August 19, 2014 Leave a Comment
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Networking

The Summer Blockbuster You’ve Been Waiting For: Cisco Wireless Release 8.0

Cisco Wireless Release 8.0 is now available: Product Bulletin 

The Cisco VNI Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast, 2013 – 2018 revealed some stunning trends with growth projections that are sure to have a dramatic impact on wireless networks worldwide.

In 2013, globally, there were nearly 22 million wearable devices generating 1.7 petabytes of monthly traffic. There were about 7 billion mobile-ready devices and connections with mobile network connection speeds that have more than doubled, to 1.4Mbps up from 526 Kbps in 2012.

By 2018, there will be more than 10 billion mobile-ready devices and connections. The average mobile connection speed will nearly double, from 1.4 Mbps in 2013 to 2.5 Mbps and over 4.9 billion devices will be IPv6-capable. There will be more traffic offloaded from cellular networks (on to Wi-Fi) than remain on cellular networks.

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At the same time, the mobile workspace trend is helping employees and partners embrace mobile technologies, create new possibilities for untethered work styles, enable better customer engagement, and connect with people, information, and services. Customers across industries like Higher Education, K-12, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Retail or other verticals, face the same challenges: more users coming onto the network, more users bringing more devices (BYOD), more devices that have only wireless connectivity (no wired port), more security requirements, and Operating system behavior changes with updates on each of those devices.

The IEEE 802.11ac standard will provide wireless networks better performance and coverage and address the demand for client access, including 802.11ac-enabled clients.

Many features in Release 8.0 were designed specifically to enable our customers to take advantage of the latest mobile trends. Here are some of the highlights:

    • Cisco HDX with Optimized Roaming and Receiver Start of Packet Detection Threshold (Rx-SOP)
      • Optimized Roaming monitors the connection quality of all devices and proactively prompts poorly performing client devices to seek a better connection much sooner.
      • Receiver Start of Packet Detection Threshold (Rx-SOP) optimizes network performance at high-density deployments such as mobile workspaces, collaboration areas and auditoriums where access points need to optimize service for the nearest clients. By reducing cell size using Rx-SOP, customers can address the problematic clients with weak RF links (sticky clients) and enable efficient load balancing across access.

    • IPv6 infrastructure support allows IT administrators the ability to configure the entire WLAN infrastructure with IPv6 addresses and enable the communication between the Wireless Controller and AP, Prime Infrastructure, Radius Server and Mobility Services Engine using IPv6 throughout the network.
    • Granular per user and per device policies for Application Visibility and Control (AVC) to provide the right access to users and maintain operational costs by properly managing applications and their bandwidth use.

  • Policies for Multicast discovery protocols such as Bonjour and Chromecast. Location specific and per user group Bonjour Policies enable customers to deploy Bonjour at scale by simplifying control of services access by user types without needing to segment users unto different SSIDs or VLANs. In addition this feature allows customer to view Bonjour location specific services available on wired and wireless networks. Chromecast policies allow deployments over large networks with multiple VLANs while restricting access to a specific group of users.
  • Service Provider features PMIPv6 MAG on AP and Q-in-Q tagging that provide deployment flexibility for interoperability of Wi-Fi and mobile packet core networks.
  • A better location (blue dot) experience with more frequent location updates for Wi-Fi clients using CMX FastLocate and CMX Presence Analytics that enables customers to gain insight about visitor patterns in their venues and use it to improve business decisions.
  • CMX for Facebook Wi-Fi integrated with Mobility Services Engine to enable customers to incent guests with a premium guest experience

Several more innovative features in Cisco Software Release 8.0 are described in the release bulletin.

Release 8.0 has all the innovative features you have been waiting for to get your network ready for the fall season. We’ll be fleshing out some of these features in follow up blogs:

From all of us at Cisco Wireless, enjoy the rest of your summer!