Outdoor Mesh

Cisco's outdoor mesh is not a new concept, but a different animal than the indoor world.  You can cover much larger areas with fewer APs.  Be warned, just because you can 'see' the AP from a location doesn't mean it can 'see' you.  the 1550 series APs have a much greater sensitivity than lets say the 3600 series.  The external omni-direction antenna can detect down to the range of -92 dBm.  The real limiting factor is going to be your clients.  Laptops at 'full' power will get you a lot further then your average Moto handheld scanner, iPhone, etc.  There is lots of good info out there, but some of it is hard to find.

Here is a list of documents that are very useful for mesh deployments:

Cisco 1550 Ordering Guide

Cisco Mesh Deployment Guide 7.3

Cisco Mesh Deployment Guide 7.4

Cisco 1552 Range Calculator

DHCP Snooping

Message of the day:

If you (or your colleague) happens to turn on something like the following on a Monday (without telling anybody):

!
ip dhcp snooping vlan 14,87,99,62
no ip dhcp snooping information option
ip dhcp snooping
!

Make sure that before Thursday morning (when all your APs renew their leases) that you add this to the uplinks on your switches:

!
interface GigabitEthernet1/1/1
  ip dhcp snooping trust
!

If not, you're going to have a bad Thursday morning.

DNIS

DNIS - called station ID

DNIS can be used in Cisco ACS as an attribute to authenticate wireless users based on the "called station."

To configure this you must have an ACS server configured as your RADIUS authentication server on your WLC.  In the SSID you wish to use you must set authentications as 802.1x, all AAA overide, and have the ACS server selected as the RADIUS server.  In the ACS server you must have the called station (SSID) assigned to the AD or local user group in order for users to be authenticated.

For a more detailed look, refer to this document:
Restrict WLAN Access based on SSID

Fresnel Zones

The Basics:

Fresnel zones are the elliptical areas between two wireless transmitters and are defined as either even or odd.  Even zones have a maximum phase canceling effect.  Odd zones can add to Tx and Rx power.  The idea of zones was established by A. Fresnel to calculate how out of phase deflections will effect wireless transmissions between two end points.
 

RRM

Radio Resource Management (RRM)

RRM allows Cisco’s Unified WLAN Architecture to continuously analyze the existing RF environment, automatically adjusting APs’ power levels and channel configurations to help mitigate such things as co-channel interference and signal coverage problems.  RRM reduces the need to perform exhaustive site surveys, increases system capacity, and provides automated self-healing functionality to compensate for RF dead zones and AP failures. (cisco.com)