5508-250 and 5508-500 Port to AP ratio

[David Melanz]

Hello all,

     I'm looking into upgrading our 4400 series controller to 5508's.  Currently we have a few sites that have 8-9 4404 100AP controllers and I'm looking to condense these down to either 3 5508-500 or 5 5508-250 depending on cost.  I'm wondering what a good port to AP ratio is for controllers with licenses that can handle over 100 AP's.  I know the general rule of thumb is 25 AP's per port, but that seems to me to be 4400 way of thinking.  I'm trying to also reduce the controllers overall footprint, i.e. ports on the uplink switch, power consumption, rack space etc.  Is there anyone that has experience with this?  Any help on the matter would be great!!

Thanks

Dave

[George Stefanick]

David,

First welcome to CSC.

Yes, that was mentioned 25 aps per port in one of the cisco documents. I will share with you how I look at this question. How much traffic do you plan to generate on the WLAN? Knowing that all traffic will come back to the WLC.

I manage a large network and we generate about 50-200 meg of traffic in a regular basis. So in theory one port should do it .. But of course, we are network warriors and there is never enough bandwidth!

[David Melanz]

That is a good point.  I'll have to watch the bandwidth on the port channels that are setup for our controllers.

[Leo Laohoo]

The WLC will support GLC-TX copper transceivers.

Not pretty but they're cheaper than getting a pair of GLC-SX-MM/D.

[David Melanz]

I have more GLC-SX-MM/D then I can shake a stick at.  Currently, we're using fiber on all our controllers.

[Amjad Abdullah]

David,

Please rate the useful answers.