We Shouldn’t Need Wyebot, But We Do

Just a taste of the Wyebot UI

Wireless network systems are expensive- like insanely expensive- and they are only one part of a given enterprise network environment. You can spend top dollar on market-leading WLAN hardware, switches, RADIUS servers, DNS and DHCP systems, Active Directory resources, security stuff and more You can have veteran IT craftspeople design, install and configure it all- and still have problems that are not only hard to solve but also hard to even start looking at when an end user tells you they aren’t happy. It is what it is, and many of the built-in tools that SHOULD help don’t do a particularly good job when you most need them.

Enter Wyebot.

I’ve been dipping toes in the Wyebot waters for a few years now, and was happy to see the Massachusetts-based company presenting at Mobility Field Day 8. Through the years I have been less than impressed after testing other 3rd party sensors and monitoring overlays (excluding 7signal, whose methodology I find to be quite effective), as false alarms are the norm and the systems frequently become just another high-cost glass of pain to ignore shortly after implementation.

I’ve personally found Wyebot to work well in effectively characterizing the WLAN space it operates in, exposing all of the WLAN-oriented details a wireless admin needs to know about. What’s there? How are the SSIDs configured? Where is contention and the potential for trouble? Which Wi-Fi networks are deviating from best practices? That’s the easy stuff. It also does highly-reliable synthetic testing that you define (one area where other sensors just don’t get it right) to help tell when any of the non-WLAN parts of the network are misbehaving in ways that frequently tarnish the WLAN’s reputation. I like the information delivered from the monitoring of spectrum, client behavior, and testing of upstream network resources. I find Wyebot to be a force multiplier in that it watches and ACCURATELY reports on what I care about when my pricey wireless system can’t natively get it done.

All network problems feel wireless to wireless users.

I particularly like that Wyebot not only has a robust packet capture capability for problem analysis, but you can also import wireless pcap files taken outside elsewhere using Wireshark on a laptop (just one example) and display that capture through the graphical Wyebot UI for Wyebot’s analysis of that capture. I also like that I can do wireless backhaul from the Wyebot sensors if needed.

The company is generous with free trials, and has some interesting case studies that show how organizations are using the solution.

Have a look at the Mobility Field Day 8 presentations by Wyebot. Also, see my past blogs about Wyebot here,

Well-designed and maintained wireless networks ought to not need outside tools to help keep them running well. Unfortunately, WLAN professionals know that we live in a very imperfect world. Unfortunately, not all of those outside tools are particularly effective, but I personally like what I get out of Wyebot.

Wyebot Brings Wi-Fi 6, More to Its WLAN Monitoring Platform

I’ve been using and evaluating Wyebot in different wireless environments for the last 18 months or so. One of the things that I most like about the company behind the sensor product and their Wireless Intelligence Platform (WIP) is their willingness to listen to what tech-savvy customers want, versus just adopting the mindset of “we’ll tell YOU what you need in a dashboard” that comes with competing products. My own requests have helped to shape the product, and I’ve listened in on calls where other wireless processionals have described what they feel is important. Wyebot listens, and iterates where it makes sense while not necessarily duplicating what everyone else is doing, or diluting their core strengths by trying to be all things to all people. This strikes me as a small, smart, agile company with a good product (and some good competition). My past coverage:

• In IT Toolbox, April 2019
• Right here at Wirednot (2.2 software release)

Now, we have a new 802.11ax sensor and version 3.1 code to improve Wyebot’s already impressive capabilities of WLAN/LAN characterization, troubleshooting, and alerting.

Continuous Improvement

Here’s the latest incarnation of the main page in the Wyebot dashboard, to get the juices flowing:

Whether you install Wyebot sensors for long-term monitoring, or use them more in a tactical role for point-in-time troubleshooting, there is a lot to appreciate. I love that with three radios, you get the flexibility of using wireless backhaul from the sensor when no network wiring is available. But what about the new magic in 3.1?

