In the last MSE blog, my colleague Lucy discussed wIPS as a feature of MSE Release 7.4. To further the conversation around Release 7.4, I’m going to describe the new licensing scheme.

We at Cisco believe strongly in the mantra of valuing customer satisfaction. Feedback we received on the Mobility Services Engine (MSE) licensing scheme inspired us to make the following adjustments in a new licensing scheme, which is available as a part of the MSE software release for version 7.4 along with Advanced Location Services:

• AP-based licenses to align with Controller and Cisco Prime Infrastructure:  In the earlier releases, you needed to plan and try to predict how many Endpoints you expected on the network before buying the license. Now it’s easier to buy Location Services licenses by simply buying based on the AP count and what services from the MSE you anticipate deploying for your network.
• Simplified WIPS SKUs: Adaptive wIPS licensing scheme was already AP-based so we just reduced the number of SKUs(1-AP, 100-AP and 1000-AP SKUs) for Local Mode and Monitor Mode licenses. Read More »

Tags: access point, advanced location, analytics, AP, aWIPS, Cisco, connected mobile experiences, customer, feedback, license, licensing, licensing scheme, location, location services, mobility services engine, mse, release 7.4, SKU, WIPS

The great (relatively) untapped kingdom of ‘indoor wireless’ may be the next great frontier?

With expectations of WiFi connectivity for just about any business we visit these days, there is no reason this next step for making the physical world more accessible should not be adopted.  Indoor location services offer the chance for us to use our ever-present smart devices to navigate large facilities easier than ever before.  This also represents great opportunity for retail to touch (and measure) customers better than ever before as the struggle between bricks and mortar vs. online shopping continues.

Fierce Broadband Wireless covered the recent Qualcomm and Cisco announcement around Hotspot 2.0 and Passpoint and you can see how this continues to heat up.  It is valuable for so many reasons.

Read More »

Tags: location, location based services, mobility, mobility services engine, mse, TechWiseTV, Thinksmart, wireless

We’re featured on the latest episode of No Strings Attached Show!

Don’t miss our own product managers Jagdish Girimaj and Mark Denny take a deep dive with NSA Show hosts Blake Krone and Samuel Clements into the technology behind enhancing wireless with the Cisco Mobility Services Engine (MSE) and Wireless Security & Spectrum Intelligence (WSSI) AP3600 module.

Listen into the podcast here!

Tags: 3600 module, mobility, mobility services engine, mse, networking, no strings attached, nsashow, podcast, technology, wi-fi, wifi, wireless, wssi

This is the first in series of blogs discussing various features of the Cisco Mobility Services Engine (MSE), an integral, yet often overlooked component that can turbocharge your existing interference detection capabilities. This post describes MSE and how it can help locate interference in your wireless network.

So you have a CleanAir Solution comprised of top-grade, enterprise-class Cisco access points and controllers: finally, a network of minimized interference.

But what happens when a rogue device intrudes on your peaceful network? How can you maintain crisp, fast wireless performance?

Luckily for you, the enterprise-class wireless experience enabled by CleanAir technology can be further enhanced and maintained with Cisco’s Mobility Services Engine (MSE).

MSE is a platform on which you can run services like Context Aware Service (CAS), Wireless Intrusion Prevention Service (wIPS), and Mobile Concierge, all of which are services that can help in monitoring your wireless infrastructure. Designed to integrate with existing CleanAir infrastructure, MSE is a ground-breaking technology that allows network administrators to achieve extremely high quality, interference-less wireless performance.

How exactly does it do this?

Read More »

Tags: access point, AP, aWIPS, cisco prime, cleanair, context aware software, location, location history, mobility services engine, mse, WIPS, wireless, wireless LAN controller, wlan, WLC

As I flew home from Interop Vegas the other night – quick side note: the event was great, check out an overview and a few fun TechWiseTV Videos: Keynote from Padma Warrior , Managing Beyond BYOD, Is Your Network Ready for Cloud? -  I realized that my kindle was not accessible, my laptop was dead and I’d already read the in-flight magazine. Given the close quarters of the commuter plane, I decided it would be okay to peek at what my neighbor was reading. As I glanced over, he turned to an article with a headline that screamed “It could happen to you!!” I then noticed it was a combat handgun magazine and decided I would give him some space.

With no reading materials, I started thinking about all of the situations that we as individuals and as organizations get into that feel secure, but which can actually be quite threatening. Those are the situations that make having insurance worthwhile. When it comes to security on the wireless network, nobody expects hackers and rogue attacks to infiltrate their network, but all of the smart network managers prepare for it anyway.

Read More »

Tags: aWIPS, mobility, mse, rogue detection, security, WIPS, wireless, wireless attacks, wireless security