Cisco Cisco 5760 Wireless LAN Controller White Paper
Copyright © 2013 Miercom Cisco 3850 and 5760 Wireless Controllers Page 4
Throughout QoS testing, Cisco WLC 5760
showed reliable transmission of traffic which was
properly prioritized. The voice and video traffic
used in the testing was labeled to expedite
forward. In contrast, the Aruba 7240 controller
lost a large amount of traffic as it was unable to
honor the expedite forwarding label under
simultaneously applied heavy data load tests.
Cisco’s UADP ASIC architecture and QoS
buffering ensured transmission of mission critical
applications, while the Aruba product, based on
a network processor, had issues providing QoS
during heavier background traffic loads.
Data Center Efficiency
Optimizing the overall power efficiency of the
data center requires minimizing power level and
consumption at every level within the
infrastructure. With gigabit Wi-Fi, wireless
controllers sitting in the data center needs to
handle much more data than before, and this
could possibly lead to additional controllers. For
handling 50 Gbps of IMIX traffic on a wireless
network, seven Aruba 7240 controllers are
needed in comparison to just a single Cisco WLC
5760, resulting in seven times more Rack Unit
(RU) space in the data center. From datasheets,
each Aruba 7240 consumes about 165 watts of
power, as compared to 350 watts for a Cisco
WLC 5760. In the power comparison graph of
Figure 6
, Cisco is 330% more efficient for
equivalent throughput performance and delivers
more Gbps/watt. This is important as each watt
of power consumed in the data center requires
further cooling capacity, escalating the costs even
further.
Unified Network Policy Management
by Downloadable ACL
Network policy management is complex due to
various modes of network access devices, such as
wired, wireless, and VPN. The types of clients, such
Source: Cisco, May 2013
In the first capture, there is a significant drop of video quality during 60% background traffic on the Aruba 7240. No drop
in video quality is observed in the second capture during 83% background traffic on the Cisco WLC 5760.
Figure 5: Captures of Video Playing on Client Computers during Network Congestion
Figure 6: Data Center Power Comparison
1155
350
0
200
400
600
800
1,000
1,200
Aruba 7240
Cisco WLC 5760
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Source: Miercom, May 2013
Cisco WLC 5760 is 330% more efficient for equivalent
throughput performance and delivers more Gbps/Watt.
350
1155