It is now the fourth time in a row that I had the prospect to be a part of the Cisco NOC staff for Cisco Live EMEA.
If we go even additional again in time, I had the prospect to go to Cisco Live for the Technical Design Clinics again in London and Berlin. The stress was on the shoulders of the NOC staff who needed to ship a working Wi-Fi community with so many random shopper gadgets linked. I didn’t envy their place (though I admired it). I notably bear in mind a bug from smartphone distributors in Cisco Live London that was repeating the occasion SSID as a private hotspot, inflicting a variety of hassle to different shopper connectivity. This was the 12 months the CiscoLive SSID went from totally open to a pre-shared key SSID to forestall that sort of downside.
End of 2017, the NOC staff invited me to be a part of the Wireless Controller staff for Cisco Live Barcelona 2018. I accepted shortly principally for the sake of being a part of the Cisco Live occasion, which I take into account a privilege. I found since then how organising a big occasions community is such a singular endeavor and can attempt to give some insights into sure selections and selections.
The Planning
Around summer time the 12 months earlier than the occasion, the primary conferences begin. We arrange a staff and ensure we’ve the very best folks for the job at each place. This is the duty of Remco Kamerman, the Cisco Live NOC staff lead and just about the one mounted staff member since he recruits the remainder of us. Some folks from the software program engineering groups, some salespeople, and a few CX folks (TAC, Customer Success, and Professional Services): staff members should not picked for his or her job position however for his or her experience. If you’re one of many prime folks in your expertise, chances are high that you just already know a very good a part of the NOC staff for having labored with them all year long since they’re the highest folks too.
Mapping Madness
We obtain the venue plans and occasion blueprints early on however they hold altering till the final day (much less and fewer as time goes by in fact). This is the problem of the design people within the staff (Professional Services and System Engineers principally) who need to do a wi-fi design principally by commonly altering plans. Just a few website visits have been organized to get a sense of the venue. I used to be there on the primary day the constructing staff 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 Center we used for the occasion, and the Ekahau design software program we used for the design. Maps have 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 selected problem was the keynote space which consisted of 4500 chairs round a central stage in an empty corridor. 50 9104 stadium antennas have been used to supply protection from the trusses. Mounting these APs/antennas required very shut collaboration with the keynote space construct staff as there are particular moments the place the truss is down and accessible after which introduced up (after which you want a scissor elevate to entry it and also you need to keep away from that as a lot as doable for effectivity)
The Build Up
The majority of the NOC staff consists of individuals really bodily increase the community. That requires deploying lots of 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 lots of of wi-fi entry factors in varied locations. They might be on poles, partitions, or ceilings, and mounting elegantly and effectively turns into an artwork.
Similar to the Fira Barcelona, we inherited round 400 Wi-Fi entry factors from the RAI Amsterdam venue. They have been good sufficient to allow us to management their entry factors at some stage in the occasion. This manner, we don’t need to take care of two separate wi-fi networks. a part of the venue APs have been Cisco 9120s with directional antennas mounted on the very excessive ceiling (in addition to some 9104s in a single Hall) that are good for offering basic protection.
Indeed the RAI hosts a variety of completely different exhibits that don’t have anything in widespread (Cisco Live was between a horse present and a pregnancy-related present) and their Wi-Fi community wants to remain secure between occasions. However, since we’re Cisco and we’re prepared to deploy a community only for our personal occasion, we might add entry factors on the floor degree and be higher oriented for particular functions (generally, the shut the AP is to the shoppers, the higher, in case you can afford it). We knew the high-density areas and extra difficult floor areas the place further protection can be welcome and that’s what our design consisted of.
Event Wi-Fi Choices
Historically, the primary SSID is WPA2 PSK SSID and the group prints the important thing on the occasion badge everybody wears. We added EduRoam assist for our training prospects to have an SSID their system already is aware of and may connect with, utilizing their training credentials. We additionally added OpenRoaming, the place your system routinely connects to the Wi-Fi as quickly as you enter the venue in case you already had an OpenRoaming profile put in in your system. If 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 because of the RAI additionally having an OpenRoaming SSID even earlier than Cisco arrived onsite.
