For the majority of people the term wireless means a simple router or access point (AP) and that is that. However, when you look at wireless on a larger scale you have to have a means to control access points in your organization with a little more efficiency. The thought of going from AP to AP and manually making changes to ensure proper coverage or channel plans is one that would keep most network engineers up at night. However systems that offer a centralized management point for multiple Aps are typically out of the range of small and even medium sized businesses. NETGEAR has stepped in and created a few products to cover this market. We have their WC7600 Wireless controller and a pair of WN370 Access Points in the lab, so let’s check this bundle out and see how it fits in.
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The NETGEAR WC7600 and WN370 -
The NETGEAR WC7600 is a fairly large, rack mountable product that is intended to be put in a closet, or MDF somewhere. You would not want this sitting on the shelf around people simply because of the high-speed fans that are designed to keep air moving through it.
NETGEAR gives you two 10Gbe SFP ports and a 1Gbe copper port on the front. You can also connect via a 9-pin serial port if you want or need CLI (Command Line Interpreter) access. There is a lot to talk about with the WC7600 and the two WN370s that we received so we thought we would cover it in a video instead of trying to type everything out.
