Wireless Access

Hi all,

 

My current environment have two local controllers which runs on LMS and backup LMS.

 

Controller A

512 AP license

229 AP active

 

Controller B

512 AP license

280 AP active

 

Our current concern is that when controller A goes down, the APs will be failed over to the backup LMS which is controller B. Does the AP from controller A consume the license of controller B when it fails over?

 

 

 

 

 

If centralized license is not enabled in the controller redundancy configuration, You will use the licenses of each controller. If you have centralized license enabled, you will be sharing the entire license. If one controller fails, the active license to the controller is retained for one month and then reclaimed.

Central license server runs on a master controller and can be redundant by use aan master standby controller (6.x).

In 8.x central license server is a function of the mobility master and can be redundant with a second mobility master at no extra cost.

When you dont have a central license server and want some, you have to migrate your licenses on the hpe licensing portal.

We do not have a master controller in our environment, so each controller have their own 512 AP license. 

 

We're planning for future expansion so my concern is if we add more APs to either controller, will it consume the license of the secondary if either one of the controller were to breakdown?

 

 

 

Without the master controller, you can not make all the settings.

The Aruba WLAN solution consists of a master first and an additional controller locally.

One of the two controllers will act as the master controller.

If cli config is done as below, it can be confirmed by the result value.

(Aruba3200) #show switches

All Switches
------------
IP Address Name Location Type Type Version Status Configuration State Config Sync Time (sec) Config ID
---------- ---- -------- ---- ----- ------- ------ ------ ------------- ---------------------- ---------
172.16.0.254 Aruba3200 Building1.floor1 master Aruba3200 6.4.4.11_57673 up UPDATE SUCCESSFUL 0 2

Both my controllers are indicated as master. 

 

Our environment is not a master/local environment, it is on a local/local environment, hence centralizing the licenses is never an option. 

 

As stated both our controllers have 512 licenses each and are utilitzing 229 and 280 AP individually.

 

Our LMS is set as such and vice versa.

LMS IP 10.167.30.17 (controller A)
Backup LMS IP 10.167.30.27 (controller B)

 

If 10.167.30.17 goes down, 229 AP will be failed over to controller B and the total number of AP will be at 509, which is close to the license amount of 512.

 

If we were to expand our network to additional 20 APs, it'll exceed the license count of 512. Will the fail over AP consume license of either of the controller?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If the rules for the current controller are defined, it is the master master configuration. In each, you can set up a centralized license setting as a peer server. You can share the license as you explained it first. What is the capacity of the controller? Is it a model that can accommodate up to 512 aps? First, you'll need to be able to accommodate more than 512 controllers.

We do not need to centralised license, both controllers have 512 AP license each which is the maximum for Aruba6000 controller. 

 

 

 

Woow, confusing topic.

 

First, local-local does not exist. 

With 2 Aruba6000 controllers you are either running them in:

a) master-master

b) master-local

c) 2x standalone 

 

Regardless of all that, you can never load more than 512APs on a single Aruba6000/M3. This is a built in limit regardless of licensing.

 

For us to figure out what setup you have, please provide the out put of "shows switches" and "show master-redundancy" for both controllers.

 

 

Hi Koen,

Here are my controllers output.

 

Controller A

(Aruba6000) #show switches

All Switches
------------
IP Address Name Location Type Model Version Status Configuration State Config Sync Time (sec) Config ID
---------- ---- -------- ---- ----- ------- ------ ------------------- ---------------------- ---------
10.167.30.17 Aruba6000 Building1.floor1 master Aruba6000 6.4.4.17_63295 up UPDATE SUCCESSFUL 0 1060

Total Switches:1

(Aruba6000) #show master-redundancy
Master switch redundancy is not configured

 

Controller B

 (Aruba6000) #show switches

All Switches
------------
IP Address Name Location Type Model Version Status Configuration State Config Sync Time (sec) Config ID
---------- ---- -------- ---- ----- ------- ------ ------------------- ---------------------- ---------
10.167.30.27 Aruba6000 Building1.floor1 master Aruba6000 6.4.4.17_63295 up UPDATE SUCCESSFUL 0 677

Total Switches:1

(Aruba6000) #show master-redundancy
Master switch redundancy is not configured

That means you have option c) 2 standalone controllers.

That is the worst way to do redundancy as they don't share anything between them.

Also means you have to manualy do every configuration twice right?  Nothing gets synced between those 2 controllers.

 

You realy should change this imho.  And if both controllers have the same config then that is a pretty easy change for you to make as vlans and such are already done. What is left is linking them.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE3tst09-RM for a very quick video on how to do this. From there you could start configuring high avalability. master-local + HA would increase your failovertimes and user disruption considerably.

Mind you, chaning a controllers role requires a reboot of said controller.

 

All this does NOT change the fact that with 2x Aruba6000/M3 controllers you can only bring up 512 APs if you want redundancy for them.

If you need more you'll either have to give up some AP redundancy or buy more/bigger controllers.

Since the Aruba6000 is end of life, you may wamt to look into replacing them all together for a set of controllers that can take the require load.

If budget prohibits that, you could extand the life of your setup by adding additonal controller(s) to your current setup.

 

While we do our best to provide correct info on these forums, we are nu replacement for a confident and knowledgeable engineer onsite, so keep that in mind before you start tinkering on critical equipement.

 

Hi Koen,

 

Base on this statement can I safely say that even if the APs were to failover to in our current environment, only a maximum number of 512 AP will be active at any point of time?

 

 

---

@koen All this does NOT change the fact that with 2x Aruba6000/M3 controllers you can only bring up 512 APs if you want redundancy for them. 

 

 

 

 

Correct, any one of your controllers can handle max 512 APs.

 

That said, since you seem to have 2 standalone controllers on failover to the other controller you better have added those APs to the whitelist already as it wont be done automatically.

 

You REALY should get someone to look at this controller setup because having 2 standalone controllers to provide redundancy realy is not the way it is intended.

You can get MUCH better failover when the system is properly configured.

Hi koen,

 

Thank you for your valuable feedback.