Virtual Wireless LAN Controllers

[CHANDIMAL RATNAYAKE]

Hi Guys,

Are all APs supported by Physical WLC also supported by the Virtual WLC? or they support a selective few?

Thanks in Advance

Chandimal

[Leo Laohoo]

Are all APs supported by Physical WLC also supported by the Virtual WLC? or they support a selective few?

That will depend entirely on the version of the firmware running on your vWLC.  

If you read the Release Notes for the different firmwares of vWLC, there will be a list of APs and when is the start of the firmware support and the final firmware support.

Alternatively, you can go through this document:  Cisco Wireless Solutions Software Compatibility Matrix.

The Release Notes is the most "up to date" one with the Compatibility Matrix suffering a few lines missing (now and then).

[Rasika Nayanajith]

Hi Chandimal,

Adding to Leo, vWLC only support FlexConnect mode AP.

Here is the WLC compatibility matrix where you can find which AP model support under which version of WLC code.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/compatibility/matrix/compatibility-matrix.html

here is a vWLC deployment guide which may help you as well.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless/virtual-wireless-controller/113677-virtual-wlan-dg-00.html

HTH

Rasika

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[sbhadrav@cisco.com]

It does only support FlexConnect mode HOWEVER this doesn't mean you can't tunnel back to the virtual controller. The check box is there for Flex Connect Local Switching and it DOES WORK, on and off. My guest network SSID across multiple locations all come back in a tunneled network to a central internet location. My other SSIDs are properly dumped out their local VLANs.

Also, you do not need to connect older APs to a physical controller first. Yes, there was a change in the certificate between 7.0 and 7.2. This is not a limitation of the vWLC and lots of people are running into it with many different configurations and physical to physical upgrades as well. To get around it you simply need to load a recovery code with the newer certificate and the APs will properly connect to the vWLC and get a working IOS image. It was a huge pain in the ass as it's really not very well documented but once it's sorted it's done and it's not a huge deal.If you have Cisco vWLC in production and it seems to work fine. I'm in FlexConnect mode and manage all my QoS for the wireless vlans/subnets the same way I do for devices on the wired network through the switches and firewall. If you have a bunch of non-wireless devices on your network you probably have some way of policing that traffic already and can lean on that. It looks like you'll have to replace some access points to get them working with vWLC though. I needed an extra dedicated NIC on the VMWare Hosts I installed it on to get it working so look out for that.