Managing Services with Cisco Mobility Express

There are a number of services supported in a Cisco Mobility Express deployment. In this section, the following Services will be covered.

Application Visibility and Control

Network Based Application Recognition (NBAR) provides application-aware control on a wireless network and enhances manageability and productivity. It also extends Cisco's Application Visibility and Control (AVC) as an end-to-end solution, which gives a complete visibility of applications in the network and allows the administrator to take some action on the same.

NBAR is a deep-packet inspection technology, which supports stateful L4 - L7 classification. The key use cases for NBAR are capacity planning, network usage base lining and better understanding of what applications are consuming bandwidth. Trending of application usage helps network admin improve quality of experience by protecting key applications from bandwidth-hungry applications when there is congestion on the network, capability to prioritize or de-prioritize, and drop certain application traffic. The AVC/NBAR2 engine interoperates with QoS settings on the specific WLAN.

Enabling Application Visibility on WLAN

To configure Application Visibility on a WLAN, follow the procedure below:

Procedure

To enable Application Visibility on WLAN, navigate to Wireless Settings > WLANs. On the Add new WLAN or Edit WLAN window, click on the Traffic Shaping tab. To enable Application Visibility on this WLAN, select Enabled for Application Visibility Control.

Enabling Application Control on WLAN

After Application Visibility has been enabled on the WLAN, one can add control for various applications. There are two way to add control for applications. One can either add control directly from the Applications widget on the Network Summary page or one can navigate to Monitoring > Applications and add control for applications as needed.

Adding Application Control from Network Summary Page

Procedure
Step 1

Add the Applications widget on the Network Summary Page. To add the Applications widget, click on the + icon on the right of the Network Summary banner. Select the Applications widget. The Applications widget will display the top 10 applications being browsed by the clients in the Mobility Express network.

Step 2

Click on the application you wish to add control. The Add AVC Rule window will pop up. Select the Action. Action can be Mark, Drop or Rate Limit. For Mark, one can select DSCP as Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze or Custom. If custom is selected, one has to specific he DSCP value. For Rate Limit, one can specify the Average Rate and Burst Rate for the application.

Step 3

Select one or more AVC Profile/SSID combinations.

Step 4

Click Apply.

Adding Application Control from Applications Page

Procedure
Step 1

Navigate to Monitoring > Applications Page.

Step 2

Click on the application you wish to add control. The Add AVC Rule window will pop up. Select the Action. Action can be Mark, Drop or Rate Limit. For Mark, one can select DSCP as Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze or Custom. If custom is selected, one has to specific he DSCP value. For Rate Limit, one can specify the Average Rate and Burst Rate for the application.

Step 3

Select one or more AVC Profile/SSID combinations.

Step 4

Click Apply.

iOS Optimized WiFi connectivity and Fast Lane

Configuring Optimized WiFi Connectivity

802.11r enabled WLAN provides faster roaming for wireless client devices. It is desired that iOS devices running iOS 10 will be able to join a WLAN with 11r enabled for better roaming experience. However, if 11r is enabled on a WLAN, the legacy devices that do not recognize the FT AKM's beacons and probe responses will not be able to join the WLAN. We need a way to identify the Client device capability and allow 11r capable device to join on the WLAN as an FT enabled device and at the same time to allow legacy device to join as an 11i/WPA2 device.

Cisco Mobility Express Release 8.4 will enable 802.11r on an 802.11i-enabled WLAN selectively for iOS devices. The capable iOS devices will identify this functionality and perform an FT Association on the WLAN. The Cisco Wireless infrastructure will allow FT association on the WLAN from devices that can negotiate FT association on a non-FT WLAN. In addition, with Mobility Express running AireOS 8.4, 802.11k and 11v features are enabled by default on an SSID. These features help clients roam better by telling them when to roam and providing them with information about neighboring APs so that no time is wasted scanning when roaming is needed. Since iOS devices support dual band, the 802.11k neighbor list is updated on dual-band, adaptively for iOS devices.

To configure 11k, r, v on a WLAN, follow the procedure below:

Procedure

Step 1

Enable Expert View on Cisco Mobility Express. Expert View is available on the top banner of the Cisco Mobility Express WebUI as shown below and enabled various configurable parameters which are not available in Standard view.



