FlexConnect a WLAN on only a few APs

[Matt Glosson]

Greetings. We have about 300 APs at our central site, and 14 remote offices with 1-5 APs each. We have FlexConnect configured on the branch APs so the data and voice WLANs are switched locally, but the Guest WLAN access flows through the 5508 controllers at the main office. Every branch has guest access.

One branch, however, has a unique requirement. We want to drop off the Guest WLAN locally, because they have a large amount of guest users and a fast local Internet connection we want to leverage. My concern is that if I enable FlexConnect on the guest WLAN, it will make it locally switched on all the branch APs. 

The part that's giving me pause is when I go into WIRELESS > All APs > myAP > FlexConnect > VLAN Mappings. There you can map the WLAN ID to the VLAN ID, which we have configured now. Below that is the list of Centrally switched Wlans, where those that are not set as FlexConnect show up and the VLAN ID is N/A. This is currently where Guest is. If I go to WLANs > myWLAN-ID > Advanced and scroll down to FlexConnect, and select FlexConnect, won't that invoke the locally-switched functionality of all my APs that have the FlexConnect feature enabled? which would break guest connectivity at every branch except one.

Is there a way to accomplish what I'm wanting? I looked at FlexConnect Groups, but what does that do with a WLAN that's set for FlexConnect-able, but not defined in the WLAN-VLAN mappings in the group?

Thanks

[Rasika Nayanajith]

I would use a slightly different guest SSID for that branch and make it Local switching.

If you make existing guest SSID, local switching, that will affect all other branches

HTH

Rasika

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[Matt Glosson]

Unfortunately by default it will go to all the APs in the whole organization unless I fiddle with AP groups, right? I already have some AP groups for various other purposes, but most of the APs are in "default" which doesn't let you remove a WLAN. So to supply this one small location (3 APs) with a unique guest SSID, there is a whole lot of messing around going on. Am I right?

[jturner2720 · Accepted solution]

Firstly, I'd try and move away from using the default AP group.

The other point is that the default AP group only contains wlans with an ID of 16 or less. If you create your new SSID with an ID >16 it won't be broadcast on the default group APs, just those you select.

My understanding is that whether a wlan is flexconnected or not is a per-controller setting, not something you can set per-AP.

[Matt Glosson]

Wow, that's awesome. I will mention, for posterity, that I confirmed your assertion concerning IDs greater than 16 in the default-group here. I just implemented a new SSID with ID 55 tied to an AP and FlexConnect group. Thanks also to Rasika Nayanajith for suggesting the additional "special" guest SSID. Using a combination of those two suggestions, I have exactly what I wanted.