Hello Friends,
As you can tell, we enjoy sports. With Justin Thomas winning his first golf major of his career, the PGA Championship, at Quail Hollow. In tennis, the final major of 2017 will be starting shortly at Flushing Meadow, the US Open. We will see if #1 in the world Rafa Nadal (back to #1 since 2014) or perennial favorite, Roger Federer or any others from the strong field will prevail.
In these times, I feel it is best to look at and point out the positive. So with that, the Product Team is extremely excited to announce two things today: Cisco FindIT Network Management 1.1 and the new WAP581 are now available.
Let’s start with the new Wireless Access Point.
Take a look Cisco.com for the product feature ad!
As you all can imagine, the entire Product Team is super excited for our Wireless Team. This product was created, developed, tested and proven for the Small Business. It is truly is purpose-built for the Small and Medium Business.
Yes, the Cisco WAP581 is now shipping!
The Cisco WAP581 Wireless-AC Dual Radio Wave 2 Access Point with 2.5GbE LAN is a high performance access point it supports 4 x 4 multi- user multiple-input, multiple-output (MU-MIMO) technology for faster multi user throughput and better overall user experience. It offers two Gigabit Ethernet ports one with 2.5GbE (mGig) and the second with 1GbE PoE to facilitate flexible installation and provide maximum speed. The WAP581 supports business-class features such as RF Spectrum Analyzer to detect and troubleshoot nearby interference. Guest Access Portal which allows for customized roles and rights like limiting bandwith and total data usage. The WAP581 comes with a limited lifetime warranty.
Brian Nicklin, Wireless Product Manager, comments, “The all-wireless office is now a reality and available to SMBs at an affordable cost. The new Cisco WAP581 Access point incorporates new advancements such as Wave 2 and Multigigabit (MGig) technologies to enable a next-gen mobile experience. Now devices can get on and off the network faster, enabling a higher density of device support and greater efficiencies enabling users to achieve new levels of productivity.” Wireless Product Manager, Nasser Tarazi adds, “With the growth of mobile devices, small and medium businesses are now looking for a more secure and reliable WiFi network to support new applications and provide better user experience to their clients and employees. The Cisco WAP581 brings to businesses the latest WiFi technology with high performance and outstanding user experience at affordable price.”
Here is a short WAP Product Video, take a look. This video along with our others are located in our Cisco Video Portal, so please bookmark the webpage.
The next part of our story today is the availability of the Cisco FindIT 1.1.
As you know, Cisco FindIT Network Management is purpose-built for managing networks of Cisco 100 to 500 Series devices. It lets you proactively manage the network instead of just reacting to events. FindIT Network Management is the perfect addition to your business’s network.
This new release brings a myriad of new features and functionality including:
- New wireless reporting and monitoring capability
- Support for Cisco Network Plug and Play (Zero-Touch Deployment)
- Many enhancements to network discovery and the topology
- Numerous usability enhancements
- More options for easier deployment and upgrading
- Cisco Smart Licensing support
There is much more to this new release. Please take a look at the Cisco FindIT Product Page to review the entire release. And do not forget to download the software today!
Questions? Please contact your local Cisco Partner! Or feel free to email ask-eng-small-business@cisco.com.
The entire Cisco Small Business is quite proud of these two releases. We hope you do too.
Let’s see if Roger the Great One can make a push to win the final major of the year. Or perhaps Rafa will dominate once more at Billie Jean National Tennis Center.
Thank you for spending some time with us. We greatly value your support.
Marc and the Cisco Small Business Product Team.
Congratulations on the new product launch, for those interested there’s an emulator at https://www.cisco.com/assets/sol/sb/WAP581_Emulators/WAP581_Emulator_v1-0-0-4/main.htm where you can look at the admin interface and the WAP581’s features.
As for FindIT, the link goes off to 3 different types of download and it’s not clear which I would need to Get Started. Is FindIT its own complete virtual machine that I need to deploy on my network or is it a separate app I can install on a Windows Server? I think it’s unclear and Cisco need to focus on this to get more people using FindIT.
I think the simplest explanation for Cisco for FindIT would be to explain it as a “Management Controller” but I think I know why they don’t want to refer to it as a “Controller” as it gets confusing then when marketing the other access points that require a physical hardware controller. Problem is though people want a “in a sentence what is it?” answer.
Also I notice the WAP581 has a new refreshed interface which does not match the SG3xx switches or WAP37x or WAP57x series.. will these be receiving the refreshed interface too so all Cisco SMB products are consistent?
Hi Matthew,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. FindIT Network Manager is packaged as virtual machine images and as an installer for Ubuntu Linux. The application can not be installed on Windows other than as a virtual machine. The two VM images are essentially identical, just packaged differently for different hypervisors – the zip file for use with Hyper-V, and the ova file for use with VMWare or VirtualBox. There is a lot more detail in the admin guides that are linked off the product page referenced above.
I do take your point about terminology. We prefer to use the term ‘Network Management’ or ‘Network Management Application’ as the word controller tends to have a very specific meaning, especially in the context of wireless. FindIT is not a controller in that sense, and is not limited to just working with wireless access points.
As for the refreshed UI, this is something that will be happening for new products going forward. Some current products will be updated where it makes sense, but typically the more mature products will not. It does not really make sense to have a firmware update for a device where the only change is to the look and feel, without any substantive change that would justify the user upgrading the device.
Cheers,
Dave Harper
FindIT Product Manager
Thank you for your comments Matthew. Feel free to send a note to ask-eng-small-business@cisco.com if any more questions or comments.
Regards,
Marc