Mythbusters: Unified Access Edition: Part 4

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. Let’s do a quick recap of the series so far:

• Part 1 debunked the myth that a move to Cisco Unified Access solution requires the complete replacement of the existing access switch infrastructure.
• In Part 2, we showed that the Cisco Unified Access Solution will NOT negatively impact network and application performance.
• Yesterday in Part 3, we proved that contrary to certain opinions, the Cisco Unified Access solution simplifies network infrastructure deployment and reduces operational costs through streamlining management and policy.

Myth 4: Cisco Unified Access is time consuming to deploy.

FALSE. The automated workflows, templates and best practices within Cisco Prime Infrastructure speeds up unified access infrastructure device configuration and deployment. Cisco ISE centralizes all business-focused policies, minimizing the need to align separate policies across wired, wireless and VPN for efficient policy definition and enforcement.

Tim Zimmerman of Gartner evaluated Cisco Prime and Cisco Identity Services Engine in the Magic Quadrant for the Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure report. These solutions provide strong management, security and policy network service applications functionality for wired LANs and WLANs. 

Gareth Bulpin, technical development network and support manager at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board states,

…our ‘dream’ is to deliver a highly secure and sustainable network infrastructure that breaks down barriers and expands the horizons of our staff and patients. The successful partnership working between Cisco, Damovo UK and the Hospital Network Team delivered our ‘dream to reality’.’ Cisco Unified Access will enable us in the future to apply consistent wired and wireless policies at the access layer of our wired and wireless network which now supports our mobile workforce to leverage BYOD in a sustainable and secure fashion.

The Meraki cloud-based approach enables lean IT to significantly reduce deployment time with new levels of flexibility, simplified management, and policy management. Meraki’s plug and play architecture enables WLAN management to occur from anywhere in the world on Day 1 and beyond. Competing solutions may be able to power up devices quickly, but require in-house management appliances for system monitoring and configuration.

Matt Clark, Director of IT at Essex Property Trust states,

None of the other solutions offered such easy setup and management. With Meraki, the centralized management, security, and site-to-site VPN worked right out of the box.

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

Stay tuned for the last part of our Mythbusters: Unified Access Edition series, coming tomorrow.

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