We are planning to buy a new switch, we have few access points with the POE+ logo on their Ethernet ports, when surveying the market for the switches we also found multiple switch models some have POE ports and others have POE+ ports. This left us wondering, if we bought switch that only has POE ports, would it be able to power up our POE+ access points?
POE+ Devices – Compatibility with POE Switches
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A couple of thoughts. I can go into more detail on any of these if you need me to.
-When it comes to wireless, there are two ways to plan. One is for coverage, the other is for capacity. Based on the number of devices(capacity) and space(coverage) that you describe, I believe that capacity is going to the be the bigger deciding factor. Remember that wireless is like using an old-school hub. Everyone hears everything. That also means that only one client can talk to one AP at a time. This isn't a limitation of a device (Cisco vs. Netgear) this is a limitation of the physical medium (airspace). Since you are programming for mobile devices, which will only support a single stream, you should plan on 1 dual band AP per 50 devices. If you choose to only support 2.4 or 5Ghz (airspace issues with neighbor offices for instance), then plan on 1 AP per 30 devices.
-The Cisco 887 only has a 100Mb connection. If you keep with your current plan, and do all of your L3 routing on the 887, it will become a bottleneck for anything that routes between your internal networks. Examples include: Local replication for Dropbox, Wireless synching between i-devices and itunes, Copying files from machine A to B, Time machine backups, etc. etc. This bottleneck occurs because anytime data must flow from one network to another (wlan to lan) it will need to be routed, and must go out, and then back in, from the same 100Mb interface. This might not be a big deal, but I wanted to mention it, just-in-case.
-The Wireless controllers are a good idea. The initial setup takes a little while longer, but from that point on, it becomes super easy to deploy more AP's or WLAN's. I don't know anything about them from personal experience, but I have heard good things about the Meraki AP's. It is an cloud-based controller solution, which Cisco recently bought. EDIT for clarity: I don't know anything about the Meraki solution. I know A LOT about the Cisco Wireless Controllers :-).
-How are you powering your AP's? Do you plan on using VOIP in the future? Consider both of these when considering whether or not to order a switch with PoE.
-Also, just noticed, you are planning on putting a firewall in-line after the router. That further complicates your plan to route between subnets there. I would plan on purchasing an L3 switch. That would simplify the deployment considerably.
Hope this helps. Good luck.
I agree with @network_ninja but will extend it a bit.
How I'd solve this
Router1--L3--Router2
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Switch1--L2--Switch2
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PC1 PC2--------+
Router1 and Router2 are running VRRP, HSRP, GLBP or CARP to produce virtual default-GW IP address to the LAN.
This protocol will converse over the Switch core to agree which of the routers is owning the default-GW IP address at any given time.
PC2 is redundant linux server, which is using 'bonding' to redundantly connect to the Switches, it should be configured so that if the the virtual default-gw IP address stops responding to ARP WHO HAS, it'll switch to backup connection. IP address itself is not on the physical interfaces, but on the virtual bonding interface.
Equivalent solution is available to other OS, but often not included in base OS package.
PC1 is non-redundant server.
Switches are not running anything special, no spanning tree (as there is no L2 loop) and no LACP. They can be from different vendors and can be taken down for maintenance separately.
Routers are not running any switching, IP addresses are configured directly in the L3 interfaces facing the switches.
If you choose VRRP as your first-hop-redundancy-protocols, routers can be from different vendor. Each router can be taken down for maintenance separately, by gracefully switching VRRP priority before work on the primary.
Best Answer
No a POE switch does not deliver enough power to run a POE+ device.
Having plugged a Cisco 1500 AP into a normal poe switch and then struggling for a day to get a ptp link-up I can say first-hand that it is a bad idea.
The device booted up and I could log in but the Radio was stuck in reset, thinking it was a config or antenna problem, I wasted a lot of time, before finding the small message in the log, that there was not enough power to powerup the wifi module.