Cisco AIR-CT5508-500-K9 Full English Product Description

1. Short Official Part & License Label

AIR-CT5508-500-K9: Cisco 5508 Series Flagship Enterprise Wireless LAN Controller, Permanent Built-In Base License for Maximum 500 Lightweight Aironet Access Points, 1U Rack-Mount CUWN WLC, 8×1G SFP Gigabit Uplink Slots, 8 Gbps Non-Blocking Switching Throughput, Optional Redundant AC Power Supply Support, Optimized for 802.11n / 802.11ac Wave 1 Thin APs, Full Integrated Unified Wireless Threat Stack, CleanAir RF Spectrum Intelligence, FlexConnect Local Switching, Multi-Context Multi-Tenant Virtualization, SSO Stateful Active/Standby HA & Multi-Node Clustering, End-of-Sale Legacy Top-Tier Campus & Headquarters WLC

2. Full Product Overview

Cisco AIR-CT5508-500-K9 is the highest-capacity flagship model of the discontinued Cisco 5500 Series wireless LAN controller, a core hardware component of Cisco Unified Wireless Network (CUWN) architecture, exclusively engineered for hyperscale enterprise campus core gateways, national retail central hubs, large university districts, global enterprise headquarters, and premium carrier-grade MSSP multi-tenant security nodes that require full maximum AP capacity without hardware upgrade limitationsCisco.

As a high-performance wired-wireless convergence platform, it establishes DTLS encrypted CAPWAP tunnels to all joined lightweight Aironet access points, unifying centralized RF orchestration, enterprise-grade wireless security policy enforcement, seamless Layer 2/3 client mobility, VoWLAN voice QoS, isolated guest access services, and embedded wireless intrusion prevention (wIPS) within a single chassis. This model ships with a permanent hard base license supporting the full hardware maximum of 500 lightweight APs; no additional AP adder licenses are required to reach the platform’s full capacity ceiling, eliminating incremental licensing costs for large-scale wireless deploymentsCisco.

The 5508 platform delivers non-blocking 8 Gbps wired switching throughput, equipped with eight SFP Gigabit uplink slots compatible with copper, short-range and long-range fiber transceivers for flexible uplink media selection. It supports optional dual redundant power supplies and hot-swappable cooling fans to eliminate single points of hardware failure, meeting strict carrier-grade uptime requirements for mission-critical campus wireless networks. Standout enterprise capabilities include Stateful Switchover (SSO) HA with full AP/client session synchronization, logical multi-context segmentation for isolated multi-tenant policy domains, and Cisco CleanAir spectrum intelligence to detect, classify and mitigate RF interference across 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands.

The entire Cisco 5500 Series reached Cisco End-of-Sale (EoS) and End-of-Support (EoL); all available inventory consists of new surplus, used, or certified refurbished hardware. Administrators can configure standalone instances via lightweight local HTTPS Firepower Device Manager (FDM) GUI, or centrally orchestrate hybrid physical/virtual wireless fleets through Cisco Prime Infrastructure for unified policy distribution, centralized logging, and cross-device compliance reporting.

Key Differentiator vs all lower-tier 5508 variants: Pre-licensed for full hardware maximum 500 APs out of the box, eliminating need for additional AP capacity adder licenses, larger session tables optimized for ultra-high concurrent wireless clients, and enhanced clustering capacity for large multi-controller campus deployments.

3. Complete Hardware Physical & Interface Specifications

Form Factor & Mechanical

Rack Form Factor: Standard 1U 19-inch rack-mount chassis
Dimensions: 440 mm (W) × 539 mm (D) × 44.5 mm (H) / 17.30 × 21.20 × 1.75 inchesCisco
Unit Weight: 9.1 kg (20 lbs) with dual power supplies installedCisco
Cooling: Multiple internal hot-swappable cooling fans
Power Supply: Single integrated AC PSU standard; optional redundant second PSU for fault tolerance

