Greetings all.

February is here. Winter is in full swing on this side of the equator. Summer is grasping the other. I know it’s been a warm one so far for our friends in Australia. But snowfall amounts in the Northeast has our ski areas in Northern California and the Rockies so envious. Such is Mother Nature right?

Recently, our team announced some important details for our Switching and Wireless products.

I thought I would take the time to let you all know more on these announcements.

First up, Nasser Tarazi, Wireless Product Manager, announced two new models. We will cover the new WAP351 this week and the new WAP131 next week.

The New Cisco WAP351

The new Cisco WAP351 perfect for conference rooms, classrooms, hospitality and other flexible deployments. It offers Dual Radio (2.4Ghz and 5Ghz) wireless N connectivity, a 5-port Switch with PoE PD and PSE support, Single Point Setup, Captive Portal and comes with Limited Lifetime Warranty.

The WAP351 offers something new to the Wireless portfolio. Here is a quick Power Over Ethernet (PoE) primer. PoE Powered-Device (PD) is the ability to power the device through an PD-capable Ethernet port. PoE PSE (Power Sourcing Equipment) is the ability to supply power a device connected to a PSE-capable Ethernet port. In terms of power, a standard PoE port can support a maximum output of 15W, while a PoE+ port supports up to 30W.

Now, back to the WAP351.  As mentioned above, the WAP351 support both PD and PSE.   This means if the WAP351 is connected to a PoE+ switch like the SG300-10PP, the WAP351 can be power through PD-capable Ethernet port, while at the same time powering a standard PoE device like a phone or another AP, like the WAP131 through the WAP351’s designated PSE-capable Ethernet port.

More on Wireless Access Points and PoE:

• PoE: Power over Ethernet. PoE enables Power and Data to be combined onto a single Ethernet cable to power devices such as access points, IP phones, or IP cameras
• PSE on a WAP is exclusive to the new WAP351
• A WAP with PSE is attractive for verticals such as education, hospitality, and smaller offices and meeting rooms where both wired and wired access is required
• PoE enables WAP’s or other endpoint devices to be installed where power typically is not available, such as on a wall or ceiling. This allows for greater flexibility during deployments.
• All Cisco Small Business WAP’s support PoE PD
• Dual-Radio WAPs requiring 802.3af PoE power = WAP131, WAP351, WAP561
• Dual-Radio WAPs requiring 802.3at PoE+ power = WAP371, WAP351 when using the PSE with full power budget
• The WAP351 can be powered by 48V/1.25A external DC power if a 802.3af/t PoE switch is not used or available
• The WAP351 can provide 6w of PSE when using 802.3af
  

Ok you got it? Make sense?

Cisco 300 Series Switches

In other news:

Switching Product Manager Michael Wynh announced several price reductions on the ever-popular 300 Series Switches. This is good news for our customers and channel partners alike. Businesses can maximize their budgets and take advantage of Cisco’s class-leading PoE switching products. For more information on these important updates, please contact your local Cisco Representative or check out our support community.

That is it for now. Thanks for hanging out with us.

Until next time,

Marc

Tags: #wireless, access point, Cisco, Cisco Wireless, ethernet, network, PoE ports, port, router, switch, VLAN, wlan

We made it! It is Friday afternoon and the weekend is almost upon us. But before closing up shop, it is a good time to bring up some product transitions that we have going on.

First off the wireless team has this update:

The popular WAP4410N model is no longer available. There are options:

The current replacement is WAP121 but if you looking  for more performance and more features, take a look at the WAP321, WAP551 or the dual-band WAP561.

To close this out, we have the new WAP371. It is brand new, it performs and it has wireless 802.11ac!

Now for the RV Series:

The RV120W and RV220W will be going end-of-sale at the end of December this year. The RV180 and Rv180W will be going to end-of-sale by April of next year. Quantities could be limited on certain regional SKU’s.

The replacement models are the RV130 for the RV180, and the RV130W for the rest.

Update: We also have five PIDs that are now EoL: RV220W-A-K9-AU, RV180W-A-K9-AU (both for Australia/NZ), RV180-K9-AR (Argentina), RV180-K9-CN (China), and the RV016-G5 (EMEA). In Mexico, the RV180-A-K9-NA is now replace with the RV130-A-K9-NA.

Have a great week.

Marc

Tags: #wireless, access point, business, growth, IT, router, scalable, service, small

With the growing influx of new mobile devices, connected things, bandwidth intensive applications and more data, the network is more relevant to business success than ever before.  Back in June of 2012, Cisco saw that we needed to move away from multiple network systems loosely linked together to an agile and simple infrastructure, streamlined policy and centralized management would be needed to support new business demands. We called it Cisco Unified Access and we aligned the solution to three pillars: One Network, One Policy and One Management.

