Network ready for Cisco wireless ?

[rkiamil]

I know for IPT their is lots of network readiness guides. Is their anything like that for Cisco wireless (with central controler)? We looking at putting in Dell swithcs and not cisco. Anybody have any switch level feture I should be looking out for?

[dennischolmes]

I would make a suggestion that you either buy Cisco Catalyst E series switches that support gig ports to the APs and 802.3at not af or a switch that can support gig and at. The reason for this is that you will future proof yourself for a migration to 802.11n which requires gig ports as the APs provide raw data rates up to 450mb now and they require a lot more power than traditional 802.3af PoE switches can provide.

[SHANNON WYATT]

For autonomous you would likely need less features on a switch then with autonomous access points. I'm not a fan of Dell switches, but at the edge they should be fine. With the lightweight APs you don't have to trunk to the access points ('cept H-REAP configs), so you could potentially plug them into hubs!

I would probably look for a PoE midspan if you are not using the new 3560E swithes. Microsemi sells a managed hi-power midspan that support all Cisco access points all the way up to the 1250s (and assumptively beyond). Purchasing 802.3af PoE now seems like a bad idea.