Chapter 10. CiscoWorks Wireless LAN Solution Engine (WLSE)

Chapter 10 Contents

Dashboard pg 171

Managing WLANs pg 173

Configuring Devices pg 174

Radio Management pg 176

Radio Manager Features pg 177

Security pg 179

Managing Security pg 179

Rogue AP Detection and Mitigation pg 181

Management is reasonably straightforward on a small wireless LAN (WLAN). If only a few access points (APs) exist, it's easy to see operations and how they perform configurations. However, when you have a large WLAN with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of APs, management gets more complex. To help manage these environments, Cisco offers CiscoWorks Wireless LAN Solution Engine (WLSE).

The WLSE is a hardware and software solution to manage up to 2500 APs. The device is rack mounted, and you can collocate it with your other LAN hardware in a server room. You can manage WLSE through either a menu-based web browser or the command-line interface (CLI).

Reports in WLSE cover a broad range of information, and can include the number of users associated, a certain AP, and the use of radio interfaces. This allows you to map capacity, understand performance, and plan for expansion.

WLSE is the heart of Cisco Structured Wireless Aware Network (SWAN) solution. A bonus of SWAN is its ability to survey and map a site.

Note

Flip back to Chapter 3, "Cisco Wireless Technologies," for more information about SWAN.