Clear To Send: Wireless Network Engineering

Private 5G is another wireless solution aimed at use cases requiring low latency and dedicated throughput for critical applications. But 5G for Wi-Fi engineers is an enigma. We know of 5G but how many Wi-Fi engineers have configured and deployed it? Celona believes that private 5G is so easy that any Wi-Fi engineer can deploy it themselves. So easy that Jeremy Rollinson, of Celona, demonstrates this at MFD7. Using their own proof-of-concept kit, Jeremy configures a private 5G Celona network from scratch while answering numerous questions from the delegates. Then he provides all the delegates with SIM cards to test it out. All under 2 hours. Resources Celona recordings

https://youtu.be/XLm5O3LP84s With over 15 patents and 300+ well known customers, monitoring Wi-Fi from the client perspective is a big deal. 7Signal plants sensors on the network to monitor and gather various Wi-Fi metrics to determine root cause analysis. This is done through passive or active monitoring on one of their two products, Mobile Eye or Sapphire Eye. The latter is a hardware sensor. Check out our feedback on 7Signal’s presentation. Resources 7Signal’s MFD7 presentation: https://techfieldday.com/appearance/7signal-presents-at-mobility-field-day-7/

Cisco has been an occasional presenter at Mobility Field Day (MFD7). We were expecting Cisco to reiterate their announcement from Cisco Live. Briefly mentioned was the additional Catalyst access points capable of being managed by a controller or in the Meraki dashboard. Jim presented incredible detail and analysis of 6 GHz compared to 5 GHz in terms of coverage and capacity. Surprisingly, the coverage was not far off. Not to be left out of the market, Cisco described their Private 5G solution. It’s a full stack subscription model managed by Cisco. Select partners are key for the deployment, which includes the radios and 5G packet core. Check out our feedback of Cisco at MFD7. Resources Cisco videos from MFD7: https://techfieldday.com/appearance/cisco-presents-at-mobility-field-day-7/

https://youtu.be/2qYSKDN27zU Fortinet is a security-based company pulling in $4.1B in revenue. And as you’d expect, they are securing Wi-Fi users differently from others. Today, their customers are facing many challenges from sophisticated attacks, operational technology, work from anywhere, and the application journey. Their vision is to reduce complexity and have rapid response. There’s a convergence of networking and security. Fortinet is releasing FortiLink NAC which allows Fortigate users to integrate a NAC solution without additional hardware. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for the LAN is going to target operational challenges as Fortinet addresses challenges with too much to monitor to requiring a high level of expertise. Check out what Fortinet had to say at Mobility Field Day 7 (MFD7). Resources Fortinet videos from MFD7: https://techfieldday.com/appearance/fortinet-presents-at-mobility-field-day-7/

Ruckus Networks unveils their latest logo of the iconic dog, creating a Ruckus. I couldn’t help noticing how much more confident the dog appeared. Is it possible to teach an old dog new tricks? Ruckus dived into the scalability of their platform, empowering property owners, hospitality, and higher education with the tools of efficiently managing dynamic preshared keys. By leveraging a single SSID, Ruckus is allowing devices to connect more seamlessly and securely with a unique preshared key. This creates network segmentation on a large network, such as hospitality. You only see your devices sharing the same key. Additionally, Ruckus brings together security using Cloudpath to authenticate devices. But rather than stopping at connectivity, Ruckus goes beyond with analytics. Troubleshooting Wi-Fi issues can be challenging for lean IT teams. Ruckus analyzes the device connection to raise the issue in an easy to understand format for the operator, including visual representation. Aside from the technicalities, an organization can utilize other analytics data by creating KPIs. These KPIs lead to business level decision making. Ruckus finds new ways to innovate. We’ve seen many vendors pop up when it comes to IoT and 5G. Ruckus has a single access point which includes these radios. It brings an advantage for them to provide a single platform for IoT, for example, where we would normally see disparate systems. Their IoT dashboard was quite extensive, integrating with systems such as Samsung SmartThings. Resources Check out the Ruckus Network session from MFD7: * Creating a RUCKUS With a Purpose* Simplifying Large Shared Networks With Ruckus and Network Segmentation* Ruckus Cloud Service with Practical Artificial Intelligence for Networks* Ruckus Innovating at the Edge* Ruckus Next Generation Enterprise Network

