AP migration from traditional to SDA

[aleopoldie]

Hello team,

I have a concern regarding the migration from traditional network to SDA, especially for the wireless part.

This will be a full migration as we have 9k switches and 9k APs that we will convert to SDA. We have the 2 border / control plane nodes running in parallel of the traditional network.

For wireless, we have a cluster of 2 x 9800-40 already configured in SSO and fabric mode and also running in parallel of the traditional network. All AP's are currently associated with another traditional 9800-CL. 

The only devices we will have to migrate are the access switches to edge nodes and AP's to fabric AP's.

The plan was to migrate all the wired part first, while keeping the AP's in OTT, part of INFRA_VN and associated with the traditional WLCs, meaning the APs would be associated with the new AP IP Pool of the INFRA_VN with option 43 towards the traditional WLCs.

I had a look at the following document:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/cloud-systems-management/network-automation-and-management/dna-center/tech_notes/b_ap_migration_from_traditional_wireless_to_sda_fabric.html#migrate-local-mode-aps

In the 2nd scenario they mention we have to create 2 temporary buildings, 1 for OTT and 1 for Fabric. But I'm a bit confusing:

- Do we have to configure all the existing traditional SSIDs as OTT on the Catalyst Center ?

- Why does the fabric building should be temporary as the goal is to run with WLANs in Fabric only?

- Then should we just go on the traditional WLCs, select an AP, configure the IP address of the fabric WLC and repeat the process for all other AP's, floor by floor for roaming purposes ?

Regards,

AL

[Simon Blomqvist · Accepted solution]

If you're not managing the non-fabric 9800 and it's SSID in DNAC, there is no need to add the non-fabric/OTT SSIDs to catalyst center. If the SSIDs are already configured and the APs are connected and working, no need to do anything. 

No need to create a temporary building, the non-fabric WLC is already working right? So all that is needed is for the APs to be able to communicate with the WLC again after switches become fabric and it will work like before.

What I would do is to have a service window and migrate all APs at the same time. Assign their static primary WLC as the new fabric WLC, you can do this easily for all APs by preparing the commands for all APs in notepad/excel and copy/paste it in CLI. Once all APs move over to the new WLC they will show up in DNAC (might have to do a refresh in DNAC to speed it up), then you can provision the APs. Make sure that a non-default route exist for the fabric WLC in the fabric and don't forget to change op43 to the fabric WLC.

[aleopoldie]

Hello Simon,

Thank you for your feedback. That's great, what you mentioned is our action plan.

The non-fabric WLC is already working.

First step will be to migrate all access switches into edge nodes so all AP's will get an IP address from the new IP Pool in the INFRA_VN with option 43 to the non-fabric WLC. SDA fabric is just a basic transit for the AP's at this step,

Second step will be, once all edge nodes will be up and ready, to migrate all AP's at once with the new fabric WLC.

Regards,