Difference between WLC 4400 and 2100?

[IPTdude]

What are the differences between Cisco Wireless LAN controllers 4400 series and 2100 series?

[mattn90]

Q. What are the functional differences between the 2100 Series WLCs and the 4400 WLCs?

A. The major differences between the 2100 and 4400 Series WLCs are in the features they support.

This Hardware features is not supported on 2100 series WLCs

•Service Port (separate out-of-band management 10/100-Mbps Ethernet interface)

These software features are not supported on 2100 Series WLCs:

•VPN termination (such as IPSec and L2TP)

•VPN passthrough option

•Termination of guest controller tunnels (origination of guest controller tunnels is supported)

•External web authentication web server list

•Layer 2 LWAPP

•Spanning tree protocol

•Port mirroring

•AppleTalk

•QoS per-user bandwidth contracts

•IPv6 pass-through

•Link aggregation (LAG)

•Multicast-unicast mode

A 4400 Series WLC supports all the forementioned hardware and software features

[ipsec]

What are the exact differences between the 2100 and 4400 ?


The Cisco 2100 Series Wireless LAN controllers are designed to provide basic, secure

coverage, while Cisco 4400 Series controllers provide flagship performance and scale that is

needed for campus and medium and large branch offices. While the Cisco 2100 Series

supports transaction-oriented wireless environments, the 4400 Series is recommended for

high-data-rate and multicast-intensive applications such as large data files, video, push-to-talk.

The wireless controller feature comparison matrix in Table 1 summarizes these differences.



Table 1. Cisco Wireless Controller Feature Matrix

Feature Support 2100 Series 4400 Series

Number of access points 6, 12, 25 12, 25, 50, 100

Number of clients 250 5000

Throughput Unicast ~ 90 Mbps 3.5–4 Gbps (4404)

Multicast ~ 90 Mbps 3.5–4 Gbps (4404)

Interfaces 8–10/100Mbps ports 2 (4402) or 4 (4404)

802.1Q VLAN tagging Yes Yes

Route processor module (RRM) Yes Yes

Voice Yes Yes

Location Yes Yes

Mobility

Number of controllers in a group 24 24

Mobility across number of controllers 72 72

Fast roaming Yes Yes

Security

Intrusion detection system (IDS) Yes Yes

Intrusion protection system (IPS) Yes Yes

Management frame protection Yes Yes

Guess access Yes Yes

Guest access anchor No Yes

Compliance

PCI Yes Yes

Location services Yes Yes

Redundancy Yes Yes

Mesh support

Indoor Yes Yes

Outdoor Yes Yes

Future Features

HA: stateful failover No Yes

Home access point support No Yes

802.1Q VLAN tagging Yes Yes

802.1D Spanning Protocol No Yes

802.3ad (link aggregation) No Yes

IPv6 passthrough No Yes

Quality of service (QoS) per user bandwidth

contracts

No Yes

AppleTalk No Yes

Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP)

snooping

No Yes

Out-of-band management service port No Yes