WLC Question

[oneirishpollack]

We are an organization with 6 campuses:

Campus 1: 8 APs

Campus 2: 11 Aps

Campus 3: 20 Aps

The other 3 campuses have less than 5 APs each.

The first three campuses are all connect via DS3s. All the campuses are interconnected via VPN.

Currently each of the campuses 1 thru 3 has a 4402 WLC.

That leaves us (me) with 3 controllers to manage. We have had issues keeping the configs standard across all the controllers.

Would we have been better off with a single controller, maybe a Cisco 5500, to manage the APs at all the remote locations?

Any other suggestions? What would you do?

Thanks.

[George Stefanick]

If your issue is config you have 2 options. One purchase wcs / ncs to manage your configs or option 2, do HREAP.

If it were me, and I don't know your entire design, but for face value due HREAP.

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[Yahya Jaber]

Hi,

how about you try HREAP groups on a single WLC?

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10315/products_tech_note09186a0080736123.shtml#HREAPGROUPS

and if all your AP's are on remote site why did not you consider 7500 WLC?

[oneirishpollack]

We have a total of 6 campuses with three large and three smaller campuses.

Why or how would you consider whether to go with a larger WLC like a 7500 or 5500 versus separate WLCs for the various campuses?

Is there a performance difference between on-premise controllers vs. off-site controllers?

Our vendor suggested individual WLCs.

[Scott Fella]

The Flex 7500 is strictly for FlexConnect AP's only not AP's in local mode.  The 5508 allows you to do both local mode AP's and FlexConnect AP's.

Thanks,

Scott

Help out other by using the rating system and marking answered questions as "Answered"

[don-thompson]

Unless you are using HREAP for the smaller remote sites you should have a WLC at each one of those sites. Maybe a 2504 with a 5 AP license. The reason why you need to either be using HREAP or a WLC is if the VPN were to drop your APs would not function anymore.

For the three main sites I would just keep the 4402s. Assuming your DS3s are all stable I would set them up as a mobility group and allow them to back each other up in case of any failure. Keep the APs primary WLC set as the local 4402 and set the secondary and tertiary as the other 4402s at the other campuses.