Dedicated switching infrastructure for WiFi

[luceroc]

I have a mid sized environment in which I have deployed about 60 access points and I am thinking about increasing the coverage areas to cover the entire facility which would push the number of access points to around 100 to 150.

Current background:

Today I have a flat environment whereas the wireless vlans (I have three per AP) are spanning across the entire L2 environment. Currently thinking about the use of WCS and L3 roaming....

All Cisco 1231 access points running IOS 12.3.4 code

The facility has 9 floors with 2 to 4 distribution layer closets per floor.

When all is said and done I will probably have a couple WCS modules installed and LWAP code running on the existing and new APs.

My burning question is:

What are the pros and cons of dedicating switches with home runs back to the core JUST to run the access points? I am thinking about this from a bandwidth perspective and also a reliability standpoint.

OK,OK, con number one $$$$ but if it's worth it to provide a more reliable L2 environment then it will well worth it.

Thanks in advance.

[wdrootz]

Design Guidelines

The primary objective in the large WLAN design involves balancing mitigating security risks with creating a scalable design that a business can afford to implement. The standard VPN WLAN design guidelines in this document outlined the general way the VPN can be implemented to secure a WLAN environment. In the context of a large WLAN environment, the guidelines described would be cost-prohibitive for most businesses because of the requirement for a separate Layer 2 switching infrastructure and cabling. Therefore, security trade-offs are made in order to make a VPN WLAN feasible in a large environment. These trade-offs are noted in the following paragraphs to help network designers decide if VPNs are a proper solution for their environment.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns340/ns394/ns171/ns128/networking_solutions_white_paper09186a008009c8b3.shtml