Cisco Cisco Prime Network Control System Appliance White Paper

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White Paper 
Preparing Your Cisco Unified WLAN for Cisco Cius 
This white paper provides an overview of the advanced Cisco Unified Wireless LAN 
features to support the audio and video Wi-Fi channel capacity for Cisco Cius
 
business tablets. The Cius has 802.11n single-spatial-stream support on both the 
2.4-GHz and 5-GHz Wi-Fi bands. This is typical of 802.11n-enabled smartphones and 
tablets with cellular radios, while better powered laptops have multiple spatial streams. 
Cisco Cius supports Cisco Compatible Extensions features for fast secure roaming 
and power saving, and 802.11e for voice and video quality of service. This paper 
focuses on designing a well-managed network for reliable call and application 
performance. 
The primary concern with today’s 2.4-GHz Wi-Fi WLANs is interference that robs the channel of capacity. There 
are two types of interference. One type, called co-channel interference, comes from neighbor access points or 
nearby rogue access points. The second is non-Wi-Fi interference caused by radios in microwaves, Bluetooth 
devices, surveillance cameras, and single-mode handsets. Similar conditions do occur in 5 GHz but generally to a 
lesser degree. This is a condition that is best managed by Cisco CleanAir technology, Cisco’s spectrum 
intelligence feature. 
How Cisco CleanAir Supports Cisco Cius Performance 
Non-Wi-Fi interference removes bandwidth from the Wi-Fi channel and therefore needs to be managed to provide 
reliable capacity. Cisco Aironet
®
 access points that have spectrum intelligence include a separate spectrum radio 
for both Wi-Fi bands, in addition to 802.11n radios. These access points provide simultaneous spectrum analysis of 
the 2.4-GHz band and the 5-GHz band while providing optimum Wi-Fi support to both bands. The CleanAir feature 
allows the system to report the location of the interference relative to nearby access points by non-Wi-Fi device 
type. This enables quick removal of the interfering source. Secondly, spectrum intelligence reports the channel 
utilization of the offending interferers. 
Cisco CleanAir provides a means to monitor and identify interference in the Wi-Fi channels. The source of the 
interference still needs to be removed when possible. When the interfering devices cannot be removed, Cisco radio 
resource management (RRM) can dynamically arrange Wi-Fi channel coverage to improve channel performance. 
But removing interfering devices is the better solution for reclaiming bandwidth. 
The Mobility Services Engine is a key component of, and deeply integrated with, the industry-leading Cisco 
CleanAir Technology. Without MSE, CleanAir allows you to create a self-healing wireless network that 
automatically detects and mitigates RF interference. By adding an MSE to CleanAir, you gain physical location 
information of wireless interferers on a floor map, detailed interference history for forensic analysis, and system-
wide alert correlation across many controllers and access points, to provide a single, intelligent alert to IT 
managers for quick troubleshooting.