Cabling databases and wireless networks

Wed Dec 12 21:02:02 UTC 2001

Though I do not have a specific solution for you, your Campus -> Building 
-> Floor -> Room hierarchiy will work for managing the actual equipment. 

If you want to deal with layer2 and up, (channel, segment, subnet) 
I would recommend listing Switch -> VLAN ->Port, and make it 
compatible with Router -> Subnet, and for the actual wireless segments, 
use GIS information, whereby you enumerate the wireless networks by
B/SSID (if they are wavelans), link that information with your switching
information, and then walk around with a laptop, wireless card, and 
a GPS and calculate the range of each access point, and put the 
results on a map using GRASS, or HUGO . 

On Wed, 12 Dec 2001, Eric Gauthier wrote:

:Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 15:18:59 -0500
:From: Eric Gauthier <eric at roxanne.org>
:To: nanog at merit.edu
:Subject: Cabling databases and wireless networks
:
:
:Hello,
:
:The institution that I work for is rolling out wireless services on our
:campus which spans about a 10x10 block area.  We currently have a pretty 
:robust cable management database for tracking and relating our wired runs,
:switch ports, subnets, and physical rooms.  We're trying now to figure out 
:how to handle and document our wireless deployments with the same type
:of information and relationships.
:
:The problem that I see is that our database is structured around a 
:relationship hierarchy of Campus -> Building -> Floor -> Room, where each 
:item is a sub category of the one before it with no knowledge of adjacencies.  
:For example, the database might know that room 300 and room 301 are both on 
:the 3rd floor, but it doesn't understand if they are next to each other 
:nor if room 401 is above 301.  This seems like it will become more and
:more important since, with wireless gear, we're looking at coverage
:areas instead of lit wall outlets.
:
:Has anyone else tackled this yet or is there any good software out
:there to track this?
:
:Thanks
:
:Eric :)
:

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batz
Reluctant Ninja
Defective Technologies