Cisco Wireless Location Appliance
The Cisco® Wireless Location Appliance is the industry's first location solution that simultaneously tracks thousands of devices from directly within the WLAN infrastructure-bringing the power of a cost effective, high-resolution location solution to critical applications such as high-value asset tracking, IT management, location based security and business policy enforcement. By providing the ability to integrate tightly with a spectrum of technology and application partners through a rich and open application programming interface (API), this innovative appliance facilitates the deployment of new and important business applications. These capabilities make the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance a critical must-have for all enterprise class WLANs today.
PRODUCT OVERVIEW
The Cisco Wireless Location Appliance is an innovative, easy-to-deploy solution that uses advanced RF fingerprinting technology to simultaneously track thousands of 802.11 wireless devices from directly within a WLAN infrastructure, increasing asset visibility and control of the airspace. Additionally, the appliance provides location-based alerts for business policy enforcement and records rich historical location information that can be used for location trending, rapid problem resolution and RF capacity management. By enabling the deployment of powerful location-based applications such as Enhanced 911 (E911) services, asset management and workflow automation through integration with the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance API, the appliance becomes a critical solution for customers ranging from enterprises to vertical industries such as healthcare, finance, retail, manufacturing and federal organizations.
By design, the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance is directly integrated into the WLAN infrastructure to lower customers' total cost of ownership and extend the value and security of the existing WLAN infrastructure by making it "location aware". As a component of the Cisco Unified Wireless Network, the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance uses Cisco wireless LAN controllers and Cisco Aironet® lightweight access points to track the physical location of wireless devices to within a few meters. Moreover, the centralized WLAN management capabilities and intuitive GUI of the Cisco Wireless Control System (WCS) are extended for managing and configuring the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance, making setup fast and intuitive.
PRODUCT ARCHITECTURE
The Cisco Wireless Location Appliance uses the same Cisco lightweight access points that deliver traffic as location "readers" for 802.11 wireless clients and Wi-Fi tags. These access points collect received-signal-strength-indication (RSSI) information from all Wi-Fi devices, including Wi-Fi enabled laptops, voice handsets, Wi-Fi tags, rogue (unauthorized) devices and rogue access points. The collected RSSI information is then sent through the Lightweight Access Point Protocol (LWAPP) to the Cisco wireless LAN controllers or certain wireless integrated switches or routers. The Cisco wireless LAN controllers then aggregate the RSSI information and send it to the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance through Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).
The Cisco Wireless Location Appliance performs location computations based on the RSSI information received from the Cisco wireless LAN controllers. The Cisco wireless LAN controllers that gather the RSSI information must be associated with the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Overview of Integrated Location Services Architecture
Once network maps and access points are added to the appliance, RF predictions and heatmaps can be generated to graphically display the location of thousands of devices on the site's floor plans. The Cisco WCS displays its location information visually (Figure 2), providing an immediate location application for customers who want to enhance their RF capacity management, utilize location based security and have asset visibility for WLAN devices. This location information is also available to third-party applications through a Simple Object Access Protocol/Extensible Markup Language (SOAP/XML) API on the appliance, creating an extensible foundation for a host of rich location based applications.
Figure 2. Cisco Wireless Location Appliance: Real Time Simultaneous Location Tracking for Thousands of Users, Devices, and Access Points
The Cisco WCS manages the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance through an intuitive and visually rich GUI providing centralized management and configuration. For greater scalability, Cisco WCS can manage one or more Cisco Wireless Location Appliances. Cisco WCS view filters and flexible search criteria make targeted viewing of location data easy and adaptive to user needs. Figure 3 shows a targeted view for rogue access points and devices. Targeted views can be created for a variety of selections including device categories, logical names, time detected and physical location such as floor area. For example, in a hospital, a targeted view of the category "all infusion pumps on floor 3" could be created.
Figure 3. Cisco Wireless Location Appliance: Targeted Views for Rogue Access Points and Devices
Wireless Security and Rapid Troubleshooting
The Cisco Wireless Location Appliance allows IT managers to quickly and accurately locate security threats such as rogue access points and devices. Rogue access points create potential security breaches and unsecured WLAN connections that put the entire network at risk. Rogue devices are installed by employees or intruders. The ability to locate these devices more accurately helps IT managers rapidly isolate security threats and unauthorized attempts to access the network. Accurate detection of these rogue devices provides enhanced WLAN security by helping ensure that legitimate client stations associate only with trusted access points. Additionally, IT managers can also use features such as location-based alerting and high-resolution rogue tracking to establish a framework for location-based security-further elevating WLAN security.
