Airmagnet Planning Software vs. Traditional Survey with AP

[kobayashimaru08]

Greetings all - would like someone to share their experiences; Our company is considering some new purchases with regards to survey kits.  It has been suggested that we do not need a Survey AP for our kits, since Airmagnet planning software should tell us everything we need to know. Needless today, I am skeptical about depending soley on a predictive software to determine this.   Anyone have any thoughts or experiences they wish to share?  Thanks in advance   (note, we will be using this for both 802.11a for voice, as well as 802.11b/g surveying)

[George Stefanick]

Leo gets a kick back every time he mentiones  AM love ...

[Leo Laohoo]

Leo gets a kick back every time he mentiones  AM love ...

LOL!

You should try it sometimes George.

Unlike some product, you don't need to stand in the middle of a pentagram drawn in blood chanting "I summon thee, I summon thee, I summon thee".

[George Stefanick]

So they give you a special code release to fix blue screens that has been a problem for a LONG LONG time .. hummmmm...

How is that new code working for you ? I bet you have no problems now ..? BTW, they lost one of their bets guy (AM that is). He went to Aerohive .. I also hear rumor that a few of the orginal AM folks are leaving too.

Im not trying to beat up AM. I like AM, but fed up with the issues myself.

[Leo Laohoo]

My sincerest apologies George.  Wasn't trying to stir you up. 

[blakekrone]

had a ton of issues the other week while surveying with it, I really hope they can fix their issues otherwise I really see them starting to fall apart. I know a lot of people are looking at ekahau and I'm glad. The only time I have had issues with ekahau survey lately is trying to get their drivers and am drivers to play nice on the same machine.

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPad App

[Stephen Rodriguez]

You called me Leo?

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[Leo Laohoo]

You called me Leo?

LOL!

Besides Steve you know where to find us. 

[goatnetworking]

I have both Air Magnet and Ekahau. My biggest complaint about Ekahau is that I have to start a survey to see the AP names in the area that I am in. Air Magnet allows me to stand in one spot and view the visible AP's by name, Ekahau is only by MAC address. The Adroid version of the Ekahau only displays AP's by MAC. When there are 150 AP's in the building, I have no idea what AP the software is seeing.

Due to Ekahau only showing me MAC addresses, Unless I'm doing a survey, I find the software to be extremely difficult to be usefull. When looking for a single AP, I have to go lookup the MAC address before I can figure out the signle strength, I hat this. I do like the USB card.

The problem I have with Air Magnet is that the special card does not fit in my new laptop. I'm stuck with lugging around some old laptop just to use Air Magnet. I do have the option to spend more money to buy different cards.

You have to put a real AP up to do the survey. If you don't, you will be back onsite moving them when people complain of coverage issues.

Scape

[michaeldodd98]

Does this special engineering release work any better than the latest version on the MyAirMagnet website?

AirMagnet in our enviorment is actually dangerous to our health.  When the AM crashes it causes us to stand in one place for up to 10 minutes while it reboots and reloads everything.  The entire time we are raising our radiation exposure.  Our electronic dosimeters only allow for a set number of millrems per hour and even in low dose waiting areas time is ticking. 

[Leo Laohoo]

The AirMagnet TAC agent who contacted me is Benjamin Sheng.  You can send him a PM.

[kobayashimaru08]

Well I really appreciate all the feed back on this... I was just informed that discussions where I will be brought in, about Wireless survey kits... and you can bet Leo's pentagram I am going to have a few questions for our AM folks because, after all the pulling and jumping hoops to finally get kits, the last thing we need are application issues with the product. 

[michaeldodd98]

UPDATE:  Now that I am back at the office and able to do proper troubleshooting, I examined my BSOD Dump files.  I saw out of the 15 blue screens I had on last week's survey, 12 of them referred to files from Symantec EndPoint Protection, and antivirus/anti-malware/firewall suite. 

I recall at one point AirMagnet warning about this conflict.  So I will take 75% of the BSOD blame off AirMagnet's shoulders.  BUT there were still 3 BSOD events caused by Atheros wireless drivers in the DMP files. 

I have a case open with AM support and they suggest a clean reinstall of the drivers.  Will have final results in a month when we return to do an active survey but thought I would update everyone.

I have since taken our corporate antivirus program from Symantec EndPoint Protection off this computer.  Makes me wonder what other issues SEP has as our Corporate IT announced they are transitioning from Symantec to McAffee...

[Leo Laohoo]

and you can bet Leo's pentagram I am going to have a few questions for our AM folks because,

Hi Patrice,

If you want a pentagram drawn in blood, let me know.  They come in multiple sizes:  large, medium and beam-me-up-Scotty.