Mobility express controller supports only 25 APs?

[Paulo Colomes]

Hello everyone,

We've recently bought 30 AIR-CAP1602I-A-K9 APs and 2  AIR-AP2802I-A-K9 APs to use as redundant controllers. When we deployed the network we've realized that many APs remained at the "Not Joined" status and if I check the configuration on the controller I get this:

---

(Cisco Controller) >show running-config

Notice: "show running-config" has been changed to be an alias to "show run-config".

Use "show run-config commands" to display the configuration commands.

Press Enter to continue or <Ctrl-Z> to abort...

System Inventory

NAME: "Chassis"    , DESCR: "Cisco Aironet 2800 Series Mobility Express"

PID: AIR-AP2802I-A-K9,  VID: 8.3.112.0,  SN: FGL2044A9CN

Burned-in MAC Address............................ 00:2A:10:C9:D3:40

Maximum number of APs supported.................. 25

Press Enter to continue or <ctrl-z> to abort

---

Why the maximum number of APs supported is 25?? Before buying the APs I went to the Cisco website for 2800 APs series  (http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/aironet-2800-series-access-points/datasheet-c78-736497.html) and there it is clearly explained that the maximum number of supported APs is 100:

Cisco Mobility Express

Flexible deployment mode through the Cisco Mobility Express Solution is ideal for medium-sized deployments and can support up to 100 access points. Easy setup allows the 2800 Series Access Points to be deployed on networks without a physical controller.

Thank you.

[jonathan.cuthbert]

You have to be on code version 8.4 to support 100 APs. 

This code has not been released, but it will be very soon. 

[Paulo Colomes]

Hi [@jonathan.cuthbert1] . Thanks for the quick answer. That's good and bad news at the same time. Good because if that's true, then our problem will be solved very soon (do you have an estimated time when this will be released?) and bad because that's it means Cisco is announcing features which are not yet available and that leads to misleading information. Before buying these APs (not really the cheapest thing of the world) we took the precaution of looking at the official website to be 100% sure of the available features of the device and not having problems at the time of implementation. Sadly, if what you tell is true, then we cannot be sure again of the features available on brand new Cisco devices.

[jonathan.cuthbert · Accepted solution]

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/access_point/mob_exp/84/release_notes/b_ME_RN_84.html#new-changed-ftr

8.4 was released on May, 19 2017.  Sorry about the confusion.  I missed it this weekend.

I do not believe that APs are shipping with that code.  You will need to manually update and you should bee good to go.  :-)