Mythbusters: Unified Access Edition: Part 1

There’s been a lot of buzz around our recent Cisco Unified Access Solution announcement. We understand there is also some confusion around what’s what, what’s required for Unified Access, and what the impact will be on IT.

In true Mythbuster fashion, let’s all discover why no myth is safe – through a 5-part series of posts. In this series, we’ll look at some of the most common myths that have been floating around and unveil the truth.

Myth 1: Moving to the Cisco Unified Access solution requires the complete replacement of the existing access switch infrastructure.

This is pure fiction. Cisco has always promoted that the network infrastructure should evolve and we understand that different organizations will feel the impact of the Internet of Things, mobility and BYOD at different times and will address them differently. The new Cisco Unified Access solution provides you flexible deployment options, including separate wired and wireless, converged access, cloud-managed, and more. The deployment model chosen will depend upon the lifecycle of the existing infrastructure.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to “rip and replace” your existing infrastructure as seen with other solutions in the industry. In fact, environments that already have 802.11n Access Points and Cisco 5508 WLAN Controllers or the Cisco Wireless Services Module 2 (WiSM2) as the Controller can continue to use those even in Converged Access mode. This provides terrific investment protection. We understand that each organization has its’ own set of challenges and are at different stages of meeting new demands, whether they are performing a wiring closet upgrade, supporting BYOD or merely need to increase performance and scale. However, it is nice to know that Cisco will have a proven unified access solution to meet these demands when required.

Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst of ZK research states,

In many ways, Cisco is redefining what Unified Access means. They’re not talking about just wired and wireless infrastructure, they’re talking about having a consistent set of features across all products. In many ways, Cisco is setting the bar much higher than the rest of the industry to-date.

To learn more about the Cisco Unified Access Solution visit us at www.cisco.com/go/unifiedaccess

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