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Wireless MAP overlaid on office floorplan

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rudedawg replied on Tue, Sep 15 2009 11:41 AM
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I want to use Orion Network Atlas to map wireless access points to office floorplans.  Wouldn't that be cool?!  I thought so.  We use a Cisco Wireless LAN Controller with 12 access points.  The access points show up in the wireless tab...which is brilliant.  Problem is that in Network Atlas you can only map the regular nodes/interfaces.  The AP don't show up so there is no way to drag them to a map.  Anyone attempted this?  I couldn't be the first person who has wanted to do this :)

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Answered (Verified) rudedawg replied on Tue, Sep 15 2009 2:10 PM
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This is what I eventually did.  I created my floor plan maps.  Dragged the WLAN Controller 12 times into the spots where the AP actually are physically located (so the AP will get availability information from the Controller...though you could use ICMP info from the IP addresses of the AP).  Edited the web link so it goes to the Wireless tab instead of the WLAN Controller page and edited the icon title so that it has the last 4 digits of the MAC address.  Viewers will need to remember the MAC and then look it up in the list of AP on the following page.  Not perfect, but it will work for now.

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bshopp replied on Tue, Sep 15 2009 12:37 PM
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So a controller and 12 AP's exists as 1 node in our system, essentially the controller is the parent and the Thin AP's the children.  If you want to be able to add the Thin AP's to maps, you can add the Thin AP's as ICMP only nodes and then they should be available to add to maps.

Brandon Shopp - Product Manager Orion NPM, Network Atlas and LANSurveyor
SolarWinds SCP Certified 

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rudedawg replied on Tue, Sep 15 2009 12:53 PM
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Thanks for the idea.  This doesn't answer the problem I am trying to solve.

The functionality I am looking for is to create a floorplan with the Access Points mapped out so that if you click on them it brings the viewer to the individual pages from that wireless adapter from the Wireless Thin AP view.  If you go the ICMP route it just bring you to the ping page which doesn't have the information like the client name, RSSI, etc...which may not be possible.

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16 Posts
Points 72
Answered (Verified) rudedawg replied on Tue, Sep 15 2009 2:10 PM
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Verified by rudedawg

This is what I eventually did.  I created my floor plan maps.  Dragged the WLAN Controller 12 times into the spots where the AP actually are physically located (so the AP will get availability information from the Controller...though you could use ICMP info from the IP addresses of the AP).  Edited the web link so it goes to the Wireless tab instead of the WLAN Controller page and edited the icon title so that it has the last 4 digits of the MAC address.  Viewers will need to remember the MAC and then look it up in the list of AP on the following page.  Not perfect, but it will work for now.

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16 Posts
Points 72
rudedawg replied on Tue, Sep 15 2009 2:45 PM
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I would have linked to the specific "Wireless Thin AP" page for each AP but strangely enough the "Active Wireless Clients" table does not display "Client Name" (domain\username)?!!  That information can only be found on the "Wireless Summary" View.  I would think that someone who wants to know active wireless clients would want to know the client name, but I guess that's just me.  If someone know how to change that I would love to know, but I can't find it under Admin > Manage Views > and going through each view.

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ddemetra replied on Tue, Sep 15 2009 4:27 PM
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We did a similar thing, except we didn't have controllers.

The page gives a really good birds eye of the wireless infrastructure.

 

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rudedawg replied on Tue, Sep 15 2009 4:57 PM
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This looks great!  I noticed you don't get "Client Names" (Domain\Username) information from this view, either.  Do you get Client Names from the page "Wireless"...or do I only get Client Names only the Wireless page, but not the Wireless Thin AP pages because I have a controller?...hmmm. 

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ddemetra replied on Tue, Sep 15 2009 9:12 PM
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I definitely agree with you, it is a cool idea to map out the equipment like this, some of the power of Orion.

I only do wep authentication, so we don't have usernames. But from the IP's, I can quickly look up the computer names if we have abusers on the system.

 We have the Cisco 1252 WAP's, but no controllers. I had heard you lose some visibility into individual clients on the WAP's when they go through the controllers with Orion.

I'm of two minds about the WAP controllers, though it's help with the management, I don't want to loose the granularity of data I have in Orion.

 

 

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Points 72
rudedawg replied on Wed, Sep 16 2009 10:18 AM
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Here is what I get with a Cisco Controller.  It is pretty cool how you click on the AP and all the users with their stats are nested below (my example only shows 1 user).  It seems pretty robust.  I am wondering what data could be missing.  I do not get Data Rate (N/A).  The Bytes Received and Transmitted are included but are cut off in this picture.

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