Unfortunately, you have to be logged in to see the details of each feature, but most of these are probably fairly intuitive to those in the business of Wi-Fi. Let’s talk about a couple.

Access Point Classification Feature

The Wyebot sensor does a fantastic job of characterizing a given WLAN environment. You may see a list of SSIDs on your phone or PC, but Wyebot will distill it all down to how many APs are in each SSID (within it’s receive range, of course) along with all of the 802.11-related particulars you’d ever need to know. From there, you can add your own classification- is it a friendly? A threat? an unknown? Sounds simple, perhaps, but this on-the-fly graphical note-taking with security overtones helps keep busy environments straight as you pick them apart.

Available Test Profiles

At the bottom of the list of test profiles, we see a new option- Link Doctor. With this, you exercise core network services and device-to-destination connectivity to get a sense of network health. Run it on demand, or at regular intervals for trending.

Hopefully you get a taste for Wyebot’s look, feel, and general aspirations as a test and monitoring platform. For a more analytical look at the entire platform, check out this presentation from Bryan Daugherty.

What Do I Like Best?

From the first time I experienced Wyebot, I fell in love with a few aspects of the sensor and it’s cloud framework, That affinity continues, and here’s what keeps me smitten:

• As a permanently-mounted sensor, Wyebot would be welcome in any WLAN environment. But to me it has as much value as a pop-it-in short-term analysis tool, almost like a NetAlly hand-held product. Even if you don’t buy into sensor overlays, a Wyebot sensor two on hand could bring unique troubleshooting value.
• You just don’t get as many false alarms with Wyebot as you do with certain competitors.
• It’s awesome to take wireless packet captures gathered elsewhere and to load them into Wyebot, and have them displayed as if Wyebot did the capture. Pretty slick.

Wyebot Adds Feautures, Ups It’s WLAN Performance Monitoring Game

I wrote about Wyebot a few months back for IT Toolbox. It’s an interesting wireless network performance monitoring platform, and is among the more impressive tools of this type that I’ve looked at (think Cape sensors, 7signal, Netbeez, etc). Why does Wyebot appeal to me?

For starters, the user interface hooks me. I know that this is one of those highly subjective things that hits us all differently, but I find the Wyebot dashboard easy to navigate, with a lot of value at each drill-in point. If you look at the IT Toolbox article referenced above, you’ll get a good introduction to the product, and here’s a nice summary of why the company feels that their multi-radio sensor is advantageous. That’s all well and good, but the point of THIS blog is that Wyebot has added new features in their version 2.2 code, and is listening to their customers and avaluators like me as they evolve the product.

Quick side note: I brought up with Wyebot that it would be nice to see “What’s New” release-notes/features listed somewhere in the dashboard, and as it is you have to click in fairly deep to tell what version is running, like so:

If you miss the email that tells what features have been added, it’s hard to find that information anywhere else. That does a disservice to a decent product that is getting better with every update, so hopefully we see a change here in the near future.

But back to the 2.2 release. The bulleted list goes like this:

• Network Test Graphs
• Historical problems/solutions
• Support for iPerf version 3
• Enhanced Network Test result details
• Enhanced ability to discover AP names
• Auto-creation of Network Tests

And the details can be seen here in the release notes,Wyebot v2.2 Release Notes (July 2019).

Given that different environments have varying areas of concern, each of us will find different weights to the value of the individual feautures as Wyebot continues to mature. From Day 1, I’ve been impressed with the sensors’ ability to quickly characterize a Wi-Fi environment and monitor it for changes. I appreciate that the sensor can use wireless backhaul, and that it can serve as an iPerf server (versions 2 and 3), as well as performing as a wireless client even on 802.1X networks for testing authentication and such.

Perhaps my fovorite capability to date is being able to upload a pcap file to Wyebot and have it display what the capture means through the lens of the Wyebot interface.

There is a lot to like, and more coming with each release. If you’ve not looked at Wyebot yet, I think you’ll find that this start-up is holding it’s own among established competitors when it come to WLAN performance monitoring.