Cisco Aironet 1200 APs

[admin_2]

Have been advised to buy Cisco 1200 APs for wireless implementation as I've been told they offer better security features than (for example) a cheaper D-Link

Am also being told that I need to buy Cisco wireless cards for my laptops to be able to use / access the necessary security features - issue here being that the laptops were only bought recently and were bought with wireless cards built in (tri-mode dual band) - have been told that if we try and use the existing wireless cards then I won't be able to use all of the security features on the Cisco 1200 though - the issue then being that I'll need to fork out the extra money to buy new wireless cards when there appears to be perfectly good wireless cards already built in

Can anyone tell me whether the advice I'm being given is right before I go ahead and purchase? Is it true that the existing wireless I have doesn't offer the full security to work with buying a Cisco 1200 AP? Or is there some software I can download to the laptops to 'upgrade' them?

[DELL ACORD]

The 1200 AP is great for the enterprise and supports 802.1x, 802.1i and WPA. You can connect to the AP if you have the correct WIFI card for the Frequency that the AP is on. For security, depending on what features your wireless card or laptop/desktop operating system is using there are some third party applications that can be utilized. MS-XP comes with an wirless configuration service. Most wirless ACU's as well for certain authentication feature.

Hope this helps.

[travis-dennis_2]

What I have also found is that a lot of laptop vendors will support the higher security functions of the Cisco AP1200 but for some reason you have to call them and ask for the software that allows this. Just went through the same thing with Compaq laptops with built-in cards. Now the software Compaq sent did not support everything the AP1200 could do but it was enough to make me feel comfortable about the deal.

Can I ask what model of laptops did you get?

[hbaerten]

Hi, could you please tell us more about the software you got from Compaq? Any idea if the same applies to HP ?

tia

Herbert

[griffijo]

We recently purchased approx. 100 of the Cisco 1230g AP's. I believe that what you were told probably relates to Cisco's implementation of EAP; which is refered to as LEAP (Lightweight Extensible Authentication Protocol). This is a proprietary implemention of 802.1x/EAP and as such requires a client adapter, access point and authentication server that all support LEAP. Although there are some other vendors beggining to support LEAP, generally that means using a Cisco wireless adapter, a Cisco AP, and a Cisco ACS server.

We had also purchased 400 Compaq/HP n6000 laptops with the HP integrated W500 802.11a/b/g wireless cards. We had numerous problems getting the adapters to work with the Cisco 1230g; especially where we were using static WEP keys. The fix required 2 service packs from HP and an IOS upgrade from Cisco (12.2(13)JA4) before we were able to establish a stable environment.