topic Dual Foreign Controller with multiple anchor controllers in Wireless

Dual Foreign Controller with multiple anchor controllers

royal99 — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 11:31:20 GMT

Hi Everyone,

Is it possible to have Dual Foreign Controller (Active and Standby) in the Central USA and have multiple anchor wlc across the US to route guest wi-fi internet traffic locally.

For example :- Dual Foreign Controllers (Active and Standby) in Kansas, Install Anchor in Lebanon in Kansas, Austin, New York city, Toronto, San Francisco and Chicago, and route guest wi-fi ssid traffics locally.

APs in Austin register in Kansas City Foreign Controllers and route guest wi-fi's internet traffic locally via Austin.

What are other options available to route guest WiFi traffic locally?

Thank you in advance.

Re: Dual Foreign Controller with multiple anchor controllers

Flavio Miranda — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 11:46:23 GMT

Hi @royal99

Attaching a guide for your reference. In short, it is possible to have 71 anchor wlc, limited to 24 per wlan.

But, your scenario is not a good idea because foreign wlc will round robim the clients among anchor and you can not separate by location.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-1/Enterprise-Mobility-8-1-Design-Guide/Enterprise_Mobility_8-1_Deployment_Guide/WirelessNetwork_GuestAccessService.html

Re: Dual Foreign Controller with multiple anchor controllers

royal99 — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 12:20:40 GMT

@Flavio Miranda
Thank you for the assistance and information.

are other another options available to route guest WiFi traffic locally? (exclude creating vlan for guest sssid in switches and use ACL to restrict traffices between guest and other networks)

Re: Dual Foreign Controller with multiple anchor controllers

Flavio Miranda — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 12:44:50 GMT

@royal99 You can take a look in SDWAN but it will require redesign your whole network.

Re: Dual Foreign Controller with multiple anchor controllers

Rich R — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 17:32:21 GMT

Am I missing something? Why would you use a foreign/anchor design if you plan to route guest WiFi traffic locally?

That sounds like standard Flexconnect local switching which does not require foreign/anchor.

The whole point of foreign/anchor is to switch all traffic centrally at the anchor, not locally.
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless/catalyst-9800-series-wireless-controllers/213912-configure-mobility-anchor-on-catalyst-98.html
"All client traffic for the anchored WLANs is encapsulated into the mobility tunnel to be sent to the anchor. It does not exit locally."

For normal flex local switching see:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless/catalyst-9800-series-wireless-controllers/213945-understand-flexconnect-on-9800-wireless.html
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/9800/17-9/config-guide/b_wl_17_9_cg/m_vewlc_flex_connect.html