Step 2

Navigate to Wireless Settings > WLANs. On the Add new WLAN or Edit WLAN window, click on the Advanced tab. Configure 802.11k, r, v as needed on this page.



Step 3

Click Apply.

Configuring Fast Lane

Apple iOS device mark QoS as per IETF recommendations. With Mobility Express running AireOS 8.5, one can enable the Fastlane feature from CLI, which enables several beneficial functions:

  • Your WLC QoS configuration is optimized globally to better support real-time applications.

  • iOS 10 devices can send upstream voice traffic without the requirement to perform WMM TSPEC/TCLAS negotiation. The infrastructure will honor the voice marking for these devices.

  • You can apply a QoS profile to your iOS 10 devices, and decide which applications should receive QoS marking upstream, and which applications should be sent as best effort or background.

To configure Fast Lane on a WLAN from UI, follow the procedure below:

Procedure

Step 1

To enable Application Visibility on WLAN, navigate to Wireless Settings > WLANs. On the Add new WLAN or Edit WLAN window, click on the Traffic Shaping tab. To enable Fastlane on this WLAN, select Enabled for Fastlane.

Step 2

Click Apply.

Cisco Mobility Express with CMX Cloud

Cisco CMX Cloud

Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences Cloud (Cisco CMX Cloud) is an simple and scalable offering which enables delivery of wireless guest access and in-venue analytics, integrating seamlessly with Cisco wireless infrastructure.

This cloud-delivered Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering is quick to deploy and intuitive to use. It is based on CMX 10.x code and is compatible with Cisco Mobility Express Release 8.3. It offers the following services:

  • Connect for Guest Access-Providing an easy-to-use guest-access solution for visitors through a custom portal using various authentication methods including social, self-registration, and Short Message Service (SMS).
  • Presence Analytics-Detecting all Wi-Fi devices (the "devices") in the venue and providing analytics on their presence, including dwell times, new vs. repeat visitors, and peak time.

Cisco CMX Cloud Solution Compatibility Matrix

  • Cisco Mobility Express running AireOS Release 8.3 and later
  • All Cisco Mobility Express supported Access Points

Minimum requirements for Cisco CMX Cloud deployment

Below are the minimum requirements for CMX Cloud deployment:

  1. Verify Cisco CMX Cloud Solution Compatibility Matrix above.
  2. Recommended browser is Chrome 45 or later.
  3. Signup at https://cmxcisco.com for 60 day trial or go to Cisco Commerce Workspace (CCW) and purchase license for your choice of CMX Cloud service

Enabling CMX Cloud Service on Mobility Express for Presence Analytics

After CMX Cloud Account has been created, next step is to configure and enable the CMX Cloud Service on Master Access Point so that it can send data to the CMX Cloud. To configure, follow the procedure below:

Procedure

Step 1

On Cisco Mobility Express WebUI, navigate to Advanced > CMX.

Step 2

Enter the CMX Server URL (Site URL).

Step 3

Enter the CMX Server Token (Account Token).

Step 4

Click Apply.

Tip 

Click the Test Link button to verify connectivity from Master AP to CMX Cloud Site using the configured information.

Configuring Site on CMX Cloud for Presence Analytics

To create a site and add Access Points to the site in CMX Cloud for Presence Analytics, follow the procedure below:

Procedure

Step 1

Login to CMX Cloud account at https:/​/​cmscisco.com/​

Step 2

Navigate to Manage > Cloud Enabled WLC and verify that the IP address of the WLC shows up on the list.

Step 3

Navigate to PRESENCE ANALYTICS > Manage. You should be in the Sites pane. Click on the Add Site button to create a site.

Step 4

In the NEW SITE window, configure the following details:

  • Enter the Name for the site

  • Enter the Address for the site

  • Select Timezone from the drop-down list

  • Select the Signal Strength Threshold for Ignore, Passerby, and Visitors

  • Enter the Minimum Dwell Time for Visitor (minutes)

Step 5

Click Save to create the Site.

Step 6

After the Site is created, click on Access Points under PRESENCE ANALYTICS > Manage.

Step 7

Select the Access Points and add them to the Site by clicking on Add to Site button and selecting the Site from the drop-down list.

Step 8

Finally, navigate to Presence Analytics dashboard. Select the Site you created. Within a few minutes, you should begin to see Presence data get populated.