[NEBULA] Nebula Phase 3 - Coming soon?

FrankIversen

Hi.
When can we expect to see phase 3 and what features can we look forward too?

Zyxel_Dean

Hi @FrankIversen !

Phase 3 is scheduled in November, as for features we will announce it sometime in September or October, it depends on when we support crew have the info. We'll let you know , don't worry  

Dean

FMAlchmst

no teasers ?

Zyxel_Dean

Hi @FMAlchmst !

Actually we have a ton of new features in our roadmap, its hard to choose which ones to release first since they're all great features.
Please stay tuned for a full announcement, meanwhile do feel free to submit ideas of any comes to mind.

Dean

FrankIversen

as long it is export and import of configuration files for 100% recovery of units, and enable/disable site-2-site vpn (we would like to configure a lot of vpn as a MSP but don't have them active all the time) I will be very happy

And don't worry, it is already posted in the idea section

Wicky

Any news on this ? I have currently an NAP203 & Ubiquiti HD for testing. Some features look interesting to have.

- Minimal RSSI values settings to dissociate clients
- Possibility to perform an RF Scan to detect intereference and display this
- Airfairness option
- Possibility to fix power output instead of only settings maximum values.
- Possibility to actively steer clients to 5Ghz (if feasible)
- Custom channel deployment next to three channel deployment/four channel deployment
- Nebula software : actively polling status when pushing new changes to the AP point. Now simply listed as taking 1-2 minutes. Kind of in progress status as long as the new settings are not provisioned yet.
- Listing link speeds of clients
- Allow clients to be disconnected from the Nebula interface.

Hope these suggestions make sense.

Zyxel_CSO

Hi @Wicky, 

Welcome to Nebula Community Biz Forum 
P3 will be expected to launch in the middle of next January. For the rest of the provided features, please refer to the below reply in bold:

- Minimal RSSI values settings to dissociate clients > Will implement in P3
- Possibility to perform an RF Scan to detect interference and display this > Not in the Roadmap 
- Airfairness option > Not in the Roadmap 
- Possibility to fix power output instead of only settings maximum values > Availability already. You can configure the fixed output power on AP > Configure > Radio setting, select 2.4 GHz/5GHz and click Edit.Under Maximum output power, select the fixed dBm to lock output power.
Please note that the maximum output power is subject to per country according to the national regulation. For instance, if you lock 25 dBm as the fixed output number but the legal max output power by the country is 20 dBm, then the actual fixed output will be 20 dBm.  


- Possibility to actively steer clients to 5Ghz (if feasible) >  Availability already. Go to AP > Configure > SSIDs. Under Band, Select Concurrent operation, toggle on Band select and then click Save button to steer clients to 5GHz.


- Custom channel deployment next to three channel deployment/four channel deployment > Availability already.  You can customize the 2.4GHz/ 5GHz channel on each NAP.
Go to AP > Configure > Radio setting, select 2.4GHz or 5GHz and click Edit on the desired NAP.



- Nebula software: actively polling status when pushing new changes to the AP point. Now simply listed as taking 1-2 minutes. Kind of in progress status as long as the new settings are not provisioned yet. > Not in the Roadmap 

- Listing link speeds of clients > Do you mean TX/RX rate? Tx/RX (Mbps) rate is the current maximum transmission and reception rates of the client. If yes, you can enable on AP > Monitor > Client. Click setting icon and then tick Tx/Rx rate. You will see the client's speed rate afterward.


 - Allow clients to be disconnected from the Nebula interface > We currently have the function to disassociate connected AP clients. Go to AP > Monitor > Client, select the one or more clients and then apply blocked policy to disconnect the online clients. Once the blocked policy is applied, the selected clients won't be able to connect until removing the policy.
  
For the other features, we would like to hear more about it. Could you please add them to our ideas category or let us quote your ideas if you allow us to do so.Once your ideas get lots of likes, we will evaluate the feasibility and then get back to you 

Wicky

Hi James,

Thx for the update.

