Multiple location with same SSID.

[Stephen Carville]

I have a couple of 5508 wireless controllers installed and working as an HA pair.  I have DNS, DHCP and Radius all working with the controllers.  So far, so good.

Now I need to set it up so that different locations will use the same SSID.  For example:

Site one has 15 APs and will hand out addresses in the subnet 10.214.248.0/24.

Site two will have 8 APs and hand out addresses in the subnet 10.220.148.0/24.

The two sites are several miles apart and are connected via MPLS.

The requirement is that a device moved from one site to the other will see the same SSID and use the same PSK.  I've searched through the documentation but haven't found any hint of how to accomplish the above.

Can this even be done?

If yes, is there a document that describes the process?

[Prabath Godevithanage · Accepted solution]

Hi Stephen,

It can be achieved but leave you to work out pros and cons. What you would need to do is run the remote sites on FlexConnect mode where as your primary site can be either local mode or flexconnect mode(This is assuming you only have one set of controllers at the central site). Alternatively you also could have 2500 series baby controllers at your remote sites and run all the sites on local mode. former method is cost effective and feasible when considering traffic path but bit complex when it comes to the management.

Don't forget to work out the controller failure ,authentication, licensing, traffic scenarios. anyway the terms that you should search for are local mode and Flex connect mode. Here is an start for you .

Cheers

Prabath