Question about AP work during controller failure.

[Evgeniy Ivanov]

Hi!
I have a question about Cisco Wireless deployment.
As i know, all traffic from AP tunneled to controller, and then goes to receiver.
But in this case, if i have only one controller, it will be single point of failure.
Is there any feature, which will allow AP's to work during controller failure/replacement?

Thank you!

[Leo Laohoo · Accepted solution]

The method is called FlexConnect.  

Configuring FlexConnect

[Evgeniy Ivanov]

Leo, thank you!

[Evgeniy Ivanov]

And one more quick question - will functionality of AP remain same, or will loose some abilities like QoS, AC, rate limit?
 

[jordanburnett]

While Leo technically answered your question with regard to FlexConnect, be weary of the fact that you will need to have local switched WLANs if you plan on having them available on controller failure:

FlexConnect Backup Scenario
WAN Down Behavior (Bootup Standalone Mode) (Can't Contact WLC)

• Central Switched WLANs will shutdown
• Web-auth WLANs will shutdown
• Local Switched WLANs will be up :
  • Only Open, Shared and WPA-PSK are allowed.
  • Local 802.1x allowed with local authentication or local RADIUS
• Unsupported features
  • RRM, CCKM, WIDS, Location, Other AP Mode, NAC.

For the full list of supported features using central/local switching view the following feature matrix:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless/5500-series-wireless-controllers/112042-technote-product-00.html