Benefits of Cisco 3850 Switches

Sometimes, designing a network is complicated. You’re trying to squeeze power and resources out of what you have while minimizing costs and maximizing reliability. It’s an equation with constantly changing variables, and it’s enough to keep network engineers and administrators busy for their entire careers.

Other times, things are a lot simpler. You want as much networking power as you can possibly get while still supporting your existing systems.

In other words, you need to push Ethernet and traditional wireless beyond what they normally do. The goal is straightforward, and that makes a solution easy to find. For such a project, you need Cisco 3850 switches.

Cisco 3850 Switches

The Cisco 3850 series is designed with a specific philosophy: push the limits of traditional office networking resources. These are enterprise switches that achieve high speeds and impressive networking power, but they do it all with traditional Ethernet and wireless.

That second part is key.

The 3850 series is designed to make Ethernet and wireless convergence simple and easy without sacrificing capability. Switches in this series can support up to 40 Gbps wireless connections, all while still pushing the limits of Ethernet speeds and bandwidth.

Powerful Benefits

Let’s get down to it. The design philosophy and impressive specifications of the 3850 series all sound great, but what can that really do for you?

What are the specific benefits that these switches bring to a network, and why do they matter?

In short, the 3850 series provides very fast Ethernet networking, and the flexibility of PoE designs, all combined with wireless integration that is as easy as it is powerful.

Let’s look at these benefits in detail to see how the 3850 series could improve your network.

High Speeds

The 3850 series is designed with speed in mind first and foremost. These are Ethernet switches, but they are built to push the envelope in that regard. Some switches in the series can achieve 10 Gbps speeds using traditional cat5e Ethernet ports and cables.

Take that idea and push it to the extreme, and you get switches that are capable of more than 90 Gbps per switch. On top of that, these are stackable switches, with up to nine units in a stack. That leads to a total stacking capacity of 480G.

These are switches built for networks that work hard.

Power over Ethernet

The 3850 series adds considerable flexibility with a range of PoE options in the lineup. While there are PoE+ switches that provide up to 30W per port, the series also has a few models with UPOE. This upgrade allows the switches to supply up to 60W per port.

Smart applications of PoE availability can empower network admins to extend or expand networks with incredible cost efficiency. Power over Ethernet is all about making networks more capable while simultaneously lowering infrastructure costs. If you want to push your network to its limit, PoE is an invaluable tool.

Easy Wireless

What truly sets the 3850 series apart from most stackable networking switches is wireless integration.

The entire series is made with a converged access mode and integrated wireless controllers. This means that you can seamlessly add wireless access points to your switch stack, and the entire system will combine the wired and wireless networks with little to no effort on your part.

Converged access mode supports up to 100 access points per stack. Similarly, the stack can support up to 2000 wireless clients. This is large-scale networking that can handle campus-level networking designs with ease.

When you want powerful wireless that is quarterbacked by enterprise switch stacks, Cisco 3850 is the right series for your networking plans.

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