For the last few years, we have focused on delivering new products and functionality under this Unified Access model. Below is a timeline of products released as part of the Unified Access framework. Cisco lead the way in delivering gigabit 802.11ac Wi-Fi., converged wireless control in access switches and through the acquisition of Meraki – a complete cloud-managed network solution.

The timeline above doesn’t represent every feature and function we have delivered, but it shows Cisco’s commitment to this Unified Access model, both from a cloud-managed and on-premise solution perspective.

Today, Cisco is announcing a number of new products and new functionality to existing products that will help mobilize the workforce, secure the business and increase IT agility. The announcement includes the following: Read More »

Tags: #80211ac, 11ac, 802.11ac, access, access point, Agile, agility, Aironet, anyconnect, AP, App, application, asr, bandwidth, business, byod, Cisco, compliance, converge, converged, Converged Access, data, device, emm, employee, Enterprise, experience, feature, foundation, function, gigabit, Guest, guest access, HD, HDX, high density, identity, indoor, infrastructure, interop, ISE, ISR, IT, LAN, lifecycle, Manage, management, MDM, meraki, mobile, mobility, model, network, operation, outdoor, policy, portfolio, prime, Prime Infrastructure, product, secure, security, services, simple, simplify, system, System Manager, technology, traffic, unified access, vpn, WAN, wi-fi, wifi, wired, wireless, wlan, workforce

For the past 125 years, Globe University has focused on hands-on training to ensure the career success of students offering associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees, as well as diploma and certificate programs.  A recent article from the magazine Campus Technology showcases how they are pioneers in adopting new technology in the classroom. They have a systematic program dubbed as edUX (Educational User Experience) to integrate tablets into every program they offer. In addition, they work with an e-book platform called VitalSource and use Blackboard technology in the classrooms. Students are also encouraged to use technology. For example, math and science instructors use videos from the Khan Academy, the business school recommends Twitter accounts and the librarian encourages using EasyBib for book citations.

In the past few years Apple introduced mDNS services such as AppleTV, file servers and printers that use a Zero Config-based technology for service advertisement and discovery called Bonjour. While this technology works well in the home, which is a flat L2 network, when it is deployed in a K-12 or enterprise, it does not lend well over a L3 network. In 2013, Cisco introduced Bonjour Services Directory on the AireOS 7.4 and Service Discovery Gateway (SDG) on the Catalyst 3K, 4K, 6K and 5760 Series controllers with release IOS-XE 3.3. The future releases further optimized the functionality in 7.5 release, 8.0 release and IOS-XE 3.6 release. In this blog, I will share deployment details of unified access at Globe University and how they use Application Visibility and Control (Cisco AVC) to track applications in their network and the Bonjour Services Directory to manage AppleTVs in the classroom.

Read More »

Tags: access point, AP, Cisco, controller, edtech, education, higher education, Khan Academy, LAN, mobility, network, online learning, technology, technology in the classroom, wi-fi, wifi, wireless, wlan

The industry is going beyond BYOD—it’s not just about simply connecting the device anymore: the mobile landscape has grown to include apps, devices and content, all of which require security and management. This is no easy task. Enterprise mobility management (EMM) is no longer a nice-to-have for our customers—it is a necessity. You need a mobile strategy.

We at Cisco have been steadily building out our mobility portfolio across infrastructure, policy and management over the past few years to provide our customers with what they need to get ahead of the mobile trend.

It has always been Cisco’s strategy to use open API’s with ISE to integrate with host of 3^rd party EMM vendors, including Citrix, MobileIron, Airwatch and many more. We are now extending that flexibility to create a cloud-managed EMM offering with our Cisco Meraki solution.  The latest addition to the Cisco mobility portfolio, the Cisco Meraki Systems Manager Enterprise is an evolution of Cisco Meraki’s existing MDM cloud offer, and a natural extension of the Cisco Meraki network management solution (e.g. extending management of wireless access points to the management of devices connecting to the enterprise domain).

Cisco is committed to customer choice, and will continue to offer different options to the market, including ecosystem EMM partner solutions. The addition of the Cisco Meraki Systems Manager broadens that portfolio to strengthen our offering and empower our customers attain the mobility solution best suited for their specific requirements.

For more information on the Cisco Meraki Systems Manager, read the full announcement blog here.

Tags: 3rd party, access point, AirWatch, API, App, application, byod, citrix, connect, content, customer, device, emm, Enterprise, Identity Services Engine, infrastructure, ISE, Manage, management, market, MDM, meraki, mobile, mobile device, MobileIron, mobility, network, partner, policy, portfolio, secure, security, solution, system, systems manager, trend, vendor, wi-fi, wifi, wireless