Cisco 5508 Wireless Controller - High Availability Deployment

[ciscobigcat]

Can anyone help me answer some questions regarding the deployment of 2 WLCs? We have 2 Cisco 5508 and we already the HA ready. One main questions we have is if it is possible to deploy one controller in 1 site (SiteA) and deploy the other one at another site (SiteB) and still configure them for high availability? Is this possible?

[Trent Hurt · Accepted solution]

You need 7.5 for this enhancement

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/controller/release/notes/crn75.html

High Availability enhancements:

–Redundancy  ports can operate over a Layer 2 connection (multiple intermediate  switches or routers). Therefore, a direct connection is not required.

–A  client stateful switchover (SSO) across geographical locations is  supported. Clients that are not in Run state are removed after the  switchover. During a stateful switchover of a client (client SSO), the  information of the client is synchronized with the standby controller  when the client associates with the controller, or is configured.  Clients that are fully authenticated, that is, clients that are in the  Run state, are synchronized with the peer controller. The data  structures of clients are synchronized based on the client state.  Clients that are in a transient state are dissociated after a  switchover.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/wireless/ps6302/ps8322/ps10315/qa_c67-714540_ps2706_Products_Q_and_A_Item.html

Q. Can my secondary wireless LAN controller for stateful switchover be placed in another data center?

A. The 7.5 release allows you to deploy the secondary controller in the  Layer 2 adjacent separated environment from the primary controller so  that they share the management IP address.

The following topologies are supported:

•  Two 5508, 7500, or 8500 models connected via back-to-back route  processor (RP) port in the same data center (similar to releases 7.3 and  7.4)

• Two 5508, 7500, or 8500 models connected via the RP port over Layer 2 VLAN/fiber in the same or different data centers

• Two 5508, 7500, or 8500 models connected to a virtual switching system (VSS) pair.

Note: If supervisor failover in VSS is triggered, it is recommended that you  configure peer search time on the active HA pair controllers to 180  seconds. This is because it takes about 120 to 130 seconds for the line  card to come up after a supervisor failover in VSS.

[ciscobigcat]

Hi Trent,

Thank you for the input. Do you also have some links for configuration examples for deploying the controllers in HA but in different sites?

[Trent Hurt · Accepted solution]

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/controller/technotes/7.5/High_Availability_DG.html

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[ciscobigcat]

Hi Trent, those links are very helpful.

Would you have a link about a quick setup on 5508 controllers? I'm still digging all this info. The multiple use of IPs is what it is initially is giving us some good readings to-do.

The use of multiple VLANs/Networks is the challenge as we would like to do it in the best way possible, meaning we want to follow best practive and if we have to assing multiple VLANs for this, we will want to go this route. thank you for the help