IT staff can easily review security alarms or movement alarms by drilling down into detailed location and statistical information about devices for isolation and containment of wireless intruders as well as for rapid troubleshooting and simplified device management (Figure 4 and Figure 5). For example, actionable data can be mined on clients, including recent and historical physical location information about where users have been when, and client traffic analysis, as well as IP address, username, MAC Address, Service Set Identifier (SSID), and access point association details. This feature also provides a rich audit trail of information that IT staff can archive and replay for up to 30 days or longer with easily exported log files.
Figure 4. Cisco Wireless Location Appliance Client Details-Top of Page View
Figure 5. Cisco Wireless Location Appliance Client Details-Bottom of Page View
Location Trending for RF Capacity Management and Visibility
A variety of useful information for enhanced RF capacity management can be generated. This information can be based on location trends- where people have been and when, for example client/tag distribution across a floor; statistical location information-where people have been and associated traffic analysis; and coverage areas-where hotspots are based on volume of people and traffic to determine how concentrated RF resources are and how WLAN is handling the number of clients (Figure 6).
Figure 6. Cisco Wireless Location Appliance Location Trending
Targeted Location Searches
Targeted searches can be easily conducted across a variety of flexible parameters that can be adapted to specific user interests. These search criteria include but are not limited to asset categories such as tags, clients, rogues as well as customized and logical asset names; physical location parameters such as floors, campuses, buildings, associated access points; detection times; protocols, SSIDs, IP and MAC addresses, and usernames. For instance, Figure 7 shows a search in process to list all tags in a particular asset group, but this could just as easily be all rogues on a particular floor.
Figure 7. Cisco Wireless Location Appliance Tag Search Parameters
Integration with Location Based Applications
To facilitate the deployment of location-based applications in the enterprise, the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance is equipped with a rich and open SOAP/XML-based API. Applications can rapidly make use of location information by importing components that impact the airspace such as entire network maps including buildings, floors, access points, coverage areas and device lists from the location appliance. Rich and actionable data can also be imported such as recent and historical location and statistical device information. Location based alarms and notifications can be triggered in applications through area boundary definitions, allowed areas and distances. All of these capabilities allow the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance API to be used for tight and transparent integration with external software applications such as E911, asset management, enterprise-resource-planning (ERP) tools, and workflow automation systems that can use location information. This makes the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance an ideal part of any end-to-end enterprise solution.
FEATURES AND BENEFITS
The Cisco Wireless Location Appliance delivers a host of tangible benefits to enterprises running business-critical wireless LANs, including:
• Increased accuracy-The Cisco Wireless Location Appliance uses the Cisco Systems® patent-pending RF fingerprinting technology to determine the location of wireless devices. Cisco has the only WLAN infrastructure that correlates known RF characteristics of a building (for example, multipath or attenuation) with real-time user information to track mobile devices to within a few meters.
• Location-based alerts-This feature provides the ability to proactively send location notifications based on device movement, device absence, and zone entry and exit of tracked devices.
• Scalability-With the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance, thousands of wireless clients and Wi-Fi tags can be tracked simultaneously, helping ensure that location services can be applied to an entire enterprise environment.
• Lowered total cost of ownership-The Cisco solution reduces operating expenses by using the existing Cisco WLAN network infrastructure in conjunction with the location appliance. This approach is more cost-effective than proprietary or single-purpose location tracking solutions because it uses standard 802.11 components and does not require dedicated access points for location tracking.
• Transparent integration-Cisco is the only vendor to integrate location tracking directly into the existing WLAN infrastructure. The same Cisco access points that deliver data traffic also are used to locate wireless devices. This minimizes capital expenditures, helps ensure better visibility, and helps enable the WLAN to act upon location information for better security and capacity management.
• Flexibility-Cisco offers the only WLAN system that can track 802.11 clients, such as a laptop or PDA, alongside other, non-Wi-Fi mobile devices equipped with active radio frequency identification (RFID) tags (tags supplied by Cisco partners). This helps IT staff track any mobile item.
• Easy deployment of business applications-Asset tracking, inventory management, location-based security, automated workflow management, and other new business applications can be easily deployed with the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance.
