Recently, I deployed and tested a IAP mesh network with 215's and 205's. Setup and testing results were good. My concern with the IAP mesh setup is failover and redundancy since the maximum hop count is two nodes, the maximum number of mesh points per mesh portal is eight, IAP mesh network needs to be in the same subnet, etc.
With the Virtual Controller (VC) setup, I would be limited to deploying eight mesh points per mesh portal and they would all have to be in the same subnet. We would have to create subnets for additional IAP mesh networks if we wanted to deploy more than eight mesh points/wireless access points. This presents a high availability challenge because mesh points can’t communicate with a mesh portal on a different subnet if their mesh portal were to fail.
I’ve been trying to look up information on the physical wireless controllers so I can compare it with the virtual controller setup. I want to look at the specs and performance, deployment options, failover and redundancy, etc. that are available with a physical wireless controller. Can anybody provide me with documents that compare and contrast the benefits of having a physical wireless controller vs a virtual wireless controller?