Remote WLC 5508

[#1]

Did any one setup an across WAN WLC as a secondary/failover one for wireless AP?  Comapny has one WLC 5508 for each branch office.  Management want to cost saving centralize wireless backup solution in a data center.  That means if the local WLC fail, then all AP will connect/register to a WLC in data center.

Our wireless environment is a flat network with private class B network.

[Leo Laohoo]

HREAP/Flexconnect might work but this will depend if your local site(s) have an authentication server. 

[Amjad Abdullah]

Leo: i think Eric says it the other way; each remote site has a controller. So, each remote site has auth server reachability guaranteed.

Now, the backup server in data center should reach all auth severs for all sites.

The point is for remote sites you better use hreap. But if you use it temporarily I am not aware about any issue.

Le: are you aware about any issues running local mode in remote sites?

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[Leo Laohoo]

Hi Amjad,

I understood what Eric was trying to do, i.  e., the primary controller is located locally at the site and the secondary controller is located in the DC. 

I've seen this being deployed here where the site's WAN link doesn't justify the WLC to be in the DC.  So that agency resorted in putting a WLC at the site.   Aside from that, the client DID NOT configure a secondary controller because the WAPs are in H-REAP.  If the primary controller at the site fails AND as long as the WAP doesn't reboot then there's nothing to worry about.

That's the beauty of H-REAP/Flexconnect. 

[Scott Fella]

That is a weird design.... you are almost forced to do flexconnect. It almost makes sense to just bring the wlc back to the DC and get enough license to support all the access points. You really cant keep the AP's in local mode unless you want to, but if an ap joins the DC wlc, that ssid will place users a subnet that resides in the DC. Devices will need to obtain a new dhcp address in order to function. This makes it difficult and using flexconnect makes it easier.

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[#6]

2 DHCP servers in DC provide the same DHCP scope, 192.168.64.x/20 to all wifi clients at different branch office.

I am looking for a backup solution. Can I have a remote controller as backup WLC when local WLC fail? All controllers are pointing to the same DHCP servers and give out same DHCP scope.

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[Scott Fella]

The issue is what subnets are at the remote site and at the DC. The subnets are different so how will users have connectivity if the have an ip address that is part of the remote site and then the APs fail to the DC wlc. The DC wlc will only have interfaces to the local subnet at the DC.

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[Leo Laohoo]

What's your redundancy plan if the WAN link fails?