Table 1. Summary of Features and Benefits of the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance
|
Feature |
Benefit |
|
Scalable Location Tracking and Asset Management |
Simultaneously track thousands of wireless users and devices to within a few meters of their physical location using advanced RF printing technology and easy visualization on network maps. Efficiently access both updated and historical location information from the location appliance. |
|
Integrated and Cost-Effective Location Tracking |
The same Cisco lightweight access points that are delivering Wi-Fi traffic can also locate wireless devices and send location related alerts for these devices. This minimizes TCO, and helps ensure better visibility by helping enable the WLAN to act upon location information for better security and capacity management. |
|
Enhanced WLAN Security |
Rogue devices and rogue access points are quickly and accurately located, allowing IT managers to rapidly respond to security threats and unauthorized attempts to access the network. Location-based alerts also notify IT managers of rogue movement, rogue device appearance/disappearance, and rogue zone association. This allows the IT manager to establish a solid framework for increased WLAN security through location-based security. |
|
Intuitive Centralized Management |
IT staff can utilize the intuitive Cisco WCS GUI to centrally and easily add, configure, manage, and upgrade a single or multiple location appliances from the Cisco WCS with minimal training. Centralized and scalable deployments are made easy through WLAN templates and out of the box RF calibration models. The Cisco WCS also supports access control setup; definition of content and frequency of polls; and configuration of archive parameters as well as for logging and viewing server events and severity levels for Cisco Wireless Location Appliance. |
|
Hierarchical Maps |
Import network designs, maps, and placement of access points from Cisco WCS into Cisco Wireless Location Appliance for quick and easy explorer-like browsing of devices across different geographies, campuses, buildings, floors, and areas. |
|
Transparent Resilience to Network Changes |
The Cisco WCS periodically polls the location appliance for its status and changes to maintain synchronized control data such as network maps between the Cisco WCS and Cisco Wireless Location Appliance. A two-way intelligent synchronization mechanism exists between the Cisco WCS and Cisco Wireless Location Appliance to help ensure each has the most recent information. |
|
Targeted View Lists |
Customizable and targeted views using filters and flexible search parameters make viewing thousands of devices easy. Support for logical and friendly name definitions for asset categories enhances intuitive viewing. |
|
Enhanced RF Capacity Management |
Easily drill down into detailed client location and statistical information and generate trends for rapid troubleshooting and enhanced RF capacity and device management. |
|
Flexible and Easy Deployment |
Rapid deployment is facilitated with "out-of-the-box" RF models and predictive technology that correlates known RF characteristics of buildings with real-time user information for accurate tracking. Increased deployment flexibility is provided through template-based RF models that can be edited to fit specific RF environments, as well as support for reusable, custom RF calibration models. |
|
Audit Trails and Database Maintenance |
Up to 30 days of location and statistical wireless device information can be archived and replayed. Easy exports of log files are supported for archiving information older than 30 days. To maintain optimal location database performance, configurable intervals for automated pruning and de-fragmentation are built in. |
|
Robust APIs |
The deployment of applications that can take advantage of location-based information such as E911, asset management, ERP tools, and workflow and automation systems is facilitated through tight and transparent integration with a rich and open API. |
APPLICATIONS
The Cisco Wireless Location Appliance can be deployed in a wide variety of environments and situations across multiple industries. Some of the primary usage scenarios include:
• Visibility and tracking of mobile devices-Operating and capital expenses can be reduced by preventing loss or theft of valuable mobile assets such as wheelchairs and infusion pumps in a healthcare environment and overhead projectors, laptops, and voice handsets in an enterprise. Individuals and assets can be quickly located anywhere within a wireless environment.
• Workflow automation and people tracking-Inventory use and e-workflow and dispatch processes are optimized. In a retail environment, store layout and queue management can be optimized based on tracking customer shopping "patterns." In amusement parks, children can be tracked, allowing parents to know where they are at all times, and security personnel can be tracked in any relevant facility. In healthcare facilities where caregivers are severely short-staffed, hospitals can track caregivers during normal operations or during emergency code blue situations where the "nearest" caregiver on call is most desirable. Other healthcare facilities with special-purpose needs may need to track infants or the elderly sick such as those suffering from Alzheimer's who may accidentally wander off the premises.
