Cisco Wireless Lab

[RoshaBeli]

Hello, I was hoping someone would be able to provide some guidance for someone trying to break into wireless. I don't have any experience with cisco wireless, so I was looking into buying a few things to play around with to get started.

I plan on using the vWLC trial if I can with the APs, but was trying to look on ebay for APs. I'm a little confused about some of the different models and options. Can someone recommend an AP model that is cheap but can run a fairly recent version of code. Also, I was having a hard time trying to figure out if a certain AP can even be run with a controller. I know some are autonomous and some are controller-based, but how can I make sure I'm buying the right thing?

Any other recommendations would be appreciated, thank you.

[Arshad Safrulla]

You will need the below hardware

1.  POE Switch (preferably L3 capable & POE+, 3650, or 3850 from ebay)

2. Access Points (WiFI 6 capable AP, Wave 2 AP, an Outdoor AP) I would prefer to have AP's with external antenna's and as well as internal ones. WiFi 6, i would prefer atleast 1qty of 9120 to try WiFI6 features and RF ASIC features. Atleast 2 outdoor AP's so you can try the Mesh and Antenna capabilites.

3. Used Server with 16 Core CPU, 64GB RAM (128GB recommended), 1TB storage.

4. VM Ware ESXI hypervisor

Software:-

1. CIsco 9800-CL

2. Cisco vWLC

3. Cisco ISE

4. Cisco Prime

5. Cisco CMX

If you are super interested in learning DNA Center stuff, you may need a super powerful server with tons of RAM. Refer the hardware requirements of the DNA Center boxes and you can virtualize it VM Ware ESXI once you allocate the same resources. Don't try allocating lower resources as for sure it will fail.

SOunds expensive, but you will never regret the above investment. If you are a partner you can get NFR kits with a big discount. If not buy all the hardware used from Ebay.

[Rich R]

That'll be good to become an expert but he did say cheap so that's probably too much for a start.

- autonomous can be converted to lightweight (CAPWAP) and vice versa by changing the software it's running but if it's autonomous then it's fairly old as the last autonomous APs were the Wave 1 AC range (1700/2700/3700 mainly).

- Check compatibility at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/compatibility/matrix/compatibility-matrix.html

The Wave 1 APs are still supported right up to 8.10 on AireOS (the old type WLCs) and even the earlier releases of IOS-XE for the new 9800 controllers but you definitely want to get at least 1 Wifi 6 AP.  They run a new OS (COS) whereas the old ones run Cisco IOS.