Can HA be configured for standby enabled with evaluation licenses?

[Muhammed Adnan]

Hello Experts,

I have two 5508 WLCs. One with 50 licenses and the other with 0 licenses. 

As for HA configuration, the requirement of the box to be configured as standby is to be available with 50 licenses, I am planning to enable evaluation licenses on the box with 0 licenses and configure it as standby. Assuming once HA pair is formed, the licenses on primary(50 licenses) would be obtained by standby. Please suggest if this is going to work. 

If not, please suggest any viable solution for letting me proceed with existing devices(1 device with 50 licenses and the other device with 0 license).

Thanks,

Adnan

[Prakash Parvathala · Accepted solution]

Licensing for HA Pair

HA Pair can be established between two WLCs running in these combinations:

•One WLC has a valid AP Count license and the other WLC has a HA SKU UDI
•Both the WLCs have a valid AP Count license
•One WLC has an Evaluation license and the other WLC has a HA SKU UDI or Permanent license

One WLC has an Evaluation license and the other WLC has a HA SKU UDI or Permanent license

•The device with HA SKU becomes the Standby WLC the first time it pairs up with an existing Active WLC running Evaluation License. Or, any WLC running a permanent license count can be configured as the Secondary unit using the CLI configuration provided if it satisfies the requirement of minimum permanent license count. This condition is only valid for the 5500 WLC, where a minimum of 50 AP Permanent licenses are needed to be converted to Standby. There is no restriction for other WLCs such as the WiSM2, 7500, and 8500.

•AP-count license information will be pushed from Active to Standby.

•In the event of a switchover, the new Active WLC will operate with the license count of the previous Active WLC and start the 90-day countdown.

•After 90-days, it starts nagging messages. It will not disconnect connected APs.

•With new the WLC coming up, HA SKU at the time of paring will get the AP Count:
 
  –If the new WLC has a higher AP count than the previous, the 90-day counter is reset.
 
  –If the new WLC has a lower AP count than the previous, the 90-day counter is not reset.
 
  –After switchover to a lower AP count, the WLC offset timer will continue and nagging messages will be displayed after time expiry.

Please look into the HA deployment guide for more information

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/technotes/7-5/High_Availability_DG.pdf