WLC 5508 * 2 & Mobility Group

huzaif · ‎11-28-2014

What I am trying to configure is Mobility Groups.

My understanding is that this will allow AP to successfully register and fail over over seamlessly if any of the WLC had to fail ?

It could be I am confusing two things into one & I am totally confused and not understanding the benefits of mobility group mentioned above.

Also when a AP starts up and registers with the WLC ......I click on a registered AP > High Availability ( Primary / Sec / Tertiary ) all fields are blank...

Initially I also thought that once my SSO is all setup and working than those options "AP > High Availability" will get populated automatically but clearly not unless something is not working.

My current config is as follows:-

WLC 5508 * 2

WLC 1 - Primary

WLC 2 - HA SKU (Secondary )

Redundancy = SSO (Both AP and Client SSO)

=============

(Cisco Controller) >show sysinfo

Manufacturer's Name.............................. Cisco Systems Inc.
Product Name..................................... Cisco Controller
Product Version.................................. 7.6.130.0
Bootloader Version............................... 1.0.20
Field Recovery Image Version..................... 7.6.101.1
Firmware Version................................. FPGA 1.7, Env 1.8, USB console 2.2
Build Type....................................... DATA + WPS

System Name...................................... WLC5508
System Location..................................
System Contact...................................
System ObjectID.................................. 1.3.6.1.4.1.9.1.1069
Redundancy Mode.................................. SSO (Both AP and Client SSO)
IP Address....................................... 10.31.66.21
Last Reset....................................... Software reset
System Up Time................................... 0 days 22 hrs 39 mins 57 secs
System Timezone Location......................... (GMT) London, Lisbon, Dublin, Edinburgh
System Stats Realtime Interval................... 5
System Stats Normal Interval..................... 180

Configured Country............................... GB - United Kingdom
Operating Environment............................ Commercial (0 to 40 C)

--More-- or (q)uit
Internal Temp Alarm Limits....................... 0 to 65 C
Internal Temperature............................. +38 C
External Temperature............................. +21 C
Fan Status....................................... OK

State of 802.11b Network......................... Enabled
State of 802.11a Network......................... Enabled
Number of WLANs.................................. 1
Number of Active Clients......................... 0

Burned-in MAC Address............................ F8:72:EA:EE:5B:B2
Power Supply 1................................... Present, OK
Power Supply 2................................... Absent
Maximum number of APs supported.................. 500

============================================

TA

Ala Shehadeh · ‎11-28-2014

TA,

Mobility and mobility groups are used for the wireless users roaming. What we know that a wireless users can roam between different APs within the same WLC, but when the SSID is used within multiple WLCs, and the client wanted to roam to an AP joined to another WLC, you would need to configure WLC mobility to maintain seamless roaming. For more info:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-0/configuration-guide/b_cg80/b_cg80_chapter_010001101.html

Now, I understand that your purpose is to have high availability for your APs. No this is done traditionally from the AP page, under HA tab, where you configure the WLCs names and IPs there. This can be done manually on each AP (you can use CLI to make it easier) or you can push a configuration template using a management server (WCS/NCS/CPI).

Configuring HA on the AP:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-0/configuration-guide/b_cg80/b_cg80_chapter_01110000.html

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-0/configuration-guide/b_cg80/b_cg80_chapter_01110001.html

Using CPI to push AP configuration templates:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/prime_infrastructure/2-0/configuration/guide/pi_20_cg/temp.html

Now mobility may play a role in this, as if you have already configured mobility for your WLCs, then you won't need to configure a "name" for the WLCs when you add them under the HA tab in AP configuration page. That's it.

BR, Ala

huzaif · ‎12-01-2014

So basically the way I understand it is I don't need to worry about the HA setup under AP as I have AP SSO configured as the configuration is in sync.

As for Mobility group that is used for client roaming between AP correct ?

So the users on this network I am setting up will be roaming between rooms / buildings so does that mean I need to setup a new mobility group and stick all AP in that single group is there a default setting already in place ?

I generally don't like leaving anything default. :(

cheers

huzaif · ‎12-01-2014

So as I understand it I will have the following setup in the end.

2 * WLC on LAN running 5508 ( 1 with HA SKU )

2 * WLC in DMZ running 5508 with (5508-12-K9 license ) running as Anchor in the DMZ.

So I will need two Mobility groups:-

1. for my 2 * WLC on LAN

2. for my 2 * WLC in the DMZ.

is that correct ?

cheers

Ala Shehadeh · ‎11-28-2014

Hi again,

I just noticed that you have AP SSO configured.

What I mentioned earlier is valid of course, but having AP SSO, this means that you don't have to configure HA at all. The APs will seamlessly join the secondary WLC.

The secondary WLC is not active in the first place, it is in standby mode. It will be activated id the primary WLC went down. So in another view, both of these WLCs are actually one in this perspective.

I hope this is clear

BR, Ala

lenkasurat · ‎11-28-2014

We have HA SSO mode enabled 5508 controllers, but we don't configure primary & secondary as the redundant port is like it replicates all the information from the primary to secondary and the redundant port works as common port for both WLC . So, I believe no need to use these options primary & secondary HA option configuration in AP.

Yes using the Mobility group is like we configure all the WLC in different location of our organization in our group but not redundancy between the two controller (fail over) between them. That case we should use the configuration in the AP primary & secondary options.