Cisco demonstrates their latest access point offering the Cisco CleanAir 3500 access point / spectrum analyzer vs Aruba's ARM.

It was no secret when Cisco purchased Cognio their intentions were to integrate the spectrum chip technology on the board of a Cisco access point. In fact shortly after the purchase of Cognio we met with Cisco Engineering for a large deployment we were working on outside of San Jose. A Cisco Wireless engineer in the "know" commented, "With our recent purchase of Cognio we will bring spectrum analysis never seen before in the enterprise -- On each AP -- just give it a little time and you wait and see". Fast forward to today --- behold the CleanAir 3500. 

Cisco brings to the table a technology offering other vendors can't come close to and at a price point that makes it affordable for full scale deployments (if you have a little bigger wallet of course)! Cisco's RRM like Aruba’s ARM leverages WiFi chip technology whereby analyzing a noise floor via channel scanning. I’m not sold on RRM and ARM technology; however I'm "drinking" Cisco CleanAir. Call me old school I suppose! I've done my own testing introducing interference on channel and observed mixed results of dynamic channel allocation with both Cisco RRM and ARM. 

Marcus Burton from CWNP did a great evaluation of the 3500. Read more about it here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns394/ns348/ns1070/Cisco_Premium_final.pdf 

"While other vendors have previously claimed spectrum-level visibility in their APs, they suffer from the unfortunate effect of ill-advised marketing. What is billed by some as “spectrum analysis” is nothing more than 802.11 Wi-Fi utilization analysis, or very, very minimal spectrum data. A good feature, but it’s not true, useful spectrum analysis." - Marcus Burton / CWNP

NOTE: (From Jim Jim Florwick @ Cisco)

Launch details are located here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/netsol/ns1070/networking_solutions_package.html

Licensing is based on system compomnents and levels.  At the base level - a Cisco 3500 AP and a controller running version 7.0 code wil provide full view of current CleanAir information and supports the full mitigation features as well as Spectrum expert connect feature.

Adding WCS will allow historical reporting of AirQuality metrics and monitoring of security related IDR's (Interference Device Reports).  As well as inclusion of a CleanAir Dashboard and trending information with regards to AirQuality.  This is available with the WCS base license.

Adding the MSE to the system provides a great deal of functionality including historic Interference specific reports, and location (current and historical) of interference devices.  The MSE requires that WCS have a plus license - and will also require CAS (Context Aware Sevice) license seats for the individual interference targets.

At present there will be free CAS licenses offered with bundles of 3500 series AP's, up to 100 seats for 20 AP's.  Release date of the 7.0 software is targeted for the end of May as well. 

NOTE: Cisco CleanAir Technology At A Glance

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns394/ns348/ns1070/aag_c22-594304.pdf

Cisco released another video on youtube.com. Where they conducted client density testing with a Cisco 1142 against Aruba's AP-105 and AP-125. The test was conducted with 2.4 GHz non-bonded and 5 GHz with channel bonding. Although, I would have liked more details on how the test were conducted and were the results consistent.

This video explains competitive WLAN high density test results assessing Cisco's AP1140, Aruba's AP-105 and AP-125 in the area of bandwidth fairness. For this test, each 802.11n Access Point was loaded up with 60 Intel 802.11n clients all attempting to download data simultaneously. Throughput per client was assessed using VeriWave's WaveAgent software which generated downstream TCP traffic.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5LLg6aky6A

I just stumbled on a 4 part youtube video I believe posted by Cisco on a side by side “shootout” of 802.11n performance testing between Cisco, Aruba, Motorola and HP, 802.11n offerings. Their testing was conducted in a greenfield environment and deployed various tools to monitor performance. Cisco came out smelling like a dozen roses (no, let me take that back, 2 dozen roses) as they conducted the test themselves. But needless to say, I think there is value in watching the videos. They have a solid test approach with added real world examples, or should I say test samples.

HP took two black eyes and a bloody nose in these videos. Gezzz…

Btw, I would hate to be the poor soul sitting underneath that 1252 access point hanging from the t-bar.  

802.11n Performance - Testing Setup (Part 1 of 4)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYfITpf6VEQ&feature=related

802.11n Performance - Throughput vs. Distance (Part 2 of 4)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5rowgtTSj8&feature=related

802.11n Performance - Coverage (Part 3 of 4)

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UGm6KtUErI&feature=related

802.11n Performance - Capacity Test (Part 4 of 4)
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak5iHbASH9s