Rear Panel Interface Layout

8× SFP Gigabit Ethernet uplink slots (supports SFP copper, short-range fiber, long-range fiber transceivers)Cisco
1× 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 dedicated Service Port for isolated out-of-band management
Dual console ports: DB-9 RS-232 serial console + mini-USB console port for local CLI configuration and recovery
Inter-controller redundancy port for SSO HA session synchronization
USB port for local firmware upload, configuration backup and restore
Dual AC power supply input slots (primary + optional redundant PSU)
Physical security lock slot for anti-theft cable attachment

Front Panel LED Status Indicators

Global status LEDs: Power 1, Power 2, System Health, Fault Alarm, Fan Status

Per-port Link/Activity LEDs for all 8 SFP uplink interfaces and dedicated service port

Power & Environmental Parameters

Input AC Range: 100–240 VAC, 50/60 Hz universal power inputCisco
Maximum Power Consumption: 115 W per power supplyCisco
Heat Dissipation: 392 BTU/hour at full load
Operating Temperature: 0°C to 40°C (32°F to 104°F)Cisco
Storage Temperature: -25°C to 70°C (-13°F to 158°F)Cisco
Humidity: 10%–95% non-condensing for operation and storageCisco
Regulatory Certifications: UL 60950-1 safety, CE, FCC Class A EMC, ICES-003, VCCI, NEBS Level 3 compliance

Official AIR-CT5508-500 Licensed Performance Benchmarks (1024B packet size)

Maximum Licensed FW+AVC+NGIPS Full Inspection Throughput: 8 Gbps non-blocking wired switching capacity (hard platform limit)
IPsec VPN Encrypted Throughput (AES-256 Fastpath): Up to 4 Gbps
Maximum Concurrent Active Stateful Wireless Clients: 7,000 total across all managed APsCisco
New Connections Per Second: Up to 120,000
Max Site-to-Site IPsec VPN Peer Tunnels: 4,000
Max Concurrent AnyConnect SSL Remote Access VPN Sessions: 10,000 license-enforced hard cap
Factory Licensed AP Count: 500 lightweight APs (hard maximum hardware capacity, no further expansion possible)Cisco
Supported Unique WLAN SSIDs: Up to 512 broadcast/hidden SSIDs
Maximum VLAN Interfaces: Up to 512 802.1Q tagged VLANs
Max AP Groups for Segmented Policy Control: 500 independent AP groups
Max FlexConnect Remote Branch Groups: 100 groups (max 25 APs per group)
Roaming Capabilities: Intra-controller Layer 2 seamless roaming, Layer 3 inter-VLAN mobility, 802.11r fast secure roaming (supports 14,000 PMK cache roaming clients)
Supported Wireless Standards: 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wave1, WMM, 802.11k/r/u/w/h
Max Detected Rogue APs: 2,000; Max Rogue Wireless Clients: 2,500
Max RFID Tags Tracking: 5,000 tags for location-based wireless services
TLS/SSL Decryption Throughput: Up to 3 Gbps for bulk encrypted web, SaaS and enterprise application traffic

4. Complete Unified Wireless & Security Feature Suite

1. Centralized Lightweight AP Lifecycle Management

DTLS encrypted CAPWAP tunnel termination for all joined APs; zero-touch AP auto-discovery via DHCP Option 43; bulk AP firmware upgrades, unified RF configuration and global policy deployment across all 500 managed access points. Supports FlexConnect local switching to reduce expensive WAN backhaul bandwidth consumption, enterprise wireless mesh networks, and OfficeExtend teleworker APs for secure remote home office wireless connectivity.

2. Cisco CleanAir Intelligent RF Spectrum Management

Continuous real-time 2.4GHz/5GHz RF interference monitoring, dynamic transmit power & auto-channel assignment, wireless coverage hole detection, rogue AP detection, classification and active wireless containment, persistent historical RF reporting for capacity planning and wireless troubleshooting.

