Replacing Wireless

auttamchandani · ‎08-24-2007

Hello,

I currently have 2 Access Points in the organization I am employed for I am supposed to maintain the WLAN infrastructure and secure it to the best of ability.

We currently have a D-Link D1-714P+ and an aged Roam About, the D-Link using WPA TKIP and the Roam About using WEP (Can't support any higher). The ranges of the APs are quite limited and terrible.

Basically each AP has to be managed separately in every aspect. I have been investigating Cisco's Unified Architecture and I like the idea.

I am considering purchasing two Cisco APS probley the 1200 Series, once they can support the latest encryption along with VPN and RADIUS support.

My requirements for the APS are basically:

802.11 A, B, G

WPA, WPA2, TKIP, AES

VLAN

RADIUS

With regards to centralize and manage the two AP's I would be using the Wireless Control System, I am abit dumbfound on this.. Is this software that can be purchased to maintain the security, performance, logging and management of both APS? Or is this a new piece of equipment?

Basically, like in a Windows 2003 Active Directory Environment you have users/passwords setup to authenticate with the domain controller, I'd like a similar setup with my Access Points, instead of just using one plain old key for everyone, is this possible?

Excuse my ignorance...

Thanks,

fynskisb16 · ‎08-24-2007

For 2 AP's I wouldn't buy the WCS software. For centralized manangement of AP's you could go with a WLC 2106. That supports 6 LWAPP AP's. I would recommend the 1131AG AP's. It can do all the security you want. 802.1x/PEAP/IAS in a 2k3 domain is what we use. We have the wireless setting push out through group policy.

auttamchandani · ‎08-24-2007

Sounds good, basically I want to be able to control the APS via the WLC and via GP in 2K3.

Thanks for your feedback.

fynskisb16 · ‎08-24-2007

Exactly. You can push down the wireless settings with a GPO and have the users and computers authenticate to an IAS server using their domain username/password.