With the advent of BYOD and the proliferation of mobile applications – it’s become ever important to have visibility into your wireless network using deep packet inspection. By classifying the data flows that go through the wireless LAN, administrators now have visibility into the top users and top applications which are consuming bandwidth on their network. After analyzing this data and armed with visibility into these applications, Cisco AVC allows the administrator to then take action such as prioritize, deprioritize or block on the applications in their network.

Since Cisco has released Application Visibility and Control (AVC) for wireless -- our customers and partners have been highly interested in the technology and how it can be put to work for them.  Visibility into the applications is made possible on the controller web interface which is useful for diagnosing real-time issues or analyzing short-term application trends. The wireless LAN controller GUI is shown below depicting a network using a variety of applications as identified by AVC.

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Tags: administrator, App, application, apps, AVC, byod, Cisco, control, LAN, network, visibility, wi-fi, wireless, wlan

Some exciting things are beginning to transpire in today’s hotel industry. As technology finds its way into nearly every aspect of our lives, it’s important to take a look at the impact mobile device usage has had and continues to have on hoteliers and guests alike. Guests today are more technologically in-tune than ever before, often traveling with multiple devices that they plan to use leisurely, for business or both.  These devices are also increasingly moving more data as their radios become more sophisticated, and they have increased battery life and are connecting to even more cloud services.  Guests also have increasing expectations that they will always be connected wherever they are.

More smart devices translate to more data crossing the network, and this mass amount of data can be used to gather invaluable guest information for hoteliers, including behavioral insights and on-site property analytics. When collected, measured and used correctly, this data can create a unique and personalized mobile experience for the guest while also creating revenue-growth opportunities for hoteliers.

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Tags: access point, application, hospitality, Hospitality WiFi, hotel, hotelier, hotels, implement, location, location-based, network, networking, resort, services, technology, triangular, venue, wi-fi, wifi, wireless

Last week, a friend of mine jokingly asked me, “So, what is Santa bringing to Cisco’s wireless customers this holiday season?”

I couldn’t help but grin because I already knew what many of you are now aware of: Santa’s wireless holiday delivery came early this year, with Release 7.4 now posted on Cisco.com.

We at Cisco’s Wireless Networking Group are really excited to show off this shiny new release. 7.4 is jam-packed with 40+ features to improve the everyday lives of Cisco wireless customers.

You must be thinking: But you just released feature-heavy 7.3 in October AND new products, such as Virtual Wireless Controller and the highly scalable Wireless Controller 8510!

So what makes 7.4 so special? We specifically chose each feature with the goal of creating an uncompromised user-experience while keeping wireless network administrators happy by making it easy manage their WLAN more efficiently. The 7.4 release specifically focuses on four main pillars:

• Quality of Experience for Wireless Users
• Improved Security & Spectrum intelligence
• Improved performance for small deployments
• Ability to deploy innovative IT services using mobile apps

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Tags: access point, Aironet, application, AVC, Bonjour, controller, holiday, LAN, mobility, mobility services engine, network, networking, release 7.3, release 7.4, wi-fi, wifi, wireless, wlan

The question isn’t IF your users will need more bandwidth, but WHEN they will need more bandwidth. 802.11ac represents the next evolution of the 802.11 standard, and, as you’ve heard, this one really pegs the gas petal in the quest for speed. Offering a link-rate of up to 1.3Gbps, 802.11ac represents the first wireless standard that surpasses the gigabit barrier.

But what makes 802.11ac unique isn’t just bandwidth. The new standard represents a forced push to the cleaner 5GHz spectrum, as well as extended battery life, made possible by getting devices on and off the air more quickly. To learn more about the technical details under the hood of 802.11ac reference this whitepaper.

Cisco’s Aironet Access Point 3600 and an alpha version of the 802.11ac module were demonstrated during Cisco’s presentation during Wireless Field Day 3 (the demo occurs at timestamp 15:30 in the video). Keep in mind that this is a demonstration of a pre-released product so it is expected that throughput and functionality will change and likely increase when the product is available for customers in early 2013.

The test goal was to measure one client, one Access Point 802.11ac performance and leveraged Ixia’s IxChariot to generate UDP traffic over the air. The test was done in an open real world environment, so the achieved throughput is less than what would be expected in a clean RF environment typical of a benchmark test.

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Tags: 3600 module, 802.11ac, access point, aironet 3600, AP3600, application, bandwidth, broadcom, gigabit, IEEE, link-rate, mbps, spectrum, throughput, wireless, wireless standard, wlan

The Problem:

There are many challenges IT managers face on a daily basis. As the proliferation of user devices and the growth in business, personal and collaborative applications continue to grow, almost exponentially, these challenges only make the job of an IT manager harder. For instance, imagine what goes through the mind of an IT administrator who is responsible for helping a hospital and medical school get a handle on device and application growth and usage:

• Is a guest or patient downloading movies using Bit-Torrent –in other words, stealing valuable airtime away from my mission-critical applications?
• My network supports a mixed use of guests, employees and vendors/doctors. Without prioritizing applications on the network, employees risk losing productivity and response time to patients, insurance providers, labs. Can I prioritize business-class applications such as Cisco Webex/Jabber and de-prioritize the applications such as Netflix?
• Who are my top 10 users and the top 10 upstream and downstream applications? Can I save a detailed report of all application flows in my network for compliance purposes?
• The number of devices, number of users is exploding, and use of video is growing 50% year over year. Should I add more access points in my auditorium or conference room areas? Or should I upgrade to 802.11ac for more capacity?

Enter Cisco Application Visibility Control(AVC) integrated into wireless infrastructure.

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Tags: application, application visibility, Application Visibility and Control, bandwidth, cleanair, NBAR2, spectrum