Cisco enters Wi-Fi management fray

ATLANTA -- Cisco Systems made its long-anticipated foray this week into the wireless LAN management market, unveiling at Supercomm the Structured Wireless-Aware Network Framework.

The company also announced a new 802.11a outdoor wireless bridge product at the show.

The SWAN framework is designed to centralize intelligence and management of a wireless LAN infrastructure, and its primary feature is the CiscoWorks Wireless LAN Solution Engine 2.0, a management and monitoring software component that controls up to 2500 Wi-Fi access points. Unlike some other wireless LAN management offerings that are based on the deployment of a dedicated enterprise switch or traffic management — and contrary to recent speculation about Cisco’s new management approach — the framework doesn’t include a new switch.

The WLSE 2.0 is being integrated with the rest of the framework, which includes Aironet 1100 and 1200 Series access points; Catalyst 3750, 4500 and 6500 Series switches; 2600XM and 3700 Series routers; the Secure Access Control Server for authentication; and Cisco-compatible client adapters for RF measurement and monitoring.

The WLSE 2.0 also features Wi-Fi Protected Access, the new standard for Wi-Fi security. Future WLSE upgrades will support rogue access point detection and blocking, as well as graphic depiction of the rogue’s location in the network. WLSE 2.0 will be available next month.

Regarding the 802.11a outdoor system, Cisco introduced the Aironet 1400 Series wireless bridge, designed to provide outdoor connectivity among multiple WLAN locations in a metro area. It has a data rate of 54 Mb/s, and it supports point-to-point ranges up to 7.5 miles, and point-to-multipoint ranges up to 2 miles. The bridge system will be available this month.