* Cisco autonomous APs and management systems
There was a jump of 48% over last year in the number of enterprises using or planning to use centralized wireless LAN architectures with thin access points and controllers, according to the Webtorials 2006 Wireless LAN State-of-the-Market report, published this month. So Cisco, which Synergy Research’s latest stats say holds 58% of the enterprise wireless market revenue, likely has lots of customers potentially looking to migrate to a centralized management environment.
The last newsletter provided a cheat-sheet of sorts that rounded up the devices and management products in the Cisco centralized, thin-AP environment. This newsletter sums up what the company offers in the autonomous AP/distributed management Wi-Fi environment.
* Autonomous APs
This is the legacy Cisco wireless environment that includes 1100 and 1200 series APs. These APs support Cisco Wireless Domain Services (WDS), an RF subset of Cisco IOS Software functionality. The Aironet 1130s, 1230s, 1240s and 1200s can be reconfigured with LWAPP and function as thin APs, while the Aironet 1100 Series operates in autonomous mode only.
Autonomous APs also include older Cisco 340 and 350 APs, which run the VXWorks operating system and cannot be reconfigured for LWAPP-based centralized management.
* Autonomous environment provisioning and management.
The Wireless LAN Services Module (WLSM) for the Catalyst 6500 switch enables the provisioning and management of up to 6,000 thick APs. The Wireless LAN Solutions Engine, or WLSE, is the aggregator/management device for the Cisco autonomous APs with RF-specific capabilities in very large deployments (hundreds to thousands of thick APs). The WLSE Express does the same job in environments of up to 100 APs. It is analogous to the Wireless Control System (WCS) in the Cisco centralized/thin-AP environment.
For RF management of both thick and thin Cisco wireless environments, you need separate Cisco systems (the WCS for the thin environment and the WLSE/WLSE Express for the autonomous environment). Or, as mentioned in the last newsletter, you can use a third-party heterogeneous RF management system from a third-party supplier such as AirWave.
