Best practice EWC - Multiple EWC same location

[Fred SM]

Hi, 

I am looking for some assistance / input.
currently I am working for a IT Company as a Network Engineer.
Myself and my team are not overly fond of the EWC, but the sales guys keep selling them. (I'm aware there's nothing wrong with them and it's primarily lack of knowledge)
When we ask the sales guys they say that EWC works best with other EWC and thus all APs in a EWC network should be/run EWC.
Last time I worked with 4 EWC APs was an absolute nightmare and since then I would rather not have more than 1 EWC on the network unless it's big enough to warrant a HA setup.

So I suppose my question is: What is best practice?
Say you have 2 APs in a small office, should they both be EWCs or?
What about 5-10 APs?

I'm aware, from the FAQ, that they are well capable of both connecting to the primary controller, but when we've set it up, they've kinda been fighting over who's primary every time there was a power outage. is that lack of knowledge / proper setup?

I've been told that I can just convert it to CAPWAP, which is fine... but if that's the solution, why buy it with EWC to begin with if the customer already has one?

I am full of questions here, as may be noticable.

Any advise/feedback is greatly appreciated!

/Fred

[balaji.bandi · Accepted solution]

Best practice  - My view is, how businesses want to spend money, and how businesses looks for availability.

1 EWC- if that fails Business stop working, is this acceptable ? If yes that is best - if no, you neet Active and Standby (2EWC AP) rest all be member of AP.

EWC can not replace 100% of Full Controller like Cat 9800.

So I suppose my question is: What is best practice?  - I have answered my way - cisco way always make it HA.
Say you have 2 APs in a small office, should they both be EWCs or? - YES nothing wrong 2 EWC one act as Active/Standby. so no service interruption.
What about 5-10 APs?   - For this I sure suggest 2 EWC Active /Standby

I've been told that I can just convert it to CAPWAP, which is fine... but if that's the solution, why buy it with EWC to begin with if the customer already has one?  - sure why not if the AP capable of EWC (most of the Cat 9K are EWC for information)

[Fred SM]

For financial reasons they will not be going for a Cat 9800.
Okay, so your optionion of best practice in a 2 AP situation is both EWC HA/Redundancy setup? And if they don't want redundancy? Like Marce1000 says below: "If not configuring redundancy then only use one EWC ap , convert the others to CAPWAP mode" would that not be the better option?

I found your reply extremely helpful and greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

[marce1000]

                                - Besides other reply , (future) scaling considerations are also a factor :
          From : https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/catalyst-9800-series-wireless-controllers/q-and-a-c67-743152.html

Q.  What are the scale limits for the Embedded Wireless Controller on Catalyst Access Points?

A.  The Cisco Catalyst 9105AXI, 9115AX, and 9117AX Series Access Points running the EWC support up to 50 access points and 1000 clients. The Catalyst 9120AX and Catalyst 9130AX Series running the EWC support up to 100 access points and 2000 clients.

  Redundancy options are also limited to VRRP based solution(s) only : https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/ewc/17-7/config-guide/ewc_cg_17_7/m_ewc_high_availability.pdf

                If not configuring redundancy then only use one EWC ap , convert the others to CAPWAP mode ,

 M.

[Scott Fella · Accepted solution]

This is my 2 cents.  EWC is a good option if you don't want to have a dedicated controller.  Like any other technology, you and your team needs to be comfortable supporting it, just like with your switches and routers, etc.  One option I like is if you have small offices, you can always look at the 9800-CL that can be in the public cloud or on hardware running vmware or hyper-v.  This way you can now manage the access points from a controller and not worry so much on the EWC.  If your sales folks keep pushing you the EWC and its not working for you, maybe its time to look for a partner that understands your needs and can help you through your implementations successfully.  

[Fred SM]

I completely agree. I would be the consulting having to set it up, but the operations part of my team would also have to support it. And we all have bad experience with EWCs - Especially when there's more than one. 

I/we will always suggest a 9800 WLC / vWLC, no doubt. but smaller customers with 1 or 2 AP's might not want to invest in such a controller since the pricing is significantly different from EWC APs.
Again, EWC is a great idea and works wonderful I'm sure, but we just have incredibly bad experience with it.

Thank you for your input and your opinion. It is greatly appreciated! 

[Rich R]

I would agree with having an active and standby for resilience and all the rest just CAPWAP, not even EWC capable, because they have a nasty habit of unexpectedly going active when they shouldn't.  As I've suggested on other posts I find even using the "convert to capwap using CLI" isn't very reliable so I'd recommend removing the EWC software completely by re-flashing using the recovery software https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless/catalyst-9120axi-access-point/217537-repairing-c9120-c9115-access-points-from.html  and then installing the CAPWAP image.  That's the only way I've found that guarantees they cannot become EWC again.

Presume you've had a thorough read through https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/embedded-wireless-controller-catalyst-access-points/white-paper-c11-743398.html#EWCHAactiveandstandby and https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/ewc/17-9/config-guide/ewc_cg_17_9/m_ewc_high_availability.html

[Fred SM · Accepted solution]

"convert to capwap using CLI" isn't very reliable so I'd recommend removing the EWC software completely by re-flashing using the recovery software https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless/catalyst-9120axi-access-point/217537-repairing-c9120-c9115-access-points-from.html  and then installing the CAPWAP image.  That's the only way I've found that guarantees they cannot become EWC again.
^^ This is what I've found as well. Which is also why I'm saying that I don't really think you should by EWC for the sake of having EWC since they can also run capwap. We've found work around, but no gurantees that it stays that way.


Presume you've had a thorough read through https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/embedded-wireless-controller-catalyst-access-points/white-paper-c11-743398.html#EWCHAactiveandstandby and https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/ewc/17-9/config-guide/ewc_cg_17_9/m_ewc_high_availability.html
That would be a correct presumption. I just didn't fine any specific answers to my query and as I have a sales guy to convince I was hoping to get some direct answers / ideas / opinions here. Which I did.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to read and reply to my query. It is very much appreciated,.

[Rich R]

Agreed @Fred SM so buy standard CAPWAP and if you need EWC then you can convert only the APs which you want to be EWCs.