White Paper

●

Networkwide visibility: Wireless data traffic is now converted to wired traffic at the network edge, so that

all the tools and technologies for the wired network can be used for wireless as well. In addition, since

wireless data traffic is no longer encapsulated in tunnels, IT administrators can gain visibility everywhere on

the network at each hop along the data path. Cisco Unified Access helps customers to identify, analyze,

and optimize their wired and wireless application traffic with powerful application visibility and control (AVC)

tools such as Cisco Flexible NetFlow and WireShark. The benefits of such networkwide visibility are faster

troubleshooting and problem resolution as well as more accurate capacity-planning capabilities.

●

Consistent security and QoS control: Now the same set of security and policy requirements can be

applied to both wired and wireless networks, starting from the network edge, through the backbone, all the

way to the data center. Cisco delivers sophisticated security capabilities throughout the entire network to

help strengthen security and minimize breaches. The advanced QoS architecture as discussed earlier

allows granular controls based on items such as access points, radio, service set identifier (SSID), client,

and application to support business priorities and to apply bandwidth fair-share policies for a better user

experience.

●

Maximum resiliency with fast stateful recovery: Cisco Unified Access enables maximized network

availability with stateful switchover and many other high-availability mechanisms that provide the most

reliable network with the fastest WLAN and LAN recovery times (subsecond switchover for both wired and

wireless). Such a highly reliable network provides a powerful platform to deliver business applications and

services with minimum disruptions.

●

Scale with distributed wired and wireless data plane: The distributed wired and wireless data plane

enables enterprises to scale to a 480G data plane per switching stack, up to 40G (Cisco Catalyst 3850

switches) and 60 G (Cisco 5760 wireless controllers) wireless throughput, 72K access points, and 864K

wireless clients supported by Cisco 5760 wireless controllers or WiSM2 modules, delivering the largest

Layer 3 mobility domains and highest scalability in the industry. Customers benefit from such a highly

scalable solution as they plan for future growth with gigabit desktops and 802.11ac clients.

Understanding Mobility in Converged Access Mode

The new Cisco Converged Access mode provides an evolutionary path for the existing wireless infrastructure to

reach a new level of innovation and scalability. A major converged access advantage is separation of the data and

control planes. This enables the capability to scale data throughput by supporting multiple tens of gigabit

throughput at the switch instead of carrying it back to the centralized controller. With converged access, data traffic

generated by wireless endpoints can be controlled and optimized at the network edge (based on networking and

security policies), instead of having to go through a central WLC first. The central policy platform with a distributed

and pervasive enforcement infrastructure enables common policies and common services for wired and wireless

traffic such as NetFlow and advanced QoS, which will be discussed in a later section of this white paper.

The following mobility components constitute the primary components of the converged access mode.

●

Mobility agent: A mobility agent is a function to manage a wireless client database that includes client

association or authentication status. Each Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch stack produces one mobility agent

that can manage up to 50 access points and up to 2000 wireless clients. The mobility agent is also

responsible for providing access point connectivity and CAPWAP termination.