Cisco WLAN Architectures

hey there folks my name is Dan Goodman and I want to welcome you to another edition of Stormwind studios succint held online remote training sessions or as we like to call them shorts why don't we get rid of the acronym I don't know man I just work here alright now this is technically the sixth short in the wireless LAN essentials series of shorts specifically focusing on Cisco wireless LAN architectures in a nutshell this is going to be one big giant infomercial for all things great grand wonderful provided to us by Cisco so we have all sorts of deployments you get a deployment I get a deployment everybody gets a deployment but the key thing to remember here is to have a controller or not have a controller that is the question so taking a look at these deployment options the first one we have is the autonomous architecture which would technically fall into that not have a controller variety this is going to consist of autonomous access points which according to Cisco are also known as unmanaged access points and this is also known as the distributed architecture hey three names are better than one right why not add any more confusion to the mix that being said the access points themselves are going to be maintained on an individual basis unless we've also spent the money to deploy Cisco prime infrastructure on our sites the access points will either have one of two versions of the iOS basically the autonomous iOS or the lightweight iOS obviously as the name implies in the autonomous architecture our access points consists of the autonomous iOS now according to the good folks at Cisco when we upgrade our access points we are taking them from autonomous to lightweight but when we are downgrading our access points we're taking them from lightweight back to autonomous now the autonomous deployment is best suited for smaller deployments however there are numerous instances out there of thousands of autonomy access points that work just as well as any of the other architectures we're going to discuss here momentarily that being said the rest of these deployment options fall into that to have a controller variety so the Flex connect architecture is going to consist of a controller and access points that are configured in flex connect mode as the name implies this allows them to be a little bit more flexible in their capabilities they do have the ability to provide limited wireless LAN services in the absence of a controller traditional lightweight access points cannot function without their controller however comma flex Connect does have certain capabilities now your flex Connect access points will always operate in one of two modes a P connected means that controller connectivity is good a P standalone means the controller connectivity is bad now this is also technically considered a type of distributed architecture because some of the responsibilities are pushed down to the access points the other name that we have for this because we have to have three names for everything is the local Mac architecture now for those of you guys who have worked with Cisco for a while flex Connect is basically the new version of the hybrid remote edge access point or H reef they did this a few years ago so if you're brand new to this you don't know what I'm talking about but if you're like hey this sounds like that you're right it does sound like that now this particular deployment is best suited when you've got remote locations like a branch office where you need a wireless LAN but it's not needed it's not warranted it's not in the budget to deploy a controller for only ten access points you can flip those bad boys over to flex connect and you get the best of both worlds to a certain extent now the centralized architecture as I mentioned falls into that to have a controller variety the look the controller itself is actually located at the distribution layer where most of your other stuff is found your routing your VLANs your DHCP your DNS your file servers whatever it may be heck everything is already at that layer one throw the controller at that layer get as much centralization as possible now this is also known as the split Mac architecture because the lightweight access points for the LA piece will handle the real time client data the controllers will handle the non real-time managerial stuff if you will now there is a an additional communication pathway that gets established between these lightweight access points and the controller and it is known as the cap web tunnel otherwise known as the control and provisioning of wireless access points tunnel cap web we had to make it as long as we possibly could to kind of break it down the cap web is an open protocol that creates a tunnel with two different planes between a controller and it's lightweight access point basically the control plane provides a discovery method for lightweight access points to join a controller a dedicated plane to push out configurations and firmware updates and a method for statistics gathering and standardized security the second plane is the data plane and it's appropriately named it's used for all normal real-time data like requesting a file from a server for example now cap web can operate in two different modes split mac or local mac and we just mentioned these split mac is when you don't have any flex connect lightweight access points local mac is when you do have flex connect lightweight access points now to add even further commute confusion to the mix you can have a mixed bag over here you could have flex connect over here you could have lightweight access points these are working in local mac these are split mac everything is working together it's a lot of confusion it's a lot of terminology but this is why we record these things so you can go back and watch them again and again and again now the converged architecture is the last one we're going to discuss once again it falls into that to have a controller variety in this scenario the controllers are pushed down to the access layer where the traffic gets distributed at the switch the general idea being a that were minimizing or were shortening the communication pathway between the controllers the lightweight access points and the wireless clients in this scenario the catalyst switches basically have a module that gets installed on them that gives them controller gape abilities kind of like a layer 3 switch is kind of a router and kind of a switch will these catalyst switches are kind of a switch and they're kind of a controller this is also another type of split Mac architecture now when you start talking about flex connect centralized and converged this is what Cisco considers to be its unified access because everything in your network is cisco we don't look at it and say that's the wired network that's the wireless network this is how I secure the wired side this is how I secure wireless security there is just one network one policy one management because you spent a ton of money on Cisco products that being said what are some of these vertical market solutions I kind of sprinkled these in throughout this particular discussion hey this is great for this this is great for that the Cisco BYOD smart solution is a great option for educational deployments where you typically have large campuses spanning multiple buildings smooth reliable and secure BYOD for your students your staff and your visitors service access is easily designed for different groups Cisco clean air is an excellent choice in the healthcare industry because you have a lot of devices putting off wireless signals in this case you utilize access points that have the Cisco clean air feature that discovers identifies decides and secures interference while improving overall network performance Cisco DNA spaces is a really good solution for the hospitality industry because they know more so than anybody that their customers expect an advanced technical solution that allows them to travel with ease in this case Cisco DNA spaces is going to provide rich location-based services so things like location analytics business insight and asset management finally we have Cisco connected transportation the transportation industry can use this solution to identify and overcome interferences and wherever whatever however environments they're found Cisco offers a number of solutions specific to aviation maritime Rail mass transit if you're board on a Friday night and you want to read more about these vertical market solutions you can click on the link and read all about it from the good folks at Cisco calm so that officially wraps up another edition of our succinct held online remote training sessions thanks for taking the time to watch this short focusing on another aspect of wireless LAN essentials make sure you subscribe to our channel said the you are notified of future shorts shortly take care

Channel: StormWind Studios

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Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 03 2020