Redundancy using vWLC and physical 5508

[Patrick_McD]

Our customer has two virtual wireless LAN controllers configured as primary and secondary - this is a new centralized environment but hasn't any AP's associated yet. As part of a migration from a legacy environment, we need to move the APs from a 5508 controller onto the vWLCs.
Question is, is it possible to introduce the physical 5508 as a tertiary controller to this new virtual environment, (then migrate the APs site by site from the physical to the primary vWLC)? We are aware of issues around older APs associating with the vWLC. Thanks 

[Flavio Miranda · Accepted solution]

Hi,

 As a HA it  is not possible, you may know that. Which is possible is on the AP configuration page, under Availability  you configure up to three WLC (Primary, Secondary and Tertiary)  then, you can put the Physical WLC as the Tertiary.

 I know you are aware that but really make sure that  those AP is supported by the vWLC software. 

 On the following link you can find all the possible combinations:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/compatibility/matrix/compatibility-matrix.html

-If I helped you somehow, please, rate it as useful.-

[Patrick_McD]

Thank you. That has given me some clarity.

[patoberli]

Also, as far as I remember, as soon as you select the other WLC as primary controller and apply, the AP will switch to the new primary. So make sure to do this in a maintenance window. If the old and new controllers don't run the same software version, they will also immediatly start with a softwareupdate on the switch to the new primary controller.

[Patrick_McD]

Thanks, good point... Yip all will be running the same code

[Freerk Terpstra · Accepted solution]

Unless you are using AireOS 8.5 your N+1 configuration with two vWLCs won't work. Using just one vWLC and one (or multiple) physical WLCs does work with older versions of code. AireOS 8.5 needs to be considered early adopter code, so you need to perform extensive testing before going to production.

Using the vWLC requires having all the access-points in Flex-Connect mode with local-switching. Due to this the vWLC might not be a feasible successor for the current 5508, unless local-switching is already used you will need to make changes on the wired side as well.

Please rate useful posts... :-)

[Patrick_McD]

Thanks. This is very helpful.