White Paper

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The Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Wireless Services Module 2 (WiSM2) or Cisco 5508 WLC with a software

upgrade.

Cisco One Network uniquely delivers ultimate business agility through networkwide intelligence and analytics,

scale, faster service rollout, and better change management. Cisco One Network also delivers greater business

efficiency with simplicity, greater network consistency, better data analytics, and smarter network designs and

operations.

Cisco One Network Architecture and Converged Access Mode

The foundation of Cisco One Network includes:

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Converged wired and wireless network: One physical infrastructure increases business agility, simplicity,

and scale and delivers greater operational efficiencies. The Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch is the converged

access switch with integrated wireless controller functionality and is the foundation of the unified wired and

wireless network.

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Consistent networkwide intelligence and operations: One common set of network capabilities and

context-aware intelligence for policy, visibility, analytics, and granular QoS across the entire wired-wireless

infrastructure enables simplicity and consistent user experience. It is based on one common ASIC design

and one common operating system for wired and wireless to further enhance feature consistency.

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Integration into Cisco Open Network Environment: Industry’s first common interfaces across wired and

wireless enable a blueprint for delivering programmable data plane with OnePK for the enterprise campus

to further enhance business agility.

One of the primary architectural components of Cisco One Network is Cisco Converged Access mode, which uses

the Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch as a single platform to support integrated wired-wireless functionalities, including

both LAN switching and wireless capabilities powered by the new ASIC. Wireless access points can be terminated

directly on the Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch, which means termination of the Control and Provisioning of Wireless

Access Points (CAPWAP) data and management tunnels, to natively convert wireless data traffic (802.11) to wired

traffic (802.3) or vice versa. This convergence is further enhanced by the new switch’s capability to support robust

wireless throughput bandwidth, up to 40 Gbps on the Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch and 60 Gbps for the 5760

wireless controller, thereby making the network capable of addressing the proliferation of mobile data. Such wired-

wireless convergence at the network edge also brings a high level of visibility and policy consistency to the entire

network, which did not exist in the past. The benefits of converged access also include high-throughput

performance where wireless data plane is terminated at the network edge, which meets the triple demands of high

wireless density, bandwidth-hungry video apps, and highly capable smartphones. The Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch

and the 5760 wireless controller perform at line rate in spite of the number of clients because wireless data tunnels

are terminated in hardware. In addition, Cisco is able to bring more than 20 years of Cisco IOS Software

technology excellence to the wireless network that was previously only available on the wired network.

The Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch is a converged access switch for wired and wireless networks. Main features of the

Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch include the following:

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Best-in-class, fixed and stackable access switch with 480-Gbps stacking for gigabit desktop and 802.11ac

wireless.

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Converged wired and wireless access with support for up to 40 Gbps wireless throughput, 50 Access points

and 2000 wireless clients per switch/stack.