Best Practice: Prepare 2 brandnew 8540 WLCs for HA (migration from WiSM2 wlcs)

[ciscoprolin]

Dear community,

we plan to replace our 2 old active WiSM2 WLCs (no HA - both active) to replace by 2 new 8540 WLCs. In the new enviroment we plan to run the 2 WLCs in the HA mode. What would be the best way to go ?

Would the following way be fine ?

1. configure new Primary 5840 with same config (like old WiSM2's) and lift to desired sw Level (in our case 8.2.160.0)

2. only base-config Secondary 8540 WLC (go through Setup Wizard Steps like Mgmt IP etc..) and also upgrade to sw Version 8.2.160.0

3. Configure HA on both WLCs -> Secondary WLC will as a result copy the same config as the Primary WLC

Thanks,

Thorsten

[Rasika Nayanajith]

I would set up new 8540 HA pair with basic config (new IP) on 8.2MR6. Then configure WLANs to match existing setup.

Then point APs to 8540 using DHCP option 43 or DNS.

HTH

Rasika
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[biaacer2]

1. Upgrade both controllers to 8.2.160 (8540s). 

2. Import the configuration of your old WiSM2 to your new 8540 (Only needed for the Primary Unit)

Note: You can use this tool to convert your configuration from WiSM2 to 8540.

https://cway.cisco.com/tools/WirelessConfigConverter/

3. Enable HA, reboot both controllers. 

Don't forget to tag the management vlan.