Zebra Launches WiNG 5.8

Zebra has announced the launch of the WiNG 5.8 software release. WiNG 5.8 is a major software release for the WLAN portfolio of products delivering a variety of new features and capabilities including: Zebra NSight –a new network visualization engine with rich analytics that makes it easier than ever to manage and troubleshoot your WLAN; Application Visibility and Control (AVC) to give you complete control over the applications that are running on your WLAN and fine-tune/rate-limit based on the business need; a full-featured Guest access solution with self-registration, support for social media login credentials for guest access and large data-store for guest user profile; Mobile extension enhancements for better wireless experience for Zebra mobile devices; Centralized EX-3500 switch management through NX.

In addition, 5.8 release supports following new hardware platforms

• NX-5500 – Services platform for small/mid-sized environment with capacity up to 512 APs.
• NX-5500E – WiNG Express Manager for multi-site deployments with capacity up to 512 Express APs.

Features and Benefits

Zebra NSight – Network Visualization, Monitoring, Reporting and Troubleshooting

• Visualizing network statistics and events – Simplified and unified network views based on user’s role. 20+ configurable widgets to view various trend charts and graphs on the network and user stats : utilization, bandwidth, client count and client mix, RF health/utilization, application visibility/usage by client/WLAN/AP/summary, etc.
• Custom live updating dashboards for every role
• Live troubleshooting tools — packet capture, wireless debug logs, TCP/IP ping and traceroute
• Interactive floor maps with support for heat maps and the ability to visualize the RF attributes and identify issues / problems areas
• Real-time and historic trend analysis to simplify network growth planning
• Exceptionally responsive interface — virtually any information is just a few clicks away

Guest Access / Captive Portal Enhancements

• Guest Self Registration
  • Device registration with (optional) one-time-password
  • User registration with email/mobile number as user identity
  • Passcode notification over Email and/or SMS o Social authentication based registration
  • Customizable registration forms (name, email, mobile, member, location, age, custom, and more)
  • Opt-out option for guests
• Social Authentication – Facebook and Google
• Mobile friendly web portal with template customization (color, banner, preview)
• External success URL
• Analytics and capacity up to 2M client identity

Application Visibility and Control (AVC)

• The Deep-Packet-Inspection engine on the Access Point such as 802.11ac AP (AP 7532, AP 7522, AP 7562) and on the Controllers (NX-5500, NX-7500, NX-9500, NX-9600), provides visibility and control over layer-7 applications right at the edge.
• Facilitates detecting and classifying applications with support for dynamic signatures and the IT admins can leverage the application context to create effective rules to fine-tune access to the wireless network, providing service differentiation and network capacity planning.

Mobile Extension Enhancements

• Coverage Hole Detection - Client Assisted Diagnostics enhancement that uses 802.11k standards and adds Zebra specific WiNG Extensions to provide report on potential wireless infrastructure issues. Works with Zebra Mobile devices
• Roaming Optimizations - Assisted Roaming: Enhanced roaming for sticky clients with 802.11v standards support. Works with any client device that supports 802.11v. Scan Assist and Fast BSS transition: WiNG Extensions to 802.11k and 802.11r standards to support faster scanning over DFS channels and fast roaming. Works only with Zebra mobile devices MC18, MC40 and MC9200

Centralized EX3500 Management

• Centralized EX-3500 Ethernet switch management from the NX and VX platforms
• Adoption, provisioning and monitoring of EX-3500 switches along side WiNG APs for unified view of the network

Network feature enhancements

• EAP Termination - Adds support to terminate EAP session on a Proxy RADIUS server and allow authentication on the external RADIUS for flexible deployment.
• Increase max VLANs per WLAN - Increases the number of VLANs in a pool from 16 to 32 to support high density deployments
• Traffic Shaping - Adds support for traffic shaping that can be applied to any locally bridged or tunneled traffic (both wired and wireless) through the device.

Client Bridge

• Provides secure wireless connectivity to multiple devices without wireless interface.
• Supported on the AP-6522 and AP-6562 platforms

Centralized T5 Management Enhancements

• Additional monitoring and provisioning from the central NX/VX platforms including : range command for the DSL ports, scheduled reload, VLAN override by RF domain, and show commands – show wireless clients, show MAC table