WLC 5508 HA + secondary controller

[vhil]

Hi,

We have a WLC 5508 HA solution. I consider to add a secondary controller to that HA pair. It seems to be no problem. On the configuration desk on the HA pair I'm able to add one for every AP. But bc. its unusual to do so I ask here if there is any point against that scenario.

Thanks Volker

[marce1000]

 - What do you mean by  add one for every AP ?

M.

[vhil]

You have to add the secondary controller to every AP. You can do that by using web configuration tool --> Wireless --> Click on an AP und you will have a menu for the single AP. There is a tab for "high availability". You can configure a secondary and tertiary controller here. That's, what I mean. You have to add it for every single AP.

[marce1000]

 - You don't have to do that in a HA scenario ; the idea is that st-bye controller can take over the CAPWAP connections instantaneously when the primary fails.

M.

[vhil]

There are reasons to do that. I know that it isn't a best practise scenario. But I think it should work. What I want to do, shutdown the HA-Pair at a point in time and the secondary controller shall takeover. My question is, does anyone know a good reason that I'm wrong and it won't work.

Volker

[Mikey Boy]

There is not really a technical reason to not do this and I have worked on similar scenarios. Some people may have 2 data centres for example and want a HA pair in each data centre.

Points to think about though, if you want to add a second WLC away from HA, you will need to license it fully which is usually expensive.

Also you can do it from the global AP configuration to avoid having to do it on every AP individually.

[vhil]

I know the license issue.

Is it the so called "Back-up Secondary Controller IP Address" at the global configuration to avoid the effort for every AP?