Cisco Catalyst 3850 WS-C3850-48U-L User Manual
Product codes
WS-C3850-48U-L
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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Benefits
Converged Wired plus Wireless Access
The Cisco Catalyst 3850 is the first stackable access switching platform that enables wired plus wireless services
on a single Cisco IOS XE Software-based platform. With this, Cisco has pioneered a host of rich capabilities such
as high availability based on stateful switchover (SSO) on stacking, granular QoS, security, and Flexible Netflow
(FNF) across wired and wireless in a seamless fashion. Also, the wired plus wireless features are bundled into a
single Cisco IOS Software image, which reduces the number of software images that users have to qualify/certify
before enabling them in their network. The single console port for command-line interface (CLI) management
reduces the number of touch points to manage for wired plus wireless services, thereby reducing network
complexity, simplifying network operations, and lowering the TCO to manage the infrastructure.
Converged wired plus wireless not only improves wireless bandwidth across the network but also the scale of
wireless deployment. Each 48-port Cisco Catalyst 3850 provides 40 Gbps of wireless throughput (20 Gbps on the
24-port model). This wireless capacity increases with the number of members in the stack. This makes sure that
the network can scale with current wireless bandwidth requirements, as dictated by IEEE 802.11n-based access
points and with future wireless standards such as IEEE 802.11ac. Additionally, the Cisco Catalyst 3850 distributes
the wireless controller functions to achieve better scalability. Each Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch/stack can operate
as the wireless controller in two modes:
●
Mobility agent (MA): This is the default mode in which the Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch ships. In this mode
the switch is capable of terminating the CAPWAP tunnels from the access points and providing wireless
connectivity to wireless clients. Maintaining wireless client databases and configuring and enforcing
security and QoS policies for wireless clients and access points can be enforced in this mode. No
additional license on top of IP Base is required to operate in the mobility agent mode.
●
Mobility controller (MC): In this mode, the Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch can perform all the mobility agent
tasks in addition to mobility coordination, radio resource management (RRM), and Cisco CleanAir
®
coordination within a mobility subdomain. The mobility controller mode can be enabled on the switch CLI.
IP Base license level is required when the Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch is acting as the mobility controller.
A centrally located Cisco 5508 Wireless LAN Controller (WLC 5508), Cisco Wireless Services Module 2
(WiSM2) (when running AireOS Version 7.3), and Wireless LAN Controller 5760 can also perform this role
for larger deployments.
With mobility agents located in the wiring closets providing 40 Gbps of wireless per switch (n x 40 Gbps for a
stack of n switches) and mobility controllers managing some of the central wireless functions, the converged
access-based wireless deployment provides best-in-class scalability for wireless and significantly improved
wireless throughput.