Upgrade Advice

[huwyhuwy123]

hi there,

I was hoping with some advice, we are looking to upgrade the switching and wireless infrastructure in one of our factories. The current setup is:-

Core: 2x Cisco 4506 chassis

Distribution: 8x Cisco 3560 PoE switches linked via OM2

At present WAPs are autonomous.

We are looking to replace the all switches and deploy a number of WAPs preferably in lightweight mode.

Can any advise on what model switches we should be looking at? The distribution switches will all need to be 48 port and support PoE. We currently use 3 vlans with routing on the current core.

Am thinking of running 4x OM3 cable back from each distribution switch to the cores. I guess we need a wireless controller also.

Thanks for any help with this.

H

[adawa]

Hello, huwyhuwy123. Look into the recently released Cisco Catalyst 3650 switches that can perform all the mobility agent tasks in addition to mobility coordination, radio resource management (RRM), and Cisco CleanAir® coordination. You can also look into a Cisco 5500 Wireless LAN controller to centrally manage your new lightweight access points and support the latest Cisco Aironet Access Points. Please e-mail me (adawa@cisco.com), if you have additional concerns or need more support. Kind regards and hope this helps!

[huwyhuwy123]

Thanks for all the replies. I appreciate the help.

I'm thinking of replacing each of the 4506 chassis with a C3850-24S-S and C3850-48T-S. They would be linked by a 4x10GB aggregate link. I was looking at C3850-48P-L for the distribution. I have attached a diagram showing the proposed layout.

I was considering stacking all of the core switches into one stack but think it would be more fault tolerant if kept separate?

I was also looking for a 5508 WLC to control the lightweight access points. I would estimate there will be approx 20 access points.

The phones will likely be Cisco SPA 504.

Please let me know if you see any problems with this.

Huw

[Leo Laohoo]

I'm thinking of replacing each of the 4506 chassis with a C3850-24S-S and C3850-48T-S 

Bad move.  Replace your 4500 chassis with another 4500R+E or 4500-X.  Replacing your distribution switch with an access switch does not make any sense.  

[huwyhuwy123]

Thanks again.

I've swapped the core switches for 4506-Es with 1x 48port 10/100/1000 rj45 line card and 24 port SFP+ module. Can you recommend a supervisor card?

Regarding the distribution switches - do they need to be 3560s to support 802.11ac or will 2960s be ok?

I have attached an updated diagram

-Huw

[Leo Laohoo]

I've swapped the core switches for 4506-Es with 1x 48port 10/100/1000 rj45 line card and 24 port SFP+ module. Can you recommend a supervisor card?

Sup8E.

Regarding the distribution switches - do they need to be 3560s to support 802.11ac or will 2960s be ok?

If you want to run 802.1ac then your APs will need to be directly connected to 3650 and or 3850.  

Depends on your network, but your Sup8E can double up as a core/distro.

[Leo Laohoo]

Depends on your budget, if you going to be getting APs, then a good choice would be the 2700 and the 3700.  Both support 802.11ac (wave 1) natively and 2700 is geared up for 802.11ac wave 2.Now, if you want to go into the 2700 and planning to hit 802.11ac (wave 1 or wave 2) be aware that you'll need additional ethernet cabling with the 2700 (non-PoE).  

For switches, you've got several choices and this will depend on your decision of going into 802.11ac or not.  If you are happy with plain 802.11 a/b/g/n and have no plans to go 802.11ac then your suitable choice would be 2960X/XR with the stacking module.  If you are going to 802.11ac then your best candidate is 3850.  

For wireless LAN controllers, currently, the consensus is the 5508 is, by far, the most stable platform.  The newer generation of WLC (like the 5760, 8500 and vWLC) are still lagging behind.  

[zoltanszasz]

Quick question: why you need POE in distribution ?