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Generally, a Cisco WLC or wireless LAN controller is a network device that manages wireless network access point which allows wireless devices to connect to the network. So what is the role and function of WLC or why are they required?
Nowadays, wireless devices are spread all over the world thanks to the Internet and most people have almost become accustomed to expect wireless connection wherever they go. In your organization you certainly have more than one access point in every room, on every floors or different buildings and even, in very large organization, at different locations. Generally, in a large enterprise network a single access point is not enough.
Imagine a network with thousands of users and tens or even hundreds of access points that you have to manage and take care of. Plus, all of this access points have to be administrated and receive configuration changes or update security policies. For all of this, seamless connectivity is required and you don’t want to get disconnected every time when your wireless device switches from one access point to another. This switching seamlessly from one access point to another is called roaming. All mentioned requirement can be met by using a single device called wireless LAN controller.
The Cisco WLC is usually a software loaded on one of the servers or an appliance that centralizes the management of these access points. With Cisco WLC, you could see everything happening with the wireless access points one screen. By using the WLC call management tasks are moved from access point to the wireless LAN controller. It takes care of authentication, roaming, creating new wireless networks and etc. This also makes it extremely easy to deploy new access points as you don’t have to do any special configuration.
You can simply plug in the access point into the network and the wireless controller takes the configurations from. You can do it in on single wireless controller and the WLC will push the configuration changes to all of your access points. The main objective of the WLC is to be able to centralize all the control of the access points which are responsible for just forwarding traffic that are called the light-weight access points.
Moreover, the Cisco wireless controller can also provide statistics and performance information so the admins will know exactly how well the wireless network is running. Most wireless network has some type of reporting mechanism so that we can get long-term information about how well your wireless network is running. All the WLC features are easy to access, easy to manage and error-free. A lightweight access point protocol which is used on in between Cisco WLC AP to manage access points in large quantities by the network administrator or network operations center. WLC is regarded as one of the important element of wireless network that is quick and effective.
Cisco as an industry’s leader has designed various types of wireless controller devices such as Cisco Catalyst 9800 wireless LAN controller which can deploy resilient, secure, and intelligent solutions within your network enabling you to take your network beyond Wi-Fi 6.
