Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

It has been more than 20 years since IEEE put forward the first generation Wi-Fi protocol in 1997. During this period, it has experienced continuous improvement, from the earliest 802.11, 802.11b, 802.11g/a, 802.11n, to 802.11ac and the upcoming outbreak of Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), Wi-Fi has never stopped.

A revolutionary technological evolution

As the biggest revolution in the history of Wi-Fi technology, Wi-Fi 6 has the characteristics of high speed, large capacity, low power consumption and low delay, coupled with reasonable deployment and maintenance costs, which makes it an ideal choice for indoor wireless connections. It opens a new era of wireless network and will bring great changes and opportunities for users, enterprises and suppliers.

Basic principles of ▲ Wi-Fi 6

At the same time, Wi-Fi 6 will also give birth to many unprecedented application scenarios, including 4K/8K video, VR/AR, self-driving, telemedicine, distance education, real-time immersive games, etc., profoundly changing the way people interact with information, the physical world, and people, and ushering in a new era of the Internet of everything.

There are always questions about "will 5G replace Wi-Fi 6?" In fact, 5G is a wide area network technology and Wi-Fi 6 is a local area network technology, both of which have their own advantages, complement each other naturally, and serve different usage scenarios. In the future, 5G and Wi-Fi 6 are more likely to coexist than compete.

To seize the "tuyere", we must first break through the "pass".

The emergence of a core technology will always bring earth-shaking changes to the industry. Wi-Fi 6 equipment shipments are expected to grow explosively from the third quarter of 2019. Over the next five years, Wi-Fi 6 will gradually replace Wi-Fi 5 as the next hot spot in the wireless market.

The overall situation has been decided, and then there will be blowout development. Although Samsung, Intel, Broadcom, Qualcomm, Cisco and other industry giants have entered the Wi-Fi 6 market, the war without gunpowder has only just begun. The ecological environment of Wi-Fi 6 is not yet mature and novice players have just entered.

Wei Songbin, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Product Division of ▲ Cisco Greater China

The industry is in the ascendant, and the giants have joined the game one after another. Who can occupy the tuyere first depends on his ability to break through. It can not be ignored that in the landing process of Wi-Fi 6, enterprise users will face many challenges. In this regard, Wei Songbin explained that in the planning stage, enterprise users need to take 5G and Wi-Fi 6 into consideration at the same time, reasonable planning, and strive to maximize the advantages of the two.

In the deployment and use phase, with the rapid growth of Internet of things devices, the attack surface of malicious attackers will continue to expand. Enterprise users need to formulate appropriate strategies, adopt excellent technology, strengthen supervision, and prevent security vulnerabilities from being exploited. With the increase of equipment and the increasing complexity of the network environment, enterprises will also need new network intelligent functions to achieve more accurate management and ensure that services are maintained at the highest level.

Thus it can be seen that the fierce battle for Wi-Fi 6 is not as simple as on paper. "how to enhance network security through technology, strategy and supervision? how to achieve active and fine management in a complex network environment? how to achieve the best integration of 5G and Wi-Fi 6, etc." It is an urgent problem for network providers to consider.

Strategic layout of Cisco Wi-Fi 6

In May, Cisco announced a number of products and partnerships designed to ensure that enterprises can provide a truly smooth and uninterrupted wireless experience to better meet the new era of wireless connectivity.

The Wi-Fi 6 wireless access point includes two series: lyst-9100ax-access-points/index.html "> Catalyst 9100 and Meraki MR, which is proficient in" multilingual ", that is, it can communicate with a variety of Internet of things protocols to provide a smarter and more secure wireless network. Lyst-9800-series-wireless-controllers/index.html" > Catalyst 9800 series wireless controllers combine excellent RF and IOS XE advantages and can be deployed anytime, anywhere. They are compatible with the Catalyst 9100 series and support Wi-Fi 6.

▲ Cisco Catalyst 9100 Wireless access Point

In terms of scalability, lyst-9120ax-series-access-points/datasheet-c78 Meraki has cloud management capabilities; Cisco Radio Frequency Chip (RF ASIC) is included in lyst-9120ax-series-access-points/datasheet-c78-742115.html "> Catalyst 9120, which can accurately analyze wireless interference and wireless network security without compromising the performance of access users. The combination of Wi-Fi 6 wireless access point and Cisco DNA Center can directly realize the backtracking of the wireless network, realize the automatic optimization of the network, and support the digital transformation of the enterprise.

▲ Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series switch

With the substantial increase in the speed of Wi-Fi 6, the speed of supporting network equipment needs to be improved accordingly. In addition to upgrading wireless access points, enterprises need to consider whether AP's uplink switches support mGig multi-gigabit mode, so that they can take full advantage of the high throughput of the Wi-Fi 6 AP. To this end, Cisco upgraded the most popular core network switch from Catalyst 6000 to lyst-9600-series-switches/index.html "> Catalyst 9600.

As the world's leading provider of network solutions, Cisco's strength in the wireless field is not to be underestimated. "Cisco has more than 20 years of enterprise Wi-Fi standards innovation and technology precipitation, and its core competitiveness lies in the network analysis and backtracking capabilities of Cisco DNA Center, as well as the ability of Catalyst 9120 to provide container resources and support edge computing," Wei said.

In addition, prior to the launch of the Wi-Fi 6 access point, Cisco completed interoperability tests with Broadcom, Intel, and Samsung to address the inevitable gaps brought about by the new standards. Cisco has also launched an "open roaming" program around the world to attract Samsung, Boingo, GlobalReach Technology, Presidio and other companies to make the seamless secure jump between public Wi-Fi and LTE networks easier.

Conclusion:

The emergence of 5G and Wi-Fi 6 has made a strong impression on the wireless world. Cisco predicts that by 2022, more and more Wi-Fi 6 clients and wireless access points will enter the market, driving users and businesses to transition to this new standard. At the same time, with the promotion of 5G technology, these two technologies will eventually become the mainstream, in the whole industrial chain upstream and downstream cooperation, coordinated development, to achieve large-scale commercial use.

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