WLC 9800 - the number of access points exceeds the number of licenses

[ci-mask]

On a WLC 9800-40, what happens if the number of access points exceeds the number of licenses?
For a short time, is it possible that the WLC will accept more access points than licenses?

[pieterh]

The Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers require mandatory Smart Licensing. This provides ease of use for Cisco DNA license management, consumption, and tracking.

No licenses are required to boot up a Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controller. However, in order to connect any access points to the controller, Cisco DNA licenses are required. Every access point connecting to Catalyst 9800 requires a Cisco DNA subscription license to be entitled to connect to the controller.

For questions, contact the Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers Licensing mailer group at ask-catalyst9800licensing.

[ammahend]

The license is not associated with the wlc it’s associated with the APs, each AP need to have a license,  so I don’t think it will work, however I have not run into this issue first hand.

[Jonas Kalldert · Accepted solution]

Hi ci-mask,

I have not test this on a WLC 9800-40 but on a VM 9800-CL.

Without the licenses I have been able to have a AP join but not to broadcast any SSID. So for any purposes you need the licenses. The upside to Smart licensing is that APs can move between WLC sense when the AP leave the first WLC the license is freed and then allocated again on the other WLC.

In the old way the licenses where bound to the WLC and thats why you had 90 days trail licenses on the redundancy WLC in a N+1. I dont know if this trail license will be added later in 9800 but as of today I have had no luck getting it to work without the licenses. 

regards,
Jonas
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