Configuring VLANs on Cisco 9800-CL Conroler in Azure

[jmorton1]

We have spun up the Cisco Catalyst 9800-CL Wireless Controller from the Marketplace in Azure. We have tried both the virtual machine ad the virtual application, and in both instances, when you ted to add VLAN under the Layer 2 > VLAN > VLAN page, the page gets stuck loading. I did "inspect element" and this is what came up. (I have redacted the private IP addresses) Has anyone else ran into this? I can file a case if needed. Thank you.

[marce1000]

 - I don't think that's possible ; the 9800-CL in the cloud based solutions only support flexconnect local switching ; and so all vlans must be available local to the APs and their connections, 

 M.

[jmorton1]

We are using flexconnect local switching with flex profiles that have VLANs defined on them. However, it appears we have to have those defined at the top level under layer 2 and not just on the flex profiles. That is how our VMWare-based WLC currently works.

[marce1000]

 - Not sure what you mean by that , the only thing I can say is that the local VMWare-based WLC can have VLANs , the virtual controller in the cloud can not ,

 M.

[jmanzanera]

You can configure L2 VLANS on WLC9800-CL only for name the vlans to be pushed to the APs.
Did you try to configure it using CLI instead of GUI?

[jmorton1]

I was able to create the VLANs o the flex profiles, but it does not allow me to set up VLANs under the same context as the SVIs in CLI. If I try to type "vlan" while under the configuration menu, then it is not recognized.

[jmanzanera]

Strange,

i tried to my wlc9800-CL lab and I can see the option is there

wlc9800(config)#vlan ?
  WORD           ISL VLAN IDs 1-4094
  accounting     VLAN accounting configuration
  configuration  vlan feature configuration mode
  group          Create a vlan group
  internal       internal VLAN

vlc9800(config)#vlan 

In this case the WLC9800-CL is on GCP cloud, however, not sure if you can run the same on the Azure. Maybe Azure WLC9800-CL is limited on this 
On the other hand, I found this article on Reddit : https://www.reddit.com/r/Cisco/comments/vxbzmq/cant_create_vlans_on_azure_built_cisco_wlc_9800/?rdt=57643 pointing to Cisco documentation https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless/catalyst-9800-series-wireless-controllers/213921-flexconnect-configuration-with-central-a.pdf where VLAN can be only created for Flex, but no layer 2 is possible.

I hope this clarify your request.

[Rich R]

> However, it appears we have to have those defined at the top level under layer 2 and not just on the flex profiles.
In fact the VLANs don't even need to be defined at all - you can just reference them by number (VLAN ID) and they'll work.  Defining them in the flex profiles allows you to reference them by name.  They are definitely not required at WLC global level at all - those are only for SVIs on WLC.