Wireless LAN Controller (WLC) vs Wireless Location Appliance (WLA)

[pcce5w2hlh]

Seems to be that both the WLC and WLA can do asset tracking, i.e. track the physical location of a variety of Wi-Fi devices.

I read that the WLA can records historical location information. Can the WLC do so?

What would be the additional use of WLA if WLC can do location tracking? Or does they perform location tracking in different ways?

[dennischolmes]

The WLC does not actually perform the reporting piece of ANY location tracking. You must have at the least WCS Plus. WCS can track any ONE item at the time the request for location was made (polling). The location server on the other hand can track thousands of devices in real time along with historical data. The MSE, which is the better choice to do this with, also has an open API to which you can write applications against the location data gathered from the controllers. So yes, the controller provides the location information to the WCS or MSE which has the location algorithms to locate and report the location of the devices. The MSE is much more robust than its smaller WCS brother. You must use a MSE with Context Aware Software. See the link below about context aware software. It comes in a couple of different flavors. One for tags, one for clients.

http://cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/wireless/ps9733/ps9806/data_sheet_c78-470925.html