Likelihood to Recommend Cisco Aironet 1550 Series Access Points is very useful for outdoor locations that are more exposed to the wilderness or the weather, which provides uninterrupted wifi access during high winds and bad weather. It also is useful for hazardous locations that are prone to danger or wildlife. Unfortunately, it would not be appropriate to get a Cisco Aironet 1550 Series Access Point if it is only needed for basic wifi use, or indoor use, as the extra features and price would not be necessary.
Read full review So in every scenario where you have to take one port and create, make it so that you can have more devices connected. So there will be like in a normal office area where you have an internet connection and you have to have 40 or 20 clients connected. That's where definitely Catalyst Switches becomes a very important part of this. The whole thing, scenarios where it's not very usable, I can't really see a scenario where you wouldn't be needing a switch to. There would be a very unlikely scenario because mostly you would need to connect more than one device to a router or something like that. So you would need to have a switch scenario I would say. Then it would be in some sort of scenario where you only had a need to have a directly connection to a router or something else where you wouldn't need to have more ports. So like a peer to peer connection or something like that. But I can't really see any other scenario where wouldn't you wouldn't be needing a switch.
Read full review Pros Outdoor mesh bridging of access points brings significant cost savings to many of our production facilities. Deploying mesh APs is a significant cost reduction over trenching conduit to connect remote areas via fiber. Cisco APs are extremely resilient, with a failure rate of below 5% in some of our harshest environments. Cisco APs have the intelligence to identify wireless interference sources with Clean Air technology Read full review I think the switch is a fast switch. What we also admire about it is the enhanced power over ethernet functionality. It has higher power levels to be used for wireless, for other products that use the power over ethernet, the quick uplinks, 10 gig uplinks, the possibility to run other applications on it, like a thousand eyes clients, and so on. Read full review Cons In the facilities where we operate, we had to put a reinforcement on the ceiling to avoid problems due to the weight of the access point. On the appearance, it could be smaller and lighter. As for the hardware, I think it's incredible, I don't see any points to improve. Read full review Smaller devices are always preferred due to high mobility needs. Would benefit from having console cables provided with networking devices instead of separate purchase. Transit case options for larger devices would benefit and keep us from having to source outside vendors for support. Read full review Likelihood to Renew There is no other better option than this. It's the line between the commercial Cisco grade AP's and industrial ones.
Read full review They are consistently reliable and this switch in particular is a very affordable solution. We can place the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches gear in areas that we normally would not place a switch because it is affordable enough to make it justifiable. And because it is a reliable solution, we are confident it will continue to provide service over the long haul.
Read full review Usability Everything clear and easy to use
Read full review The usability will feel natural to frequent Cisco users and a bit harder to navigate if you're new to the system. If you're limited to a small rack, maybe even in a not climate controlled environment the fan-less models with less energy consumption are a pro. With PoE you can deploy your network hardware anywhere you have a network socket: Thin Clients, APs, Sensors, you name it. The integrated power monitoring tells you how much power each client consumes and how much you have left.
Read full review Reliability and Availability We have had very few unplanned outages with all of our Cisco Catalyst products. The biggest issue I have seen is when a device has been powered on for a very long time and it gets powered off and reused later. Sometimes, the switch will not come back up. In most cases, these are switches that are way past end of life. I can't say we have really seen any other issues with the availability of the Catalyst family of switches
Read full review Performance The Cisco Aironet 1560 Series Access Points served their function well. They were reliable, provided decent speeds, resisted the elements, and provided a good investment. The only downsides were mostly appearance which doesn't matter that much. However, I believe that the tech in the access point is not future proof which is why I did not give it a nine or ten star rating.
Read full review No, the packets flow. Sometimes you will see collisions and broadcast storms can happen which will slow performance but that can be fixed and the packets will flow.
Read full review Support Rating Initially I had a problem with the regulatory and channel selection, it was a bug on the AP as it was fairly new, solved by TAC on engineering release, and since then it has been performing flawlessly.
Read full review So far we haven't had very many support issues with our Catalyst switches. When we have had issues TAC is always a pleasure to work with. They're prompt, knowledgeable, and take ownership of the case from open to close. Also, this isn't attributed to Cisco support directly. But because they are so widely known and have such a great market share you can find a solution to almost any issue with a quick internet search.
Read full review In-Person Training I prefer in person training. For me I understand things and the ability to ask someone helps. This particular training was a large class and it was a bit busy. However, I do prefer in person training to online. I have taken many online courses, and while they do offer a lot more info at an affordable price, there is sometimes a place for the personal touch.
Read full review Implementation Rating We upgraded from an older catalyst model to a newer one. The implementation was pretty much seamless as the newer switches supported all the features as the old ones. These features included OSPF, HSRP, MPLS, LDP, MP-BGP, etc. One issue we say with the newer switches was that the buffers needed to be tuned. The default settings were dropping packets to a slower link. Once we change the 'qos softmax' command settings, we were able to resolve that issue.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Making the decision to use Aironet is more related to the type of scenario that you have. We chose Aironet because we mainly manage all the network internally and already have Cisco products to integrate with Meraki which is a good option if you are starting from scratch.
Daniel At Director De Tecnologías de Información
Read full review If I were to compare the Catalyst to the Meraki, I do feel more secure about the Catalyst, as Meraki was not originally a cisco product and was acquired. So, from the point of security and dependability, the Catalyst is a winner.
Read full review Scalability The software of the Cisco Aironet 1560 is highly scalable, the software is very powerful so that the APs can be customized to the maximum and achieve the best performance of the network at the wifi level. The use of it is very easy for people with low knowledge.
Read full review The product line is very complete and flexible. Supporting anything from small to larger modular solutions. Need PoE? Need 25Gb or faster fiber? Catalyst has you covered in all areas we can think of. Compact form factor? Industrial use? Cisco Catalyst has something that fits any scenario. And we can expect the same features, configuration and integrations to work no matter what.
Read full review Return on Investment With only a few DOA's or failing devices, the AP's are of very high quality. We expect them to run stable for many years, which is why our initial investment will be an intelligent choice compared to installing a cheaper product. Although the AP's from Cisco is cutting-edge technology, the 802.11ac standard will be considered legacy in a few years, meaning that its a balance to purchase a well-designed product that won't outlast the tech that it provides. Imagine having an investment in a large fleet of high-quality 802.11b AP's 20 years ago. Although they would still be working flawlessly due to their good quality, the bandwidth would probably be unacceptable to most modern consumers. Read full review energy costs dropped by around 11 per cent on the access layer management has become easier with DNA Center ISSU software upgrades and fabric deployments have significantly reduced "planned" down times network speed has increased, latency is at an all-time best within our own LAN Read full review ScreenShots Cisco Catalyst Switches Screenshots