Dear community,
When configuring WLCs HA in SSO, is the AP base count permanent licence 𝐢𝐧𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 from the primary WLC if the standby WLC is not an HA SKU (𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 3500 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬)? Is it required to purchase additional license for secondary WLC?
Cisco's official documentation is a bit confusing for this design from the following three sections :
1) Configure one WLC as Primary (by default, the WLC HA Unit ID is Primary and should have a valid AP-BASE count license installed) and another WLC as Secondary (A𝐏 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐖𝐋𝐂 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭).
2) 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐟 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐇𝐀 𝐒𝐊𝐔 that can be ordered from release 7.3 onwards. A factory ordered HA SKU is a default Secondary unit, and will take the role of the Standby WLC the first time it is paired with an Active WLC that has a valid AP Count License.
3) If you want to convert any existing WLC as a Standby WLC, do so using the config redundancy unit secondary command in the CLI. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐂𝐋𝐈 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐋𝐂 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐚𝐬 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐛𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐧𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭. This condition is only valid for the 5508 WLC, where a minimum of 50 AP Permanent licenses are needed to be converted to Standby. There is no restriction for other WLCs such as the 5520, 𝐖𝐢𝐒𝐌2, 7500, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 8500.
𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/technotes/8-7/High_Availability_DG.html#:~:text=The%20new%20High%20Availability%20%28HA%29%20feature%20%28that%20is%2C,of%20the%20AP%20database%20with%20the%20Standby%20WLC.