Mobility Field Day (MFD) is the traditional format of Mist product announcements. It’s no different for MFD7. In the room with MFD delegates sits two new Juniper EX4100 network switches. Described to be deliver cloud-native telemetry data to improve Marvis and the AI-driven dashboard. Speaking of Marvis, Mist announced an expansion with the Marvis Windows Client. This brings additional data to the dashboard from the client point-of-view. Not only that, Mist stated they would allow 3rd party integrations for additional telemetry data. Bob Friday discussed the confidence and efficacy levels around Marvis as Mist scoops up more customers. Wes Purvis provides his analysis from testing Wi-Fi 6E clients around how they hear 6 GHz signal. This insight is one of the earliest Wi-Fi engineers have seen since there are not many supported devices widely available. Lastly, we hear an update from the Whitesand acquisition and how Mist plans to disrupt the NAC landscape to address challenges around agility, scalability, architecture, and the lack of insight. Resources Check out the full video session here from Tech Field Day: * Juniper AI-Driven Enterprise: Momentum and What’s New* Juniper and the Marvis Journey* Juniper AIOps and Location* Juniper AI-Driven Enterprise: Wireless* EXpect the UnEXpected with Juniper* Juniper and the Policy of the Future

Mobility Field Day 7 is taking place from Wednesday July 13 to Friday July 15 2022. As always, it will be streamed live on LinkedIn as well as on the Tech Field Day website. Tune in at: https://techfieldday.com/event/mfd7/ This year, the presenters will be: * Juniper / Mist* Ruckus Networks* Betacom* Fortinet* Cisco* 7Signal* Celona* NetAlly The delegates will be: * Jennifer Huber* Avril Salter* Chris Reed (First timer)* Troy Martin (First timer)* Keith Parsons* Sam Clements* Mario Gingras* Mike Wade* Shaun Neal* Tim Dennehy* Rowell Dionicio* François Vergès Event channel in the Clear To Send Slack Follow us on our social medias during the event! * @vergesfrançois* @rowelldionicio Resources Presentation video: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tech-field-day_mobility-field-day-7-is-here-activity-6950821180350087168-mZwS?utm_source=linkedin_share&utm_medium=member_desktop_web Event link: https://techfieldday.com/event/mfd7/ Watch live here: https://techfieldday.com/event/mfd7/ Tech Field Day LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tech-field-day/

In this episode, we introduce the topic of Wi-Fi DevOps. François and Rowell defines what Wi-Fi DevOps is and how it can improve some of the operations of Wi-Fi Engineers. DevOps is used more and more on the wired network side but is coming, slowly but surely, to wireless. Listen up in order to understand how Wi-Fi DevOps can improve our work and hear about what François has been working on in the past few months. Enjoy! Resources No Code Tools: https://nocodehq.com/tools Semfio Networks → Link to François blog on Wi-Fi DevOps

In this episode, Heather Paunet and Ed Chapman from Arista talk about their new product: Cognitive Unified Edge. Arista is making a move in the commercial enterprise space by offering a new product that will let its customer manage the full stack of network equipments: APs, switches, firewalls and WAN appliance. Here are a few useful links: NG Firewall live demo: http://demo.untangle.com/admin/index.do Micro Edg live demo: http://microedge-demo.untangle.com/admin/ Press release for the launch of CUE: https://www.arista.com/en/company/news/press-release/15261-pr-20220329 CUE Solution Guide: https://www.arista.com/assets/data/pdf/Whitepapers/Arista-Cognitive-Unified-Edge-Solution-Guide.pdf

