It’s now the fourth time in a row that I had the prospect to be a part of the Cisco NOC group for Cisco Dwell EMEA.
If we go even additional again in time, I had the prospect to go to Cisco Dwell for the Technical Design Clinics again in London and Berlin. The strain was on the shoulders of the NOC group who needed to ship a working Wi-Fi community with so many random consumer gadgets linked. I didn’t envy their place (though I admired it). I notably keep in mind a bug from smartphone distributors in Cisco Dwell London that was repeating the occasion SSID as a private hotspot, inflicting a number of hassle to different consumer connectivity. This was the yr the CiscoLive SSID went from totally open to a pre-shared key SSID to stop that sort of drawback.
Finish of 2017, the NOC group invited me to be a part of the Wi-fi Controller group for Cisco Dwell Barcelona 2018. I accepted shortly principally for the sake of being a part of the Cisco Dwell 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 decisions and choices.
The Planning
Round summer season the yr earlier than the occasion, the primary conferences begin. We arrange a group and ensure we’ve got the perfect folks for the job at each place. That is the accountability of Remco Kamerman, the Cisco Dwell NOC group lead and just about the one fastened group 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): group members should not picked for his or her job function however for his or her experience. If you’re one of many prime folks in your know-how, likelihood is that you simply already know a great a part of the NOC group 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 group (Skilled Providers and System Engineers principally) who need to do a wi-fi design principally by repeatedly altering plans. A number of web site visits have been organized to get a sense of the venue. I used to be there on the primary day the constructing group began constructing for the occasion and may testify that the variety of bodily modifications the venue goes via 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 may leverage the interoperability between the venue maps on the RAI Prime Infrastructure equipment, the Cisco DNA Heart 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 may 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 offer protection from the trusses. Mounting these APs/antennas required very shut collaboration with the keynote space construct group 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 doable for effectivity)
The Construct Up
Nearly all of the NOC group consists of individuals truly bodily build up 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 numerous 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 have been good sufficient to allow us to management their entry factors in the course of the occasion. This manner, we don’t need to cope with two separate wi-fi networks. A great 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 Corridor) that are good for offering common protection.
Certainly the RAI hosts a number of totally different reveals that don’t have anything in widespread (Cisco Dwell 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 may add entry factors on the floor stage and be higher oriented for particular purposes (typically, the shut the AP is to the shoppers, the higher, if you happen to can afford it). We knew the high-density areas and extra sophisticated floor areas the place extra protection can be welcome and that’s what our design consisted of.
Occasion Wi-Fi Decisions
Traditionally, the primary 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 robotically connects to the Wi-Fi as quickly as you enter the venue if you happen to already had an OpenRoaming profile put in in your machine. Should you didn’t you possibly can 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 cellphone robotically 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 undoubtedly needed to maintain the variety of SSIDs provided 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 yr, we needed 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 lots of of 9166 entry factors. This isn’t doable as we prioritize buyer deliveries for the primary time on a brand new machine. It might 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 primary SSID WPA3 but.
Even when the CiscoLive inhabitants is often nerdy (it’s a praise these days I feel) and nicely geared up, you wouldn’t consider a number of the older gadgets that hook up with the community and WPA3 help 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 obtainable within the Assembly Village) for compatibility causes.
Legacy and “Bells and Whistles” SSIDs
As a common rule, is sweet apply to have some type of legacy SSID and a few type of extra performing SSIDs with extra bells and whistles. Some years in the past, it meant we supplied a Cisco Dwell Legacy SSID which existed on 2.4ghz, whereas the 5Ghz was the primary and “cool” SSID.
In Cisco Dwell 2023, we fully gave up on 2.4ghz and the CiscoLive SSID was solely obtainable on 5Ghz. This meant the primary CiscoLive SSID wanted to have essentially the most appropriate settings to make sure all of the shoppers may join and that meant giving up on some nice Cisco options (like System Analytics) for the sake of most compatibility. I predict that very quickly, the WPA3/6Ghz SSID will grow to be the primary SSID and the 5Ghz-only/WPA2 SSID would be the legacy one. Perhaps too early for that to occur subsequent yr however why not 2025?
How the Occasion Went
Keynote and 6ghz
The occasion went very nicely total. In the course of the keynote or the celebration, throughput assessments 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 route. This actually helps with channel reuse in a big venue corridor.
It was a great shock to see greater than 60% of the Wi-fi shoppers utilizing Wi-Fi 6. Nonetheless, just a few dozen supported 6E. We anticipate a pointy enhance by subsequent yr, however it’ll keep a minority of shoppers. There have been a few 802.11n shoppers however actually not many.
The highest simultaneous consumer depend was round 13 500. It’s barely decrease than the final occasion in Barcelona. We anticipate the occasion to develop by subsequent yr since this was the primary one post-Covid.
{Hardware} and Software program Issues
It was the primary Cisco Dwell we ran 100% on the Catalyst 9800 in EMEA and 100% on Cisco DNA Heart. Certainly 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 changing into increasingly commonplace, more often than not we spent troubleshooting was on interoperability points with particular machine sorts and options. Fully disabling 2.4Ghz was a fantastic 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 all the things was good although, it could actually by no means be in such a big occasion with so many new applied sciences. However I’m glad we maintain bettering yr after yr. There are at all times areas of criticism 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 be certain to provide you with an enchancment plan for subsequent yr to make that higher.
Conclusion
The massive accountability to run such a community is made bearable by the actual fact the NOC group is full of superior folks. In that group, each opinion to make issues higher and smoother is welcome and the target is to at all times enhance yr over yr. It’s at all times sophisticated to juggle between monitoring the community from the NOC and going to a location for some bodily Wi-Fi troubleshooting. Cisco DNA Heart was undoubtedly an enormous enchancment on this level the place Assurance helps us triage points shortly. It additionally helped us slim down troublesome areas instantly and dispatch engineers accordingly.
2023 was the yr the place we automated a number of the deployment however that’s an entire story to inform.
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