Thursday, August 31, 2017

A Note about Band Select, AP Groups, and RF Profiles on Cisco WLC

This note is not a full explanation of these items but only a point of clarification on an item I was confused over.

In my network as with many larger wireless network I have found it useful to deploy AP groups along with RF profiles to help customize the service in different areas and different use cases for wireless.


When you apply an RF profile I was a little confused about the Band Select section of the Client Distribution tab.  At first I was concerned that if you did not select "Probe Response" is would disable Band Select on the AP's where you have this applied.  But....I was wrong about this.  This only allows you to override these specific Band select settings on these particular AP's allow you to customize Band Select but not disable it. 

This was just something I was lead astray by and wanted to communicate it out there in the event it confused anyone else.

JC




Thursday, January 12, 2017

Children's Hospital - Annual Cyber Santa Visit



Every year I help organize a cyber visit with Santa for the patents at a Children's Hospital. This is an event that is always a fun distraction for patients and families going thru a difficult time.


This event originally started as a nationwide program supported by Cisco Systems but at some point they ended national support and our local Cisco account team personally stepped up and continued the program at our hospital along with out local IT and Child Life staff.


As we approach the Christmas holiday Santa Clause is as expected a very busy fellow. Using collaboration and wireless technologies he is able to have personal one on one visit with children in the hospital by using portable wireless devices (tablets), video collaboration services (Cisco Spark, Skype, etc) and a wireless network. When we have ambulatory patients we try to use a conference room with a large screen TV to enable the children to visit with Santa along with their families and siblings. To visit with non ambulatory and patients that can't leave their rooms for various reasons we use a wireless tablet device. The tablet makes it easy to bring the visit right to the bed for the patient and can also be easily sanitized or bagged for protection of the patient. As we progress room to room with the tablet Santa also gets to visit with the nursing staff. They always get a kick out of Santa and always make sure to put in the gift requests!


Don't ignore proper security practice and patient confidentiality!
It is extremely important to protect our patients. Meetings and review by cyber and patient privacy help develop all the proper procedures and sign-off for our patient's participation in this event. These meetings happen months in advance to ensure a successful event. We also review media releases with patient's parents so we do not violate any patient's parental wishes.


Below is a sample of some of the coverage by the media.
Penn State Health youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utAT3wifivw

Penn State News
http://news.psu.edu/story/383128/2015/12/02/santa-makes-cyber-stop-penn-state-hershey-children%E2%80%99s-hospital

Event made national coverage on ABC in 2014
http://abcnews.go.com/US/cyber-santa-claus-connects-patients-pennsylvania-childrens-hospital/story?id=27359975

Local abc27 Coverage
http://abc27.com/2014/12/03/cyber-santa-connects-with-children-at-penn-state-hershey-childrens-hospital/




 I hope this article helps you think how you can use your skills as an IT professional to the benefit the community you service.