Cisco Migration from 9800-CL to C9800-80-K9 least downtime

[absuizo14]

Greetings,

Due to Cisco's ridiculously long delivery time, more than a year, we used a virtual controller for foreign and anchor inside 1 UCS. Now that the C9800-80-K9 are arriving we have to migrate the APs and 1 way we are looking at is to manually prime each AP to the new WLC, reasons for this is that the current APs associates with the vWLC through DHCP option 43 if we change the option 43 to the new WLC the APs might associate to the new WLC at the same time causing a major downtime. 

Is this the right approach or is there a better way for this to have the least downtime?

[Leo Laohoo]

Configure the secondary WLC details and then schedule a "downtime" (can be done with VM) and power down the vWLC.  Recommend doing this in the middle of the night to reduce impact. 

This should move the APs to the new controller. 

Next morning, just change the primary and secondary WLC details.  

[absuizo14]

This we cannot do. the site is an Integrated resort which means the casino, hotel and mall are operating 24 hours a day. this is one reason we are looking at priming APs 1 at a time because if 1 AP associates with the new WLC other APs will cover for it while its downloading config/image from the new WLC. 

[Leo Laohoo]

Admin disable the AP (so it will not be client serving) and move the APs to the other controller one by one. 

Make sure the vWLC and the new WLC are on the same code and have the same SMU, APDP, APSP.

[MHM Cisco World]

Try use AP priority and config max ap 

This give you only high priority will join wlc and since config max ap numbet other low priority will not join.

Try.

[Arshad Safrulla · Accepted solution]

Run around the site with sidekick and make sure that you capture the AP names and it's existing coverage patterns. Identify the AP's which you can afford a downtime, and make sure that when this selected AP is removed that another AP is providing coverage. Once selected you can plan your migration process.

Before the migration;

1. Make sure 9800-80 runs the exact same code as 9800-CL, for 9800-80 you must upgrade the ROMMON as well. If you are running any Service packs make sure that you install it in 9800-80 as well.

2. Configure the 9800-80, you can copy and paste most of the wireless related config from 9800-CL but make sure that the interfaces and the WLC general settings are properly configured 9800-80. Try to register few spare AP's and test all the possible scenarios.

3. Configure a mobility tunnel between 9800-CL and 9800-80

4. Configure the RRM settings, common Mobility/RF group name is mandatory so clints can roam between WLC's seamlessly. Also this will make sure that there is a common RF plan across the controllers and also prevent one controller from flagging an AP registered to another as rogue.

5. If AP tag persistency is enabled in the existing code this step is not required. Otherwise you need to Download the AP's and it's tags from the 9800-CL and upload it to the 9800-80 or write the tag config to each AP.

6. Migrating the AP can be done in multiple ways.

 - Configure the Primary WLC in the AP, if you have the list of AP's you can do via existing WLC CLI.

 - Use Cisco Prime to move the AP's between WLC's.

 - Create a new AP management VLAN in the switches and configure option 43 to point to new WLC WMI. Then at the time of the migration change the switchport vlan and bounce the port. 

[absuizo14]

Is it possible to download the config from the 9800-CL and load it to the 9800-80 and just change the ip addresses prior to patching it to the network?

[Arshad Safrulla]

You cannot download qnd upload it directly as the interface naming in 9800-CL and 9800-80 is different. So you need to do some manual config or if you know what you are doing you can use a text editor to find and replace.
Most of the wireless config you can copy and paste directly. Still keep an eye on the terminal while doing this to catch errors if there is any.