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It’s now the fourth time in a row that I had the possibility to be a part of the Cisco NOC workforce for Cisco Stay EMEA.
If we go even additional again in time, I had the possibility to go to Cisco Stay for the Technical Design Clinics again in London and Berlin. The strain was on the shoulders of the NOC workforce who needed to ship a working Wi-Fi community with so many random consumer units linked. I didn’t envy their place (though I admired it). I significantly bear in mind a bug from smartphone distributors in Cisco Stay London that was repeating the occasion SSID as a private hotspot, inflicting quite a lot of hassle to different consumer connectivity. This was the 12 months the CiscoLive SSID went from totally open to a pre-shared key SSID to stop that sort of drawback.
Finish of 2017, the NOC workforce invited me to be a part of the Wi-fi Controller workforce for Cisco Stay Barcelona 2018. I accepted rapidly principally for the sake of being a part of the Cisco Stay occasion, which I contemplate a privilege. I found since then how establishing a big occasions community is such a singular endeavor and can attempt to give some insights into sure selections and choices.
The Planning
Round summer season the 12 months earlier than the occasion, the primary conferences begin. We arrange a workforce and ensure we’ve got the most effective folks for the job at each place. That is the accountability of Remco Kamerman, the Cisco Stay NOC workforce lead and just about the one mounted workforce member since he recruits the remainder of us. Some folks from the software program engineering groups, some salespeople, and a few CX folks (TAC, Buyer Success, and Skilled Providers): workforce members usually are not picked for his or her job position however for his or her experience. In case you are one of many prime folks in your know-how, likelihood is that you just already know a superb a part of the NOC workforce for having labored with them all year long since they’re the highest folks too.
Mapping Insanity
We obtain the venue plans and occasion blueprints early on however they maintain altering till the final day (much less and fewer as time goes by in fact). That is the problem of the design of us within the workforce (Skilled Providers and System Engineers principally) who must do a wi-fi design principally by frequently altering plans. A couple of website visits had been organized to get a sense of the venue. I used to be there on the primary day the constructing workforce began constructing for the occasion and may testify that the variety of bodily modifications the venue goes by way of in simply a few days is unthinkable if you’re not used to such occasions.
Maps are an necessary a part of managing a wi-fi community. We might leverage the interoperability between the venue maps on the RAI Prime Infrastructure equipment, the Cisco DNA Middle we used for the occasion, and the Ekahau design software program we used for the design. Maps had been cross-imported between these 3 locations in order that we might have the right maps for design and day-to-day administration.
Keynote Design
A particular problem was the keynote space which consisted of 4500 chairs round a central stage in an empty corridor. 50 9104 stadium antennas had been used to offer protection from the trusses. Mounting these APs/antennas required very shut collaboration with the keynote space construct workforce as there are particular moments the place the truss is down and accessible after which introduced up (after which you want a scissor raise to entry it and also you wish to keep away from that as a lot as potential for effectivity)
The Construct Up
Nearly all of the NOC workforce consists of individuals truly bodily build up the community. That requires deploying a whole bunch of switches all through the venue and the cabling that goes with that with out something seen to the bare eye. It additionally requires deploying a whole bunch of wi-fi entry factors in varied locations. They are often on poles, partitions, or ceilings, and mounting elegantly and effectively turns into an artwork.
Just like the Fira Barcelona, we inherited round 400 Wi-Fi entry factors from the RAI Amsterdam venue. They had been good sufficient to allow us to management their entry factors during the occasion. This fashion, we don’t must cope with two separate wi-fi networks. a part of the venue APs had been Cisco 9120s with directional antennas mounted on the very excessive ceiling (in addition to some 9104s in a single Corridor) that are good for offering normal protection.
Certainly the RAI hosts quite a lot of completely different exhibits that don’t have anything in widespread (Cisco Stay was between a horse present and a pregnancy-related present) and their Wi-Fi community wants to remain secure between occasions. Nonetheless, since we’re Cisco and we’re keen to deploy a community only for our personal occasion, we might add entry factors on the floor stage and be higher oriented for particular functions (usually, the shut the AP is to the purchasers, the higher, for those who can afford it). We knew the high-density areas and extra difficult floor areas the place further protection could be welcome and that’s what our design consisted of.
Occasion Wi-Fi Decisions
Traditionally, the principle SSID is WPA2 PSK SSID and the group prints the important thing on the occasion badge everybody wears. We added EduRoam help for our schooling prospects to have an SSID their machine already is aware of and may hook up with, utilizing their schooling credentials. We additionally added OpenRoaming, the place your machine routinely connects to the Wi-Fi as quickly as you enter the venue for those who already had an OpenRoaming profile put in in your machine. When you didn’t you may set up one from the CiscoLive occasion app. Personally, I put in an OpenRoaming profile on my iPhone after my native grocery store created a profile for me from their app. My telephone routinely linked, in a safe and clear method, to the venue as quickly as I arrived with my profile from my native grocery store due to the RAI additionally having an OpenRoaming SSID even earlier than Cisco arrived onsite.
