Say Hi to Hybrid Work! – Cisco Blogs

Let’s be honest, no matter where you live or work, the last few years have been a challenge.

But you know what they say about challenges, right? They’re just opportunities that you never saw coming.

Aphorisms aside, the challenges of the last few years have presented you with an opportunity. The opportunity to transform your workplace into a place that is powered by hybrid work. Before this piece delves into the how of hybrid work, let’s define the term first.

From the Cisco page on Hybrid Work, Hybrid Work is an approach that designs the work experience around and for the worker, wherever they are. It empowers people to work onsite, offsite, and move between locations. For many people, hybrid work is how they’re working today and studies have shown, that for the most part, employees are happy with the way that their work/life balance is now divided up.

For example, unless you’re a drive-time radio DJ, no one is too sad about losing that morning commute. And skipping the evening drive home has allowed people the time to prepare healthier meals at home.

So how can Cisco wireless help drive your hybrid work initiative into a higher gear?

Cisco Catalyst 9136

Recently Cisco released its newest access point, the Cisco Catalyst 9136 which is Wi-Fi 6E compliant. If you don’t know—and you should, we’ve written a lot about Wi-Fi 6E lately—Wi-Fi 6E is an extension of Wi-Fi 6 into the 6GHz spectrum that brings faster speeds, lower latency and provides more security to the network. As apps become increasingly more vital to work, clients need unincumbered access to them. Wi-Fi 6E provides that direct access.

The Catalyst 9136 Access Points are the industry’s first high-end Wi-Fi 6E AP and takes advantage of the 6GHz band expansion to produce a network that is more reliable and secure, with higher throughput and capacity, and less device interference. The Catalyst 9136 AP comes with two 4×4, one 8×8, client scan and BLE/IoT radios as well as built-in environmental sensors and a host of other features.

How do these new APs help propel your network into a hybrid space? Quite simply actually. The Catalyst 9136 Access Points are the backbone of your new network. They offer the capacity, reliability and security that you need to make sure that your network can handle the added traffic that will inevitably occur on your network. More devices are going to connect, and you need all the bandwidth you can find to make sure that all of these devices are working to the best of their abilities but are safe from outside forces as well. Wi-Fi 6E has the spectrum to provide what you need.

What does the future hold?

From 8K streaming video to virtual reality meetings, there’s going to be a lot of new bandwidth-hungry technologies that are going to be clamoring to connect to your network. A Wi-Fi 6E network handles that load and then some. And while those technologies may not be commonplace right now, at some point real soon, it will be. Cisco Catalyst 9136 offers the infrastructural insurance you need to make sure that once these new devices are ready to go on Day One.

And it’s not just about the folks who work from home, as IoT devices become more and more prevalent, you’re going to need bandwidth to support them. From cameras to sensors to tags to high-res video cameras, Catalyst 9136 APs help organizations manage the cutting-edge smart and sustainable buildings by keeping employees safe and minimizing carbon footprints.

Speaking of sustainability and minimizing carbon footprints, the Catalyst 9136 Access Point is the industry’s only AP to come with built-in environmental sensors. This is a new Cisco-only feature added to new Wi-Fi 6E access points, they measure temperature, air quality, and humidity. In addition to the data that it provides about the environment, it also avoids the constraint of an overlay network. In other words, customers won’t have to deploy two devices—the Catalyst 9136 does the job of both.

As you can see, hybrid work isn’t a niche idea or a passing fad, even when things get “back to normal”, a hybrid workplace is going to become the way to do things. Getting a jump on the trend and starting now can both save time, money, and the planet.

Learn more about Cisco Catalyst 9136 Access Points

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