Initial AP registration on a 8510 WLC HA-SKU and N+1 deployment

[Joana Manzano]

Hi,

We have several 8510 controllers and one of them needs to be configured as HA SKU for N+1 deployment. I am testing the scenario with two controllers right now, so I have the primary and the secondary controller configured as part of the same Mobility Group and they appear UP. Please, see the rest of the configuration below.

When I power off the Primary controller, the APs don’t register to the HA SKU controller (secondary). These two controllers are in different parts of the network but they are members of the same mobility group.

Do I need to specify the HA SKU controller in the DHCP scope for the APs? I am not sure what I am missing....

Do you have any suggestions?

Thank you.

Primary Controller:

(Cisco Controller) >show redundancy summary

 Redundancy Mode = SSO DISABLED

     Local State = ACTIVE

      Peer State = N/A

            Unit = Primary

         Unit ID = XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

Redundancy State = N/A

    Mobility MAC = XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

Redundancy Management IP Address................. 0.0.0.0

Peer Redundancy Management IP Address............ 0.0.0.0

Redundancy Port IP Address....................... 0.0.0.0

Peer Redundancy Port IP Address.................. 169.254.0.0

Wireless --> Access Points -->  Global Configuration:

(Cisco Controller) >show redundancy summary

 Redundancy Mode = SSO DISABLED

     Local State = ACTIVE

      Peer State = N/A

            Unit = Secondary - HA SKU

         Unit ID = XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

Redundancy State = N/A

    Mobility MAC = XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

Redundancy Management IP Address................. 0.0.0.0

Peer Redundancy Management IP Address............ 0.0.0.0

Redundancy Port IP Address....................... 0.0.0.0

Peer Redundancy Port IP Address.................. 169.254.0.0

Controller--> General:

[Joana Manzano]

Hi,

Has anyone implemented this configuration before? Any ideas?

Thanks,

Joana.

[Scott Fella]

Okay so what you need to know is that you have two ways to set this up. One is N+1 and the other is AP SSO.  What your showing on your screen shot is for AP SSO and is not needed for N+1.  On the HA sku controller, you just need to enable 'Secondary Unit' and or affect the EULA for the license. What you need to make sure is that the HA sku controller shows the max ap count on the main GUI page. If it shows 0 AP, then you have not done one of the above methods. 

To make sure that the 8510 HA isn't an issue, you should place an access point in the same subnet and see if the access point joins.  Having the mobility up is required, but ap join ports are different and you need to make sure nothing is blocking those ports.  That is why I would test first just to make sure the HA controller does in fact registers an access point.  I have had a few 8510's that I had to RMA also.

-Scott

[Scott Fella]

Here is a doc I have referenced for N+1

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/technology/hi_avail/N1_High_Availability_Deployment_Guide.pdf

-Scott

[Joana Manzano]

Hi Scott,

Yes, it is N+1 HA with HA-SKU what I need to implement.

“6000 Access Points Supported” is shown in the main GUI page.

I followed the guide you mentioned to do this configuration:

1 - From the primary controller, configure the backup controller on the primary to point to the secondary controller:

(Cisco Controller) >config advanced backup-controller primary Secondary 10.9.51.252

(Cisco Controller) >show advanced backup-controller

AP primary Backup Controller .................... Secondary 10.9.51.252

AP secondary Backup Controller ..................  0.0.0.0

2 - On the permanent AP count WLC, use the config redundancy unit secondary command to convert the controller into an HA-SKU secondary controller:

(Cisco Controller) >config redundancy unit secondary

(Cisco Controller) >

3- On the CLI, use the show redundancy summary command to view the status of the primary and secondary controllers:

Primary:

(Cisco Controller) >show redundancy summary

 Redundancy Mode = SSO DISABLED

     Local State = ACTIVE

      Peer State = N/A

            Unit = Primary

         Unit ID = F8:72:EA:66:B8:A0

Redundancy State = N/A

    Mobility MAC = F8:72:EA:66:B8:A0

Redundancy Management IP Address................. 0.0.0.0

Peer Redundancy Management IP Address............ 0.0.0.0

Redundancy Port IP Address....................... 0.0.0.0

Peer Redundancy Port IP Address.................. 169.254.0.0

Secondary:

(Cisco Controller) >show redundancy summary

 Redundancy Mode = SSO DISABLED

     Local State = ACTIVE

      Peer State = N/A

            Unit = Secondary - HA SKU

         Unit ID = F8:72:EA:66:E4:40

Redundancy State = N/A

    Mobility MAC = F8:72:EA:66:E4:40

Redundancy Management IP Address................. 0.0.0.0

Peer Redundancy Management IP Address............ 0.0.0.0

Redundancy Port IP Address....................... 0.0.0.0

Peer Redundancy Port IP Address.................. 169.254.0.0

As far as I can tell I have completed all the steps. In my configuration, “Redundancy Management IP Address” and “Peer Redundancy Management IP Address” are 0.0.0.0; these are the only differences I can find with the configuration in the Guide.

Redundancy Management IP Address................. 0.0.0.0

Peer Redundancy Management IP Address............ 0.0.0.0

Thank you.

Joana.

[Joana Manzano]

Hi,

I would like to confirm that the configuration above works fine in case someone wants to deploy N+1 HA-SKU with 8510 WLC. I had some network issues unrelated with the configuration above; that was the reason why it wasn't working before.

However, I realised that APs don't fall back to the primary controller when it is operational again. Is this the normal behaviour? Is it possible to configure some type of "preemption"?

Thank you.

Joana.

[Scott Fella · Accepted solution]

AP's falling back depends on if you configured the access point with a primary, secondary and or tertiary WLC.  If the high avilability on the AP is blank, then there will be no falling back to the primary.  AP fallback also needs to be enabled on both controllers.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless-mobility/wireless-lan-wlan/69639-wlc-failover.html

-Scott

[Joana Manzano]

Great! it is doing the fall back now.

Thanks a lot.

Joana.

[Scott Fella]

No problem.  Glad to help.

-Scott

[Jaccobbchoi]

Hi Scott Fella,

I have a question regarding N+1. I tried to do this on a LAB Environment. When the AP moves to the N+1 Controller, the admin status of the Access Point becomes disabled on the N+1 controller. Is this normal ? Thanks in advanced.

[Scott Fella]

That is not normal. You need to maybe look at your AP Group configuration if using one.  The HA controller needs to be configured with wlans, etc as the confine don't sync with N+1.

-Scott

[Jaccobbchoi]

There is no AP groups configured. Do you mean AP Group configuration = FlexConnect Group? I configured both Controller identical to each other including wlans and flexconnect group. please see below logs from the AP.

[Jaccobbchoi]

Hey Scott,

Thanks! Found the problem. The country code is not present on the other controller.

Cheers.