Performance -
Performance with a product like the WC7600 and the WN370 combo is not just about the amount of data you can push through it (or over the air). Instead it is about ease of use and flexibility. As we evaluated performance here we looked at how quickly we could set up different aspects of the devices and how having multiple functions running affected overall performance. So let’s kick things off with ease of configuration and use.
As you saw in the video setting up new Aps can be fairly simply you do need to make sure that the devices pick up an IP from the DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) so that your controller can see it. Once it has an IP the wireless controller will look for a certain range of devices and give you the option to add them in. Once connected you can move them to the group you want.
These groups are also pretty simple to setup and can contain multiple SSIDs (wireless network names) so that you can allow users to connect. The rest of setting up a network is also simple, perhaps too simple. We were looking to try and configure the Ethernet ports on the WN370s with different VLans and did not find any way to do that on a per-port level in the controller or in the actual AP.
Moving on to our bandwidth tests (actual throughput) we found that there was little to no administrative overhead over the 1Gbe lines. We saw average throughput of 112MBps between our two test machines. These test machines have multiple SSDs in them to maintain read and write performance that will saturate most systems (including 10Gbe). On a normal systems we saw that the available bandwidth was enough to max out the read and write speeds of SSDs even when you had a pair in RAID 0.
On the wireless side we saw performance that was fairly solid although the WN370 access points were certainly not designed with long range in mind. Instead it became clear that these were designed to cover small to medium sized rooms. Our average throughput with a single device connected over 802.11n 2.4GHz wireless (the WN370 does not support 5GHz). This is around what you would expect of an 802.11n access point running at 2.4GHz.
Real World Traffic -
In terms of real-world traffic the WN370 is designed to handle 10-20 connected devices without any issues so we were not able to max out the abilities of the device itself. We were able to connect 5 devices and put them to the test and found that we had more of an impact on the actual server that was performing the read and write test than the actual access point or wireless controller.
As for the WC7600 it can handle up to 50 access points per device (they can be stacked). Of course the number of APs you can connect is going to be determined by the licenses you buy. When running over 10Gbe it is unlikely you are going to saturate the connections back to the controller if you are using PoE (Power over Ethernet) switches for your APs that have 10Gbe uplinks back to your core switch you should be good for anything up to 802.11ac (which the WC7600 supports).
