Item: Cisco Catalyst 9100 Access Points
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Catalyst 9100 Access Points

Cisco Aironet Product Series

Cisco Access Point

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it for refreshes, replacing older model end of life access points. We're replacing them with these newer 9100 series access points so they can be supported with the latest code and WIFI 6 performance and all that. We are also putting them in our new building standups that don't have existing WIFI, so we're putting them in new builds as well.

Pros and Cons

Pros

It's good for high density deployments that we have. In areas where they have a lot of users and they all want to be on WIFI, so people could have two phones, their laptop and they all want to be in a congregated area, it's really good for handling that traffic compared to our older APs.

Cons

They could definitely download their code faster. When we first get them out of the box and join them on the network, it takes probably 20, 30 minutes per access point to download the new code from the wireless controller and then reboot itself and then come back online.
When you're configuring it on the controller, if you want to switch access point groups, we have them broken out per site. Every time you add it to one of those groups, it also has to reboot. That's like downtime for us. That could be improved, I think.

Return on Investment

I'd say overall positive impact replacing some of our older model APs. These are much more stable. Some of the older models that we're getting rid of needed to be rebooted. Sometimes they would just stop working different bugs and things like that in their software or hardware. These, I have to say, so far they've been much more stable. They've been definitely a positive impact on our environment for wireless.

Performance

They're very stable. Once they're up and running we hardly have to touch them, so performance and everything really not had any issues there.

Scalability

I would say just is probably specific to our company at this time because these access points rely on the controller to work and we're still on the older model ROS controller, we're still migrating to the newer 9800 IOs XC based controller, which I know those are much more scalable and probably you get new features unlocked with those new 9800 controllers and these APs and the combination of that. But with our current setup, it's probably just a seven.

Time to Value

Well, from the unboxing. Configure a switch port about 10 minutes. The downloading code is the longest part, like I mentioned earlier, so that's probably a good 25, 30 minutes. Then once it joins the controller, I would say another 10 minutes plus the reboot, adding it into the AP group. It probably takes about 45 minutes to get everything configured from out of the box configured, get the new code ready, then you got to put it up in the ceiling. We have ceiling mounting closures that they go into. Guys may have to run a new cable to the network closet for its final installation place in the ceiling. So anywhere from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours I would say to be fully up and running.

Alternatives Considered

Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series Switches and Cisco Catalyst 9400 Series Switches

Well, it's a very different product. One's wired, one's wireless, but they work well together. The MG ports on the Catalyst switches allow the 9100 series APs to run at 5 gig wired speeds for the backhaul.

Key Insights

Do you think Cisco Catalyst 9100 Access Points delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco Catalyst 9100 Access Points's feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco Catalyst 9100 Access Points live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco Catalyst 9100 Access Points go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Catalyst 9100 Access Points again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Cisco Catalyst Center, Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued), Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN

Likelihood to Recommend

It's good for new builds. If you have a new building or new area by itself, it would be great for that. It's not so great, which we've run into this. If you try to mix it with older model or different model APs that are running a different protocol, WIFI protocol, they call it the salt and pepper deployment. You'll have clients and devices that are roaming between the two different model APs and it's really not good for connectivity, so I wouldn't really recommend it. If you're not going to replace all the APs in a specific area with the 9100, then I wouldn't recommend it for that.

Cisco Catalyst 9100 Access Points Feature Ratings

Comments

Please log in to join the conversation

9100 Access Points Review

Modules Used