Wireless Controller Backup Strategy

[nicole.hodges1]

Hi All

I've been tasked with the following:

Come up with a design that provides redundancy for wireless AP's, WLAN's and connected devices, so if the local WLC fails, the local AP's will automatically fail over to another regional* WLC. The local SSID's should still give local IP's to the devices

Can someone please answer me the following?

We have 32 sites, there is a WLC and dhcp server located at all of the sites except 2. In addition, we have redundant backup controllers in our central office configured in a SSO. Currently all APs in the region are configured with high availability with the primary onsite WLC and with the secondary WLC located in the central office.

My questions are:

1.In this scenario would you use flex connect mode for additional redundancy?

2. Also when the WLC goes down currently the APs will roam to the WLC located in our central office. When this occurs, the APs will give out IPs assigned by the dhcp sever associated to the SSID interface of the central WLC. Is there a way to have the APs give out local IPs?

[WiFi Trainers]

Hi Nicole,

To answer your second query there are two options you can use:

Option 1: Use flexconnect local switching on the SSID, so that when the AP's fail over to the secondary WLC they will still be able to get IP address from their local subnet. In this case your AP's need to be configured in flexconnect mode.

Option 2: The other option is if your secondary WLC has VLAN info of all local sites available. In this case you can assign the AP's in different AP groups with the necessary interfaces/VLAN so that they get IP address only from those. However if this is not the case option 1 is the way to go.

Best Regards,

www.wifitrainers.com

Learn from the Best To be the Best!

Change the way you look at wireless client connectivity forever by registering to watch this free webinar and also stand a chance to win our Wireless starter kit worth $8000 for free!!

[nicole.hodges1]

Thanks for your reply!  

Regarding option 1, I'm still trying to wrap my head around flexconnect.  I thought that flexconnect would only activate on the APs if the primary and secondary WLCs become unavailable?

[WiFi Trainers]

Hi Nicole,

Are you referring to flexconnect standalone mode? If so that is correct. Flexconnect AP's move into standalone mode when they are unable to get connected to their controller and will then serve clients on their own.

Best Regards,

www.wifitrainers.com

Learn from the Best To be the Best!