Cisco Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller 백서
Cisco vs Aruba Wireless Controllers
17
DR150602D
Copyright © Miercom 2015
18 June 2015
For the 40-MHz tests, channel overlapping was observed on both the vendors but varied in
comparison. Cisco chose to overlap 2 of the 5 APs, while in Aruba's case all the 5 APs ended up
sharing channels amongst each other.
For the 80-MHz channel width tests, as there were only two channels to select from, both Cisco
and Aruba had no choice but overlap the APs on shared channels. The AP distribution was similar
for both vendors (3 on one channel, 2 on other channel) but the difference was in the overall
power levels. Cisco APs had lowered the power levels more than Aruba APs to create smaller cell
sizes in order to compensate for the heavy overlapping. This was determined as one of the
reasons why even with the heavy overlapping for the 80-MHz channels, Cisco APs performed
slightly better in terms of overall system throughput as seen in the performance comparison
chart below.
comparison. Cisco chose to overlap 2 of the 5 APs, while in Aruba's case all the 5 APs ended up
sharing channels amongst each other.
For the 80-MHz channel width tests, as there were only two channels to select from, both Cisco
and Aruba had no choice but overlap the APs on shared channels. The AP distribution was similar
for both vendors (3 on one channel, 2 on other channel) but the difference was in the overall
power levels. Cisco APs had lowered the power levels more than Aruba APs to create smaller cell
sizes in order to compensate for the heavy overlapping. This was determined as one of the
reasons why even with the heavy overlapping for the 80-MHz channels, Cisco APs performed
slightly better in terms of overall system throughput as seen in the performance comparison
chart below.
80 MHZ CHANNEL WIDTH SELECTION TEST
VENDOR
NUMBER OF OVERLAPPING APS
CHANNELS OVERLAP PERCENTAGE
CISCO
5
100%
ARUBA
5
100%
Cisco’s Dynamic Bandwidth Channel Selection is based on the Auto channel-width select feature.
As shown, four 40-MHz channels and one 20-MHz channel were used by the five APs, with
minimal overlap. The result: less interference and better throughput.
Cisco’s Auto Channel-Width Selection Visual Representation
AUTO CHANNEL WIDTH SELECTION TEST
VENDOR
NUMBER OF OVERLAPPING APS
CHANNELS OVERLAP PERCENTAGE
CISCO
0
0%
ARUBA
N/A
N/A
Source: Miercom June 2015
CISCO RRM DBS AUTO