January: Mediacom installed the new internet connection on January 15th. It was not immediately apparent if the XBox 360 connection was working better or if there was just minimal traffic being used. Later in the afternoon it was noticed that the XBox Live connection to the XBox 360 was still an issue which ruled out the possibility of it being an issue with the connection to our ISP and the bandwidth being capped.
Meraki was contacted on January 15th in the afternoon to re-escalate the case. The Cisco sales engineer was also contacted and stated he will be proceeding with the case.
IT understands the frustration involved with campus life and the XBox issue. It has been something we have been diligently working on and hope we can help with a solution. The main focus of our department is to make sure the internet and network are working to the best of our abilities with the resources we are given for academic purposes. The main goal of IT is to support your academic endeavors.
Friday, January 24, 2014
November & December: IT was given the option to increase bandwidth to 500Mbps by our current ISP, Mediacom. We moved forward with the paperwork and were told it should not be too long to get it installed. Later in the month of November we were notified that new equipment would be purchased by Mediacom in order to get the connection to campus. Purchasing this equipment had some lead time so it was noted that the connection would be installed around the end of December.
Delays occurred and the December date passed with no connection being installed.
IT met with Cisco who recently had purchased Meraki and discussions were had about how we can fix this issue. Cisco assured us that they thought a solution was possible and discussions began between our sales engineer and Meraki engineers.
Microsoft was also contacted a few more times to seek out alternative ways to connect to the XBox Live network with the XBox 360. We were met with a response that stated they understand the connection method is outdated, however, will not be changing the manner in which the XBox 360 connects to XBox Live. Microsoft ssured us the XBox One connect to XBox Live in a different more secure manner so the issue will not persist to the next generation consoles.
Delays occurred and the December date passed with no connection being installed.
IT met with Cisco who recently had purchased Meraki and discussions were had about how we can fix this issue. Cisco assured us that they thought a solution was possible and discussions began between our sales engineer and Meraki engineers.
Microsoft was also contacted a few more times to seek out alternative ways to connect to the XBox Live network with the XBox 360. We were met with a response that stated they understand the connection method is outdated, however, will not be changing the manner in which the XBox 360 connects to XBox Live. Microsoft ssured us the XBox One connect to XBox Live in a different more secure manner so the issue will not persist to the next generation consoles.
October: After much discussion with Meraki and finally getting some answers from Microsoft we did make the decision that the issue was one of two problems:
1. Internet bandwidth was exceeding our 100MBps connection during busy times so the traffic was not able to return properly and would continue to disconnect once the bandwidth limit was reached
2. Microsoft stated that they use uPNP as the protocol to transfer traffic for XBox Live on the XBox 360. Meraki stated that since this is an older protocol and very outdated as well as not secure they do not support it on their enterprise firewall.
https://kb.meraki.com/
Meraki decided they would like to see what happened when we increased the bandwidth since IT was already in talks with several companies about a bandwidth increase this was used as their response for us to fulfill before we could move forward with the issue.
1. Internet bandwidth was exceeding our 100MBps connection during busy times so the traffic was not able to return properly and would continue to disconnect once the bandwidth limit was reached
2. Microsoft stated that they use uPNP as the protocol to transfer traffic for XBox Live on the XBox 360. Meraki stated that since this is an older protocol and very outdated as well as not secure they do not support it on their enterprise firewall.
https://kb.meraki.com/
Meraki decided they would like to see what happened when we increased the bandwidth since IT was already in talks with several companies about a bandwidth increase this was used as their response for us to fulfill before we could move forward with the issue.
September: Illinois College IT escalated the case with Meraki support to the engineering department and had its first conversation with Microsoft on the issue. Microsoft XBox Live support does not have a high level support team for business so it was difficult to explain the issue to them since they are used to working with home routers/firewalls and not enterprise equipment.
Some delays were thrown our way by Meraki support but they were responsive and tried several tests with us on our campus network.We noticed that the issues were happening when the internet was busy and several XBox 360's were on at the same time.
Some delays were thrown our way by Meraki support but they were responsive and tried several tests with us on our campus network.We noticed that the issues were happening when the internet was busy and several XBox 360's were on at the same time.
August: When students began to arrive on campus it the IT department was notified that there were students having issues with the XBox Live connection to the XBox 360 devices. IT also noticed that there was a large increase in bandwidth usage overall and began to look at alternative internet connections or an upgrade to the current connection.
Meraki was also contacted at this time and was notified of the issue. Testing began between Illinois College IT and Meraki support. Meraki purchased several XBox 360's to test the issue on their end.
Meraki was also contacted at this time and was notified of the issue. Testing began between Illinois College IT and Meraki support. Meraki purchased several XBox 360's to test the issue on their end.
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