We undoubtedly wished to maintain the variety of SSIDs supplied as little as potential to keep away from confusion and to maintain the wifi community effectivity to the utmost potential, however the comfort (and the safety!) of OpenRoaming and Eduroam satisfied us to supply these as further providers.
Wi-Fi 6E
This 12 months, we wished to supply 6ghz Wi-Fi as 6E is the most recent coolest factor. The problem is that offering this throughout the entire occasion would have meant buying a whole bunch of 9166 entry factors. This isn’t potential as we prioritize buyer deliveries for the primary time on a brand new machine. It will even have meant changing all of the venue APs which is impractical for us. We then coated the complete Assembly Village corridor with the 40 9166 we had. The problem with this hybrid strategy is that Wi-Fi 6E requires WPA3 and we didn’t wish to make the principle SSID WPA3 but.
Even when the CiscoLive inhabitants is usually nerdy (it’s a praise these days I believe) and effectively geared up, you wouldn’t imagine among the older units that hook up with the community and WPA3 help is simply not at 100% but we imagine. We needed to create a separate WPA3 SSID which was broadcasted each in 5Ghz and 6Ghz (however 6ghz being solely accessible within the Assembly Village) for compatibility causes.
Legacy and “Bells and Whistles” SSIDs
As a normal rule, is sweet observe to have some sort of legacy SSID and a few sort of extra performing SSIDs with extra bells and whistles. Some years in the past, it meant we supplied a Cisco Stay Legacy SSID which existed on 2.4ghz, whereas the 5Ghz was the principle and “cool” SSID.
In Cisco Stay 2023, we fully gave up on 2.4ghz and the CiscoLive SSID was solely accessible on 5Ghz. This meant the principle CiscoLive SSID wanted to have probably the most suitable settings to make sure all of the purchasers might join and that meant giving up on some nice Cisco options (like Machine Analytics) for the sake of most compatibility. I predict that very quickly, the WPA3/6Ghz SSID will turn into the principle SSID and the 5Ghz-only/WPA2 SSID would be the legacy one. Perhaps too early for that to occur subsequent 12 months however why not 2025?
How the Occasion Went
Keynote and 6ghz
The occasion went very effectively general. Throughout the keynote or the occasion, throughput exams returned surprisingly good outcomes. The 9104 antennas had been actually stunned by their well-defined protection space with very small leakage exterior of the protection course. This actually helps with channel reuse in a big venue corridor.
It was a superb shock to see greater than 60% of the Wi-fi purchasers utilizing Wi-Fi 6. Nonetheless, only some dozen supported 6E. We count on a pointy improve by subsequent 12 months, however it is going to keep a minority of purchasers. There have been a few 802.11n purchasers however actually not many.
The highest simultaneous consumer depend was round 13 500. It’s barely decrease than the final occasion in Barcelona. We count on the occasion to develop by subsequent 12 months since this was the primary one post-Covid.
{Hardware} and Software program Issues
It was the primary Cisco Stay we ran 100% on the Catalyst 9800 in EMEA and 100% on Cisco DNA Middle. Certainly in 2020, they had been there however we nonetheless had 8540 WLCs within the community. We ran the 17.9.2 CCO software program and solely had minor points to report. As is turning into increasingly commonplace, more often than not we spent troubleshooting was on interoperability points with particular machine varieties and options. Fully disabling 2.4Ghz was a fantastic thought as a result of we seen an elevated utilization of Bluetooth among the many attendees and the Wi-Fi community would have disturbed all these Bluetooth units.
Not all the things was good although, it will probably by no means be in such a big occasion with so many new applied sciences. However I’m glad we maintain enhancing 12 months after 12 months. There are all the time areas of grievance when the consumer density is greater than what we anticipated: there have been some very profitable periods in Devnet theater or World of Options and connectivity was subpar throughout these occasions. We’ll ensure that to give you an enchancment plan for subsequent 12 months to make that higher.
Conclusion
The large accountability to run such a community is made bearable by the actual fact the NOC workforce is full of superior folks. In that workforce, each opinion to make issues higher and smoother is welcome and the target is to all the time enhance 12 months over 12 months. It’s all the time difficult to juggle between monitoring the community from the NOC and going to a location for some bodily Wi-Fi troubleshooting. Cisco DNA Middle was undoubtedly an enormous enchancment on this level the place Assurance helps us triage points rapidly. It additionally helped us slim down troublesome areas instantly and dispatch engineers accordingly.
2023 was the 12 months the place we automated quite a lot of the deployment however that’s a complete story to inform.
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