Cisco 9800-CL reloading when moved with ESX/VmWare vMotion

[kenneth.gregersen]

Hi all

We have several clusters of Cisco Catalyst 9800-CL Wireless Controller (16.12.3) running on

From time to time we have seen uplanned reloads of the WLCs.

It turns out that the WLC reloads itself when the VMs are moved with vMotion.

According to Cisco this should (of course) not happen.

"Flexibility in deployment—You can easily move a VM from one server to another. Thus, you can move the controller from a server in one physical location to a server in another physical location without moving any hardware resources. "
(https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/9800/9800-cloud/installation/b-c9800-cl-install-guide/controller_overview.html(https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/9800/9800-cloud/installation/b-c9800-cl-install-guide/controller_overview.html)

Guest OS: Other 3.x or later Linux (64-bit)
Compatibility: ESXi 6.5 and later (VM version 13)
VMware Tools: Running, version:2147483647 (Guest Managed)

Anybody else seen this?

[Grendizer · Accepted solution]

That’s expected. Cold vmotion is supported but hot vmotion is not, meaning, it is supported if the 9800-CL VM powered off in the entire duration of migration.

There is “enhancement” bug for that CSCvw24185, check it here: https://bst.cloudapps.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCvw24185

[carstenlymann1]

I have experienced a couple of times now with 17.3.5c version, than when i shut down the active unit, vmware think its a good idea to reboot the standby unit before it should take over = 10-15min downtime on wifi... 

[Feds]

FYI
"VMware vSphere vMotion can be leveraged to migrate the C9800-CL VM from one host to the other without impact to the wireless network operations.  vMotion is officially supported on the C9800-CL as from release 17.9.2 ."

See:

• https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless/catalyst-9800-wireless-controllers-cloud/218438-verify-support-vmware-vsphere-vmotion-wi.html
• https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/catalyst-9800-cl-wireless-controller-cloud/nb-06-cat9800-cl-wirel-cloud-dep-guide-cte-en.html#Introduction

Not sure why 17.9.x Release Notes don't mention this in What's New for 17.9.2..
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/9800/17-9/release-notes/rn-17-9-9800.html 

We've successfully tested it on multiple deployments, implementing the recommended RP KA timer of 2-3 (x100ms).
Before this config most of the DRS migrations would cause either standby reload or failover.

HTH
Feds