We positively wished to maintain the variety of SSIDs supplied as little as doable to keep away from confusion and to maintain the wifi community effectivity to the utmost doable, however the comfort (and the safety!) of OpenRoaming and Eduroam satisfied us to supply these as additional providers.
Wi-Fi 6E
This 12 months, we wished to supply 6ghz Wi-Fi as 6E is the most recent coolest factor. The issue is that offering this throughout the entire occasion would have meant buying lots of of 9166 entry factors. This just isn’t doable as we prioritize buyer deliveries for the primary time on a brand new system. It would even have meant changing all of the venue APs which is impractical for us. We then coated your entire Meeting Village corridor with the 40 9166 we had. The problem with this hybrid method is that Wi-Fi 6E requires WPA3 and we didn’t need to make the primary SSID WPA3 but.
Even if the CiscoLive inhabitants is usually nerdy (it’s a praise these days I feel) and properly outfitted, you wouldn’t consider among the older gadgets that connect with the community and WPA3 assist is simply not at 100% but we consider. We needed to create a separate WPA3 SSID which was broadcasted each in 5Ghz and 6Ghz (however 6ghz being solely accessible within the Meeting Village) for compatibility causes.
Legacy and “Bells and Whistles” SSIDs
As a basic rule, is sweet apply to have some form of legacy SSID and a few form of extra performing SSIDs with extra bells and whistles. Some years in the past, it meant we supplied a Cisco Live Legacy SSID which existed on 2.4ghz, whereas the 5Ghz was the primary and “cool” SSID.
In Cisco Live 2023, we fully gave up on 2.4ghz and the CiscoLive SSID was solely accessible on 5Ghz. This meant the primary CiscoLive SSID wanted to have essentially the most suitable settings to make sure all of the shoppers might join and that meant giving up on some nice Cisco options (like Device Analytics) for the sake of most compatibility. I predict that very quickly, the WPA3/6Ghz SSID will develop into the primary SSID and the 5Ghz-only/WPA2 SSID would be the legacy one. Maybe too early for that to occur subsequent 12 months however why not 2025?
How the Event Went
Keynote and 6ghz
The occasion went very properly general. During the keynote or the get together, throughput checks returned surprisingly good outcomes. The 9104 antennas have 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 very good shock to see greater than 60% of the Wireless shoppers utilizing Wi-Fi 6. However, only some dozen supported 6E. We anticipate a pointy enhance by subsequent 12 months, however it’ll keep a minority of shoppers. There have been a few 802.11n shoppers however actually not many.
The prime simultaneous shopper depend was round 13 500. It is barely decrease than the final occasion in Barcelona. We anticipate the occasion to develop by subsequent 12 months since this was the primary one post-Covid.
Hardware and Software Considerations
It was the primary Cisco Live we ran 100% on the Catalyst 9800 in EMEA and 100% on Cisco DNA Center. Indeed in 2020, they have 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 more commonplace, more often than not we spent troubleshooting was on interoperability points with particular system sorts and options. Completely disabling 2.4Ghz was an amazing concept 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 gadgets.
Not every thing was good although, it could possibly by no means be in such a big occasion with so many new applied sciences. But I’m glad we hold bettering 12 months after 12 months. There are at all times areas of grievance when the shopper density is larger than what we anticipated: there have been some very profitable classes in Devnet theater or World of Solutions and connectivity was subpar throughout these occasions. We’ll be sure that to provide you with an enchancment plan for subsequent 12 months to make that higher.
Conclusion
The large duty to run such a community is made bearable by the actual fact the NOC staff is full of superior folks. In that staff, each opinion to make issues higher and smoother is welcome and the target is to at all times enhance 12 months over 12 months. It’s at all times difficult to juggle between monitoring the community from the NOC and going to a location for some bodily Wi-Fi troubleshooting. Cisco DNA Center was positively an enormous enchancment on this level the place Assurance helps us triage points shortly. It additionally helped us slender down troublesome areas instantly and dispatch engineers accordingly.
2023 was the 12 months the place we automated a variety of the deployment however that’s an entire story to inform.
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