls to concrete.  Additionally, if you're on a floor that's above ground level where no clients should ever be outside the floor plan, then you can create a location probabilty region and set it to 100% attenuation -> that means that clients are 100% placed in that designated region.  Be aware that VisualRF doesn't handle overlapping regions at this time.  This will at least get the client placement within the floor plan.

2.  Sorry to hear that.  I'll try to kick the training team to see if they can setup another AirWave class.

3.  I recall similar cases, but this should be double-checked by support in a support case (for tracking purposes).

4.  Disabling VisualRF won't have any impact on data collection, though it will momentarily pause client location calculating.  While VisualRF is disabled, the AMP is still polling and talking to your network infrastructure.  VisualRF is merely processing data for visualization, so it does not change config on any devices (regardless of management / monitor status).

I think I'm going to redo the Corporate location (where I work) first in VisualRF and then replicate what changes I make to the other locations over time. Thanks for your input on this, as it was very helpful.

If you could get the training guys to do something remote, that would be awesome! Thank you!

I'll get support involved if it's still an issue.

Thanks, Rob!

vfabian,

Awesome! This is exactly what I needed! Thank you!

Sorry, one more thing ...

The link that you posted on the first reply you had is bad. It takes me to a broken support page. Do you have a mirror?

Thanks!

Good catch, I fixed it.  It took the closing parenthesis into the link for some reason.  Also, if you like to click and drive on your own, the path is: support.arubanetworks.com -> documentation -> software / user guids -> airwave -> 7.6.x -> AirWave 7.6 Quick Start Guide

Found it. Thanks again.

http://support.arubanetworks.com/DOCUMENTATION/tabid/77/DMXModule/512/Default.aspx?EntryId=9092