Our guest, Kjetil Teigen Hansen is a System Engineer at Conscia Norge AS in Norway. In this episode, we have a discussion on how he leverages Grafana to graph Wi-Fi telemetry data from the Cisco Catalyst C9800. Telemetry data is network monitoring data streamed from network devices. Kjetil has built his own dashboards with Telegraf, InfluxDB, and Grafana. The reason for creating these dashboards was to help with Wi-Fi client troubleshooting. It helped him save a lot of time and get around the limitations of SNMP. Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrTeigen * WiFi Training – https://wifitraining.com/course-detail/streaming-telemetry-w-cisco-9800* Dave Benham’s blog – https://www.wifireference.com/2020/01/14/viewing-network-telemetry-from-the-catalyst-9800-with-grafana/* Follow Kjetil on Twitter – https://twitter.com/mrTeigen* Grafana: https://grafana.com/grafana/* Influx DB: https://www.influxdata.com/products/influxdb-overview/* Telegraf: https://www.influxdata.com/time-series-platform/telegraf/

Jim Florwick, of Cisco, joins us on this episode to discuss many new features about the Catalyst 9136 access point. 6 GHz is a big competitive landscape with many new access points hitting the market. The Catalyst 9136 will be available with 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz radios. Jim Florwick provides us an overview of the radio design and the challenges Cisco needed to overcome. In addition to supporting 6 GHz, there are other features worth noting such as the environmental sensor, extensibility with the 9W USB port, and CleanAir Pro. With the latest C9800 version 17.8, power optimization with power profiles becomes useful for environmentally conscious organizations. Develop a calendar program to shut down unused radios and conserve power. Also hear about the advancements of RRM with AI RRM, the problems it solves, and the data that is used by the AI engine to make intelligent radio decisions. Listen to this episode with Jim Florwick today to hear the advancements of Cisco’s Catalyst 9136 access point.

Ekahau has just released their latest version of the desktop software but with a new name, AI Pro. With revamped features and algorithms we will look into how AI Planner has changed. We will also dive into the newest additions such as Network Simulator. We find this feature to be useful for client projects. Wall Attenuation Calibration is a welcomed feature for those of us doing APoS surveys. And of course, we will be reviewing 6 GHz design and how that will impact our workflow. If you’re a visual learner then give our YouTube version of this episode a look.

In this episode, we’re bringing on special guests to provide insight into career interviews in wireless positions. We’re joined by Dave Benham and Sam Clements, experts in their field who have hiring responsibilities for their team. Both Dave and Sam bring their own experience and perspectives. If you’re trying to find your path to a wireless specialist or expert position in a company or VAR, then this is the episode you should listen to. Let us know what your questions are below in the comments.

It can be challenging trying to migrate to a Wi-Fi only role. But it’s not an impossible task. In this episode, we’re going to share some of our own experiences and tips. There are many more tips for getting Wi-Fi experience. But this is a way to get started right now. We ask that you share your own tips in the comments below to help others get their Wi-Fi experience. * Taking ownership of issues* Tell your manager you want to do more Wi-Fi* Get certified* Work for a VAR* Volunteer your time to other Wi-Fi professionals & document your work* Blog about Wi-Fi and share your passion publicly* Start your own practice

Does hiding your SSID make it more secure? Will hiding your SSID keep the hackers away? We’ll show you how to reveal a hidden SSID with ease using your laptop. If the SSID is hidden, how does a device know how to find it? In this episode, we’ll discuss why hiding your SSID is not a true security method. There are other ways to secure your SSID and we’ll go over some of those options. Hiding your SSID may create a negative user experience. Since the SSID is not broadcasted, a device needs to probe for the SSID name and wait for an AP to respond. This could delay AP discovery and roaming. Check out the video to see it in action and take a look at the frame captures as an example. Resources Hidden SSID PCAP