Wireless AP's preferring VM controller over Local 9800

[RGilbert]

Option 43 is what we are using to join.  All of my access points are joining the VM WLC and not the local.  Could it be a route issue?  The new controller and the VM have IP's in same subnet.  Just curious if it is a shorter path for the AP's and they are getting to VM "first".  this is a large upgrade and would love not to kick the AP's one at a time. 

[marce1000]

 - This configuration is not recommended , you should only have the 9800 in the particular same subnet as the AP's

 M.

[RGilbert]

They are.  Are you saying they should be the only WLC's the AP's can join?  

[marce1000]

      - No I am saying that the vwlc  should not be in that same subnet too.

 M.

[Scott Fella]

If aps are joining the wrong controller, you need to re-look at how you are doing a discovery. I can have multiple controllers in various locations, but I can also help aps discover the right controller. You can also console into an ap to see how it is discovering the wrong controller and remediate that. Maybe option 43 is not created/working properly and the AP’s has discovered the controller through DNS or maybe local broadcast, don’t know. However, you need to determine how your aps are discovering the controller first.

[RGilbert]

Thanks Scott, we had the WLC's in parallel during change and AP's kept joining VM.  Manually kicking over 100 is a little annoying.  I will be getting this together and will let the forum know what I see.  Thank you again.  

[Scott Fella · Accepted solution]

When you bring up controllers, it’s always best to make sure you define the high availability for each access point. This way the ap knows which one it should join. Later on, you just reconfigure the AP’s high availability to move the ap to the other controller. I use this method almost 100% of the time. You can build a script to send the commands via cli which makes it easy.