Cisco Aironet 3700i access point autonomus mode possible?

[moule3053]

We have a small office with about 50 users. We wanted to order 4 of the Cisco Aironet 3700i access points but we found out that Cisco provides only controller-based access points. What we want is for the access points to work in an autonomous mode. Is there a possibility to change the controller-based access points into autonomous mode? If that is not possible, we plan to use the Cisco 2500 Series Wireless Controller along with the controller-based access points. Are the access points and the 2500 series controller conpatible with Cisco Catalyst 3560 series switches? What other recommendations do you suggest? Thank you

[Leo Laohoo]

Autonomous IOS for 3700 can be found here.

[moule3053]

Dear Leo,

Thank you. But I saw on the deployment guide that the autonomous image is intended for site survey only. Can it be used for normal operation.

Thanks

[Leo Laohoo]

Yes it's for site survey for now.  

But it depends on what you are also doing.  Simple configuration will work.  But if you want a complicated configuration, then it won't.  Not yet.  

Full-blown autonomous IOS will be out in the next few months.

[moule3053]

Thanks

We're going to have at least 3 VLANs on the access point. So, would it be better to go with the wireless controller? What do you think of the 2500 series wireless controller.

Thanks again

[Leo Laohoo]

So, would it be better to go with the wireless controller? What do you think of the 2500 series wireless controller.

Depends on how many APs you're going to have.  WLC is nice to have but if you are only going to deploy <5 then a WLC is a waste of money.

[pmaisamsung]

Is it possible to configure the WiFi data rate int his mode? Thanks. 

[gilad.hinberger]

Well, it's 4 months already...

When we supposed to get an autonomous IOS image for the Aironet 3700?

[Leo Laohoo]

15.2(4)JB5 is still for "site survey" only.  

There is suppose to be a swathe of firmware releases scheduled in the next week or two.

[gilad.hinberger]

Thanks!

Yes, I know that 15.2(4)JB5 is still useless.

I really hope that the new version will be fully functional.

[gilad.hinberger]

I managed to grab the Autonomous IOS version 15.3.3-JAA for the Aironet 3702i, just before Cisco removed it from the downloads section.

It's working great for me so far, I'm just wondering why Cisco removed this version from their web site...

[sdolnack]

Autonomous mode is now supported in 15.3(3) JAB (September 2014) for the following APs:

1600/1700/2600/2700/3500/3600/3700

It's also supported in the 702I, 802, 1040, 1140, 1260, 1530, and the 1550 (128 MB only supported) APs.

Check the release notes here:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/access_point/ios/release/notes/rn-15-3-3.html

[alkemyst]

As an update to this topic since autonomous mode has greatly matured since the original post and this topic seems to have people still thinking that it's only for survey mode (much like many think the 3x50 stacks are still limited to 4 since it was in the original white paper).

These devices can operate with pretty decent features now, I'd recommend the 153-3.JBB.  However; this is the problem many small offices may have, the software entitlement.

As far as switch compatibility I don't see why there would be a problem.   One thing I would mention is some think going to the 3650 or a 3850 is the answer to skipping out on a controller, I would not recommend these at this time for being a WLC as they are still buggy.   As switches they are awesome though and I love working with them.

Now with just 4 AP's a controller is really not required, but if budget supports it really nice to have as it helps with configuration and managing the AP's.

Deployment of multiple AP's in autonomous mode requires the installer to manage the channels, power levels and the like so your AP's don't stomp on your other AP's (as well as knowing what your neighbor's are doing with their AP's)

To convert the AP to autonomous mode is not difficult, I like to  issue the debug lwapp console cli command to enable conf t mode and then enter it and assign an IP to your Gi0 interface another in the same subnet on whatever computer you plug it into (I like using 10.0.0.1 255.255.255.0 for my Cisco device and 10.0.0.2 255.255.255.0 for my laptop).

Then I just do an archive download-sw /overwrite ftp://USER:PASS@10.0.0.2/PATH/FILENAME

You can also just reset the device and have a TFTP server running and the AP will grab whatever IOS has the .default extension on it.

The writeups for these methods are http://mrncciew.com/2013/12/13/ap-conversion-using-mode-button/

and http://mrncciew.com/2012/10/20/lightweight-to-autonomous-conversion/ 

HTH

Å

[Erik Carlseen]

Minor correction - on the 3702 (at least the one I recent switched to autonomous mode) the debug command is:

debug capwap console cli