9300 As a Central WLC For Remote Sites.

[mvanderlijn]

Hello,

Is there a way for a catalyst 9300-48U to act as a WLC for an AP at remote site B? Currently, we have the embedded WLC running on the DC-Switch (please see the DC-Switch for its current configuration) and I want that to be the primary WLC for both Remote Site A and B. Currently, we have an access point directly connected to the DC-Switch and that is operational.

However, I would like an AP at both remote sites to connect WLC. The problem is that the Access Points are sending out a broadcast for discovery and the DC-Switch is not replying. This is probably due to the AP onboarding VLAN 2045. Is there a way to extend the VLAN 2045 to the remote sites? As a side note, we are not running DNA Center.

The devices are as follows:

DC-Switch Catalyst 9300-48u

Remote B Switch Catalyst 9300-48u

DC-ISR 4451

Remote-B-ISR 4451

ISP-Switch 3750 POE-48

Thanks

[Flavio Miranda]

You can run WLC on 9300.  

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/catalyst-9800-series-wireless-controllers/guide-c07-744299.html 

You dont need to extend the vlan to remote site. What you need to do is add DHCP option 43 on the scope for vlan 2045. This way, when the AP get its IP address, it will get also the WLC IP address and join using layer 3 communication. 

For redundancy, you can have WLC on the DC and remote site. 

[mvanderlijn]

Hello Flavio,

The AP has the controller statically assigned. The problem is with the AP onboarding that it needs the VLAN 2045 tag. I want to extend the 2nd layer so that it has this tag.

Thanks

[Flavio Miranda]

The AP can have two or more WLC statically assigned. But, this is for AP already joined. I was reffering to new APs. 

[Rich R]

No that is not supported - EWC is only for local APs.  Also EWC on 9300 is end of life. 

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/catalyst-9800-series-wireless-controllers/guide-c07-744299.html

"As part of mode consolidation Embedded Wireless on Catalyst 9000 Series Switch (non-SDA) using WebUI will be End of Support (Q3FY21) with no additional feature development or code changes and 17.3.x is the last supported release."

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/catalyst-9800-series-wireless-controllers/guide-c07-744299.html

"The connections between the EWC and the external edge nodes as well as between any intermediate switches need to be Layer 2 connections with the appropriate VLAN trunking between them."

So yes you could make it work by bridging your VLAN to those remote sites but that really isn't recommended and not how it's intended to work.

You could run EWC on AP at the remote sites.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/catalyst-9800-series-wireless-controllers/nb-06-cat9800-ser-wirel-faq-ctp-en.html#CiscoEmbeddedWirelessControllerEWConCatalystAccessPoints