Wireless Access

We have an Aruba 3400 controller we have recently been asked to support. I'm not 100% sure about how Aruba licenses it APs within WLC's. Can anyone help clarify the following for me please:

1) What is the difference between a CAP and a RAP?

2) Are the any Aruba documents that explain the controller licensing overall?

2) We have 49 APs active on the WLC made up of 6 x AP105 and 5 x AP68's 38 x AP65 however the the controller is showing 46 CAPs and 3 RAPs. What defines when a CAP license entry is used compared to a RAP license?

(Aruba-master2) #show ap license-usage

AP Licenses
-----------
Type Number
---- ------
AP Licenses 64
Overall AP License Limit 64

AP Usage
--------
Type Count
---- -----
CAPs 46
RAPs 3
Remote-node APs 0
Tunneled nodes 0
Total APs 49

Remaining AP Capacity
---------------------
Type Number
---- ------
CAPs 15
RAPs 15

Thanks all in advance.

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@thalak0s wrote:

 

1) What is the difference between a CAP and a RAP?

CAP (Campus AP) and RAP (Remote AP) are the two designations APs have when terminating on a controller.  A CAP is typically an AP within your organizations physical locations while RAPs are usually at remote sites or for home users.   The RAPs terminate on the controller via IPsec.   The following links may help explain some of it.

Campus Deployments:

Remote Deployments:

Remote Access Points

2) Are the any Aruba documents that explain the controller licensing overall?

http://www.arubanetworks.com/vrd/ControllerVRD/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm#href=Chap3.html

2) We have 49 APs active on the WLC made up of 6 x AP105 and 5 x AP68's 38 x AP65 however the the controller is showing 46 CAPs and 3 RAPs. What defines when a CAP license entry is used compared to a RAP license?

Each CAP or RAP consumes an AP license (assuming ArubaOS 5.x or later).   If an AP is configured as a Remote AP it will show as RAP vs. CAP.  To determine which APs are RAPs, run the following on your controller (you may get some non-RAPs as part of this command depending on the names of your APs, but look for the "R" in the flags column.

show ap database | include R

 

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1) What is the difference between a CAP and a RAP?

Tons of good answers in this thread so I won't go into details on that other than.. If you need to reach the controller across internett then you need RAP (tunnel traffic using IPSec to the controller). Campus AP is on the same LAN/WAN network as the Controller and terminate using GRE.

Difference-Between-Campus-AP-and-Remote-AP-Where-we-deploy-them

You need the same licensing for both types, but a Controller can handle 4x as many RAP as CAP. So if you dedicate a 3400 controller for RAP you will be able to connect 64 x 4 = 256 RAP. If you mix CAP and RAP you will have to do your math so the total isn't above 64 CAP - like 30 CAP and 34*4 RAP.

2) Are the any Aruba documents that explain the controller licensing overall?

Overall? Well - this will give you a list.

So normally you will at least need AP and PEF-NG (firewall license) in equal amounts. Without the PEF-NG you can only have one SSID - like a plain guest network with allowall access.

2) We have 49 APs active on the WLC made up of 6 x AP105 and 5 x AP68's 38 x AP65 however the the controller is showing 46 CAPs and 3 RAPs. What defines when a CAP license entry is used compared to a RAP license?

Well - the Access Point is provisioned as a RemoteAP and is listed as such. There used to be different licensing for CAP and RAP back in pre 5.x, but not since then.

I am very much aware of the x 4 ratio of supporting RAPs vs CAPs, however in recent offical Aruba controller matrixs, its showing equal number of RAPs vs CAPs support for 600 series controllers and 7000 series cotrollers, but not for 3000 series controllers which still show the x 4 capacity for RAPs vs CAPs?

Is this documentation wrong?  Or is Aruba converting to an equal 1:1 CAP:RAP capacitiy limits for 600 and 7000 series controllers? 

Is there a software code that is associated to this change in capacity?

indeed this is quite confusing.

for example here: http://www.arubanetworks.com/pdf/products/matrix-mobility-controller.pdf

please Aruba this has been mentioned a few times here now, make sure this gets clarified. in my opinion stop with this 1:4 stuff totally.