Cisco 5520 Wireless LAN Controller Deployment Guide

Introduction

This document introduces the Cisco 5520 Wireless LAN Controller (WLC) and provides general guidelines for its deployment. It offers an overview of the WLC, its role in the Cisco Unified Architecture, highlights key service provider features, and presents design recommendations and considerations specific to the Cisco 5520 Controller.

Product Overview

The Cisco 5520 Wireless LAN Controller is designed to meet the growing demands for scalable, high-performance wireless networks. It supports up to 1500 Access Points (APs) and 20,000 clients, delivering 20 Gbps throughput. This guide details its hardware capabilities, key attributes, and comparisons with other Cisco controllers, enabling efficient deployment for business-critical networks.

Explore features such as High AP scale, high client density, high throughput, support for numerous VLANs and AP groups, and advanced functionalities like High Availability with sub-second AP and client SSO, and TrustSec SXP Support.

Key Features and Support

• AP Platform Support: Details the extensive range of Cisco access point models compatible with the 5520 WLC.
• Platform Components: Provides a visual and descriptive overview of the controller's front and rear panel components, including LED indicators and connectors.
• Fault Tolerance Capability: Explains the N+1 redundancy model and High Availability Stateful Switchover (SSO) for seamless operation.
• Inter-Platform Mobility and Guest Anchor Support: Covers guest anchor capabilities and mobility management across different Cisco WLC models.
• Infrastructure Multicast: Outlines multicast support and configuration restrictions.
• Licensing: Describes the Right to Use (RTU) and Smart Licensing models, including license types and features.

Deployment and Configuration

Learn about the boot-up process, initial configuration using the Configuration Wizard and WLAN Express Setup, and advanced settings for RF parameter optimization. The guide also covers out-of-band management on the service port and service port configuration for both IPv4 and IPv6.

For detailed information and examples, refer to the official Cisco documentation:

• N+1 High Availability Deployment Guide
• Local EAP Server Configuration Example
• Wired Guest Access Configuration Example
• Smart Licensing Deployment Guide