> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wireless Issues in the JANET community [mailto:WIRELESS-
> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Matthew Newton
> Sent: 08 November 2007 12:16
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: WCS software
>
> Hi,
>
> On Wed, Nov 07, 2007 at 06:42:43PM +0000, Alan Buxey wrote:
> > WCS s/w 4.2.62.0
>
> On Thu, Nov 08, 2007 at 09:19:43AM -0000, Daniels, Scott wrote:
> > WCS - 4.1.91.0
>
> Looking at this people seem to be running the WCS software - is
> this something that you genuinely find useful, or just wasn't too
> expensive so you got it anyway?
We use it at Loughborough and find extremely useful. Particularly for day to day management.
e.g. being alerted when APs go offline, diagnosing user connection issues, etc.
>
> We've played around with the evaluation version a couple of times,
> but currently don't "get it". The interface is pretty clunky, and
> it can't seemingly pull the config back off a controller (for
> backup or to push to another new controller).
The interface isn't brilliant but is always improving with every update and Cisco seem open to feature requests
> There are also bugs
> where pages display the wrong information. We're not using
> location-based stuff, I admit; no spare months for importing all
> the building diagrams and dimensions...
>
> So far we've found that pulling data off the controllers with SNMP
> we can find out users etc logged in, and plot nice useful graphs
> with Cacti. There's much more to be had if we want it (the WCS
> seems to just use SNMP anyway). To manage the controllers it's
> better generally to use the CLI (and keep an off-controller text
> config; binary configs are such a pain for DR) - so we can use
> cluster SSH to manage all at once.
You can do everything the WCS does yourself, but sometimes it's just re-inventing the wheel writing scripts to do things.
>
> Are we missing something?
I like it, it's far from perfect but is useful. Is it worth the money ...... who knows I wasn't paying :-D
If you are looking for alternatives, have a word with AMP they have a very nice management system which works with cisco, trapeze etc. I'm sure they'd give you an evaluation copy.
Scott Armitage,
IT Services Specialist / JANET WTAS Advisor,
Computing Services (Networks Team),
Loughborough University
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