Arista's new access points feature Wi-Fi 7 with dual 10G uplink

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Arista has announced its new C460 series Wi-Fi access points for summer 2024. The performance data, such as two 10 Gbit/s uplinks and a maximum wireless data rate of 11.5 Gbit/s, is impressive. The devices also offer exciting features in the security environment, such as MACSec on the wired interface or, in combination with AGNI, individual PSKs per user with WPA3, which no other competitor offers.

Technical data

The AP is based on Qualcomm's Networking Pro 1220 platform. It simultaneously provides a 4*4 antenna in accordance with IEEE standard 802.11be and a dedicated tri-band antenna in all three frequency bands (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz). The maximum channel width is 320 MHz, which should make a downlink of 11.5 Gbit/s possible. It will also have a mesh function. There will be a version with internal and one for external antennas. However, certification by the Wi-Fi Alliance is still pending.

On the copper uplink side, the AP provides two 10G-Base-T ports with Power over Ethernet (PoE++, 802.3bt / up to 90 watts) according to Arista's data sheet, which also seems sensible due to the high Wi-Fi data rate. It only provides reduced functions via PoE+ (802.3at / up to 30 watts), which the manufacturer has not yet specified. However, the two ports could also be used to map redundancy scenarios for switch failures or updates.

In some customer networks, the data rates are likely to lead to bottlenecks in the performance of the tertiary cabling between the switch and access point.

Security First

MACSec encryption appears to make sense for WLAN access points, as these are often located in public areas and the patching is therefore accessible. Without MACSec, data traffic could easily be read by potential attackers via TAPs. Arista's approach can therefore encrypt between the switch and access point. The AP also comes with an integrated Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to secure the firmware.

Security continues on the wireless interfaces. Arista provides a dedicated module for a wireless intrusion prevention system. In combination with the in-house cloud NAC solution AGNI, Arista is currently the only manufacturer that can work with individual pre-shared keys per user on an SSID for WPA3. Arista calls this technology Unique PSK (UPSK).

In addition to the Wi-Fi functions, the AP also comes with a number of IoT interfaces. In addition to Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Zigbee, Matter, OpenThread and HADM are also available. It also has a GNSS receiver.

Integration into Arista's infrastructure

To deliver the required PoE power in combination with more 10G ports at the access level, Arista has named the 720XP series, which delivers a total of 48 10G ports with up to 90 W in accordance with 802.3bt as the 720XP-48TXH-2C-S model. With numerous APs, the power supply units are likely to become a bottleneck. Arista has also developed a VXLAN-based tunnel architecture in combination with its switches so that the aggregated data rates of several APs do not have to be routed through the bottleneck of a central controller appliance.

(mma)