- Regarding the max output setting. I will check but what I have seen looks like the locking is a max. But the actual value is regularly lower then the maximum. So it looks as it not a fixed locking only an advise not going beyond. Therefor my question. Especially if you do a survey you can lower the 2.4Ghz signal strength on a fixed power value (not max). Maybe I'm overseeing here that the AP decides for lower actual value due to power saving, ... ????
- Regarding the custom channel deployment. I was not clear enough. Now the channel deployment does a kind of auto select between certain channels (1,6,11). But it would maybe be nice to have auto select for your own set of channels. Why I'm asking ? I have interference on channel 1 (non-wifi from external source). So maybe choosing a different sets of channels to have the AP select from would somehow be useful.
- Could you give some info on how the band steering is implemented (criteria ?) ? What I meant with actively steering is not during association but later on. Kicking clients depending on min-max RSSI value in the 2.4Ghz band. So if the signal is very strong it is assumed that you are within reach of the 5Ghz signal, if too weak you force roaming to another point. OR another idea is having a list value-pairs RSSI-minimal data rates. If a client its data rate drops below a value at a certain signal strength it gets kicked. Of course these are more advanced features and would need a survey for your setup.
Does this make sense ? If so please feel free to quote or rephrase.

Zyxel_CSO

Hi @Wicky

Thanks for coming back to us. I summarise my feedback as below:

1. The actual output power may be lower than the fixed output power due to two possible reasons:

•     Max transmission power is regulated by per country as mentioned in the previous reply.
•     AP will auto adjust and lower the output power once the input power is insufficient.  

2. Customization of Channel Set Deployment. 
NAP series currently only have DCS (Dynamic Channel Setting) or lock one specific channel. Our another product line NXC has the function to manual adjust the channel set. For example, specify a channel set of 2,6,11 on 2.4 GHz. If you like to have this feature, you are very welcome to raise the idea on the Idea Category or a ticket for Feature Request.

3.  Band steering Criteria
General speaking, when band select is enabled, 2.4 GHz probing will be blocked in the first 3 times and it drives clients to steer to 5 GHz. Of course, the clients may still associate with 2.4 GHz based on the device's behavior.I will get back to you If you would like to know more technical details.

Wicky

Hi James,

Point 1 : Initially thought it was due to HP POE switch set to max output 15.3W. However switching to POE+ didn't change a thing.
I have added two pictures to demonstrate what I observe.

Pic 1 max 17dBM while 30dBM is allowed according to country specs. Nowehere I have seen anything more then 21dBM for 5Ghz



POE switch in only delivering 4.5w max in this setting when no load. Fully testing max 10.5w

Do you have any information on country specifications ? It could be that this is indeed the case that the country settings prevent this. At least I found one document referring to this for my country.

But if so it would be an asset to at least visualize the country limits or when locking the power output only display the maximum for that band for a specific country. Showing a drop down list giving the option to select 30dBm for example when only a maximum of 17dBM will ever be applied is quite confusing. 

Point 2 : Added to idea list

 Point 3 : Could you come back on 3 ? Im interested on how it is implemented.

BTW, there where also some ideas mentioned in point 3 by me. Do they make sense ? So really a method of active kicking clients once connected to 2.4Ghz ? Some times you have sticky clients and the ideas mentioned are to disconnect them so they re-associate to the 5Ghz band ? If so I would like to add them to the idea list

Regards,

Dirk

Zyxel_CSO

Hi @Wicky

Thanks for your feedback. please kindly refer to the below reply:

Point 1:
Thanks for raising the idea of Display country upper limit transmit power for different frequency bands. However, we don't have information or spec for WiFi output power of each country at the moment. We will evaluate your ideas according to the popularity. 

Point 2:

We will evaluate the idea of Customisation Channel Deployment and then get back to you as well.

Point 3:

Let me explain more regarding the criteria of band steering. When band select is enabled, NAP has a default time-out standard (5 seconds) to drop probe and authentication requests on 2.4 GHz. It’s kind of like a delay to ignore the first 8 packets of probe request and 3 packets of the authentication request from clients within 5 seconds. By doing this, the clients are more likely to steer to 5 GHz.

The band select only applies during device connection, We don't have the feature to kick out the connected devices to 2.4 GHz and force them to reconnect to 5 GHz. But we have the similar feature: Minimal RSSI values settings to dissociate clients that will implement in P3 as the early replied and it will allow to kick out the sticky clients with the poor signal when the signal strength is below the threshold. This can enhance the overall roaming performance among  NAPs. 

On the other hand, NAP supports Load Balancing (The default is off) but this is not about the dual band. 

By client device number mode: If enable this mode, the default number of stations will be 10. If the number of the stations exceeds 10, NAPs of this site will delay the connection from the clients. When Disassociate client device when overloaded is toggled on, NAP will disassociate excessive stations one by one mildly by the poorest signal strength and the longest idle time

Smart Classroom mode: If enable this mode, the default number of stations will be 10 as well.Stations will be assigned to the nearest NAP. If the number of stations is exceeded 10, NAP will make the clients connect the other nearby NAP.