WLC 8540 Licensing - N+1

[jpl861]

Hey Guys,

I am pretty much new with Cisco WLCs and I just have a question regarding licensing.

We are not doing SSO as we have a split data-center design. Our primary is in one state and the secondary is in another. So definitely, we are using N+1 as far as how I understood the redundancy mode.

Here's the output of our primary controller.

(Cisco Controller) >show license all

        Feature name: ap_count
        License type: Evaluation
        License Eula: Not Accepted
                Evaluation total period: 12 weeks 6 days
                Evaluation period left: 89 days
        License state: Inactive, Not-In-Use
        License Nodelocked: Yes
        RTU License Count: 6000

                                Feature name: ap_count (adder)
        License type: Permanent
        License state: Active, In-use
        License Nodelocked: No
        RTU License Count: 726


                                ==================================
        Total available count : 726
        Total inuse count : 4

And here's the output of our secondary controller.

(Cisco Controller) >show license all

        Feature name: ap_count
        License type: Evaluation
        License Eula: Not Accepted
                Evaluation total period: 12 weeks 6 days
                Evaluation period left: 89 days
        License state: Active, Not-In-Use
        License Nodelocked: Yes
        RTU License Count: 6000


                                ==================================
        Total available count : 6000
        Total inuse count : 0

I am quite confured with Cisco's terminology as I do not know what SKU means. I saw this link regarding N+1 licensing but I'm still confused with it. It says something about HA-SKU that has a permanent license and not sure if we have that one. I also cannot figure out where to see that 90 day grace period if our primary controller fails.

Can someone explain this better?

Thanks in advance.

John

[zdesignstudio]

SKU is essentially like saying part number. HA-SKU is the part number for HA(SSO) which you are not using. Having the HA_SKU for SSO keeps you from having to buy double the licenses for the other (SSO) controller.

If you have an eval license installed that is valid, the system will use that license as thr primary license until it expires. Once that happens will will use a valid permanent license if one is installed. I dont know why they use the temp licenses until expiration even if you install a permanent license. 

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[jpl861]

Ok sorry I wasn't able to follow. After this eval license expires, what will happen next? So even if I don't have any license installed, the 90 day period is still applicable for secondary controllers?

[zdesignstudio]

You need to have a permanent license installed or all your APs will drop when it expires. Depending on how you have it currently setup, your 2nd controller will just be sitting there with no APs on it till teh primary controller fails, datacenter outage, etc.

In short, if you are not doing SSO, then both controllers need to have a PERMANENT license installed that covers the amount of APs you have in production. As of right now only the 1st controller has permanent licenses installed and active. The secondary is using the RTU non permanent licenses. When that license expires and the APs happen to fail over to the secondary, they will not come up because the controller will not be licensed for any APs.

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[jpl861]

Figure 3-15 got me confused. I will assume that N+1 redundancy is also called as HA as the other redundancy mode is HA/SSO.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/technology/hi_avail/N1_High_Availability_Deployment_Guide/Licensing.html

"It is Cisco's policy to allow the Controllers in HA-Mode to serve APs without actually having AP Count License for 90 days. But then, You seem to have already used it for 9x days, Which is illegal."

[zdesignstudio]

Is your secondary controller a HA-SKU controller or an  AP count controller?

[jpl861]

I don't know how to answer that one or find the answer on that one. As far as I am aware, it is just working as a secondary controller in case our primary fails. We are doing H+1.

[barryfowles]

Hi John,

I am investigating the same setup as you are employing. Did you manage to get the 8540 N+1 scenario to work.

Barry

[jpl861]

Hi Barry,

That I will know in the next few days. I will be installing the second controller as the +1. I'll let you know the results.

Thanks,

John

[Scott Fella]

The 7510, 8510, 5520 and 8540 have RTU license. There is no HA sku for the 5520 and 8540 for example so you just take one and make that your primary unit and the other as a secondary unit. This works for both SSO and N+1.  

-Scott

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[barryfowles]

Thanks Scott. That was the conclusion I had just about come to but I just wanted it confirmed by someone who had done it or knew for sure. I have not worked with the 8540 but have done N+1 many times with the 5508 and 8510 Controllers but they do have HA SKUs.

[Scott Fella]

Yeah... Don't look for the HA sku since there is not one. Just remember to still activate the license so it's tied to the controller if you have any adder license. That is really it.

-Scott 

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[George Stefanick]

yea cisco is out of the business with HA controller SKUs.