• Telemetry-Wi-Fi tags with serial interfaces can be attached to a piece of equipment to relay important information about the device directly to business applications. For instance, car rental businesses often want telemetric information relating to mileage and fuel level of returned cars, whereas customers want location information that will help them find vehicles faster. Pharmaceuticals, manufacturing plants, and retailers want information about batch numbers, expiration dates, product or serial numbers, and out-of-specification information about components. Additionally, in healthcare, knowing the location of an infusion pump is valuable, but knowing whether or not it is in use (on or off) is even more valuable.
• WLAN security and network control-IT staff can rapidly locate security threats, such as rogue access points and rogue client devices. IT managers also can use the appliance to establish a framework for location-based security, whereby the physical security in a building is used to control WLAN access-enhancing WLAN security.
• RF capacity management and visibility-Integrating location tracking into the WLAN allows IT staff to do more than just track users. With this appliance they can generate location-based trend reports and drill down into usage behavior to accommodate changes in traffic patterns, helping enable better real-time RF capacity management.
• Voice over WLAN (VoWLAN)-Many states have a regulatory requirement for E911 calls that require emergency dispatch personnel to identify the location of a distressed caller. E911 services can be enabled through granular location tracking for wireless voice devices.
Location tracking is a critical component of enterprise-class WLANs today. By identifying and tracking the location of wireless users, companies can improve the accuracy of WLAN planning and deployment to optimize ongoing network performance, enhance wireless security, and improve both the usefulness and value of important business applications. Location tracking provides visibility and control of the air space, helping IT staff deploy wireless networks that are as easy to manage and as effective to deploy as traditional wireline networks.
SUMMARY
Customers need a cost-effective, easy-to-deploy solution for tracking and managing Wi-Fi devices and tags across a variety of business environments. They also need to deploy advanced services that enhance their business applications and meet regulatory requirements for enhanced security, asset visibility, and E911 calls.
The Cisco Wireless Location Appliance, a component of the Cisco Unified Wireless Network, meets these needs by delivering accurate and scalable location services with real-time device tracking. This easy-to-deploy solution provides asset visibility for Wi-Fi enabled devices and tags, enhanced capacity management, location-based business policy enforcement, and increased WLAN security for the Wi-Fi environment. This innovative appliance also facilitates the deployment of new applications that take advantage of wireless location information.
PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS
Table 2. Product Specifications: 1-Rack-Unit Mountable Appliance
|
Specification |
Description |
|
Memory |
1-GB memory |
|
Ports |
· Serial: One 9-pin connector
· RJ-45: Two RJ-45 connectors for connection to two 10/100/1000 Ethernet controllers
· 2 USB ports: One USB connector in front and one in back
· 2 PS2 ports: One mouse and one keyboard
· 2 VGA ports: One in front and one in back |
|
Connectivity |
Network: Two 10/100/1000 (RJ-45) ports |
|
Management |
SNMP v1, v2c, and v3 |
|
Network Management |
Cisco WCS v.3.0 or greater running Internet Explorer 6.0/Service Pack 1 or later |
|
Network Devices |
Cisco 2000, 4100 and 4400 Series Wireless LAN Controllers; Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Wireless Services Module (WiSM), Cisco Wireless LAN Controller Module (WLCM) for Integrated Services Routers; Cisco Aironet lightweight access points |
|
Programming Interfaces |
SOAP/XML APIs |
|
Physical Dimensions |
Height: 1.68 in. (4.27cm)
Width: 16.8 in. (42.7cm)
Depth: 23 in. (58.4cm)
Weight: 28.6lbs (13kg) maximum |
|
Power |
· AC power supply wattage: 230W
· AC power supply voltage: 100-120V at 50-60Hz; 200-240V at 50-60Hz |
|
Environmental |
Operating Temperature: 50 to 95°F (10-35°C)
Storage Temperature: 32-104°F (0-40°C) |
|
Approvals and Compliance |
· Safety UL 60950
· CAN/CSA -C22.2 No. 60950
· EN60950
· IEC 60950: EMC FCC Part 15 (CFR 47) Class A
· ICES-003 Class A
· EN 55022 Class A
· CISPR22 Class A
· AS/NZS 3548 Class A
· VCCI Class A
· EN 55024
· EN 50082-1 |
Table 3. Ordering Information
|
Part Number |
Product Name |
|
AIR-LOC2700-L-K9 |
Cisco 2700 Series Wireless Location Appliance |