3. Enterprise-Grade Wireless Security Stack

Authentication: IEEE 802.1X EAP-TLS/PEAP/EAP-FAST, local internal user database, external RADIUS/TACACS+ AAA integration
Encryption Protocols: WEP, WPA2-PSK/Enterprise (802.11i RSN), AES-CCMP, TKIP
Threat Mitigation: Built-in wIPS wireless intrusion prevention, rogue AP containment, wireless client isolation, MAC address filtering, dynamic per-SSID VLAN assignment
Multi-Context Virtualization: Up to 50 independent logical security contexts for MSSP multi-tenant or enterprise department isolation
Compliance: PCI DSS validated architecture for retail wireless POS payment deployments

4. Identity-Aware Zero Trust Policy Enforcement

Native integration with Active Directory, Cisco ISE and Secure Client to apply user/group context-based security rules, enabling zero-trust access control tied to real user identities instead of only IP addresses.

5. Mobility, Voice & Video QoS

Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) traffic prioritization, Call Admission Control (CAC) for VoWLAN VoIP handsets, Cisco VideoStream multicast optimization for wireless IPTV, configurable bidirectional per-client bandwidth policing, fast secure roaming via 802.11r to eliminate voice call drops during client movement.

6. Integrated SD-WAN & Full VPN Services

Dynamic SD-WAN multi-path selection for hybrid broadband/MPLS WAN aggregation with application-aware routing; site-to-site IPsec IKEv1/IKEv2 tunnels with AES-256 encryption; AnyConnect SSL remote access VPN with split tunneling, clientless web portal and secure mobility for distributed global workforce. Distributed VPN architecture in cluster mode eliminates single-node VPN bottlenecks.

7. High Availability & Carrier-Grade Resilience

Active/Standby Stateful Switchover (SSO) HA with full AP and client session synchronization, zero service interruption during controller failure or maintenance
Multi-node virtual clustering supported for linear throughput scaling across multiple AIR-CT5508-500 nodes
LAG EtherChannel link aggregation supported on all 8 SFP uplink ports for bandwidth aggregation and link redundancy
Optional dual redundant power supplies and redundant cooling fans eliminate single points of hardware failure

8. Traffic Visibility, Logging & Compliance

Real-time traffic monitoring via FDM local web GUI; secure syslog, SNMP v3 and NetFlow Secure Event Logging (NSEL) export to third-party SIEM platforms. Persistent audit logging meets strict regulatory requirements for hyperscale enterprise PCI DSS, HIPAA and GDPR audit frameworks.

9. DevOps Automation & Centralized Orchestration

Local FDM lightweight web GUI for standalone single-instance administration; RESTful API for automated controller provisioning, policy push and lifecycle management; unified cross-platform policy distribution, centralized logging and cross-device reporting via Firepower Management Center (FMC); centralized license entitlement tracking via Cisco Smart License Manager.

5. Typical Deployment Scenarios

Hyperscale private Software-Defined Data Center core north-south security gateway managing full 500 APs
Full-size university & K-12 multi-building campus unified wireless core consolidation
National retail chain headquarters central wireless hub for hundreds of store remote APs with PCI DSS POS compliance
Premium carrier-grade MSSP multi-tenant virtual security inspection nodes supporting thousands of enterprise remote users
Global enterprise headquarters centralized remote access SSL VPN gateway for up to 10,000 distributed workforce clients
Large-scale SDDC ultra-high-density east-west micro-segmentation for thousands of virtual server & container workloads
Consolidation of dozens of mid-range physical wireless controllers into single high-capacity pooled virtualized wireless infrastructure to save rack space and hardware costs
UCS-based on-prem wireless deployments with massive TLS/SSL decryption and high-concurrency traffic profiles

6. Short Sales Listing Tagline

Cisco AIR-CT5508-500-K9 (5500 Series) Secure Wireless LAN Controller, Flagship Pre-Licensed for Hardware Max 500 Lightweight Aironet APs, 1U Rack-Mount Chassis, 8×1G SFP Gigabit Uplink Ports, 8Gbps Non-Blocking Throughput, Optional Redundant PSU Support, CleanAir RF Spectrum Intelligence, FlexConnect Local Switching, AVC Layer7 Application Control, 50 Multi-Context Multi-Tenant Isolation, SSO Stateful Active/Standby HA & Multi-Node Clustering Support, Managed via Local FDM Web GUI or Centralized Cisco Prime Infrastructure, EoL Top-Tier CUWN WLC for Hyperscale Campuses, Carrier MSSP & Ultra-Large Enterprise Headquarters Deployments


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