Master Local - Design, Licence Questions

[cpoetzel]

Hey guys, i am working for a high school in Illinois and have this scenario.

They had an older 3400 controller running 50 or so APS, and have since purchased a new 7210 and an additional 90 aps for deployment.  They wanted new SSID/underlying networks for this upgrade.  So here is how things stand now with the 7210 and 3400.

Aruba7210-US
6.2.1.5
Master, 140 active AP's
10.1.0.5
144 AP
144 PEF
144 RFProtect
Newer config with new SSID/Networks

Aruba3400-US
6.2.1.5
running as master, 0 AP's
10.1.0.4
56 AP
64 PEF

RFProtect Disabled
Older config with oldunsed SSID/Old Networks

so all aps have been migrated to new 7200 and SSID are good to go. 

Now i have been asked about what redundancy we can get using the 7210 and the 3400 in the case of a single controller failover.

I explained that due to AP limits, the most active AP's we could expect to have up if hte 7200 were to fail hard would be 56.  They are ok with that.

My thought was to do this.

7210 Master (All aps connected here)

* create a subgroup of AP's called Failover

** configure LMS ip for this group to initially attach to 7210 and failover to 3400)

3400 Local

* no active AP's unless failure of 7210 master

However after reading the guide a bit closer i am guessing i have some license issues due to the fact that the old 3400 controller has 0 RFProtect licences.

Does this setup make sense? any better choices?

If i am goint to make a controller that has a config on it a local, should i wipe it first?

thanks,

chris

[elmodoeswifi]

Is it possible to go to code 6.3 and use the ability to use the master controller as a license server?  Has anyone used centralized licensing?

[syedmuradali]

Yes! and it worked perfectly fine.

"Is it possible to go to code 6.3 and use the ability to use the master controller as a license server? Has anyone used centralized licensing?"

[Victor Fabian]

For your RF license issue what you can do is upgrade to 6.3 and enable Centralize licensing (make the 7200 the license server ) when you add the 340 as a standby master it will become the backup license server .

You are on the right track but the only issue will be in the case of a failover if the 7200 dies since the AP capability on 3400 is only 64 APs so 80 APs will be down.

[Michael_Clarke]

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victorfabian wrote:

For your RF license issue what you can do is upgrade to 6.3 and enable Centralize licensing (make the 7200 the license server ) when you add the 340 as a standby master it will become the backup license server .

You are on the right track but the only issue will be in the case of a failover if the 7200 dies since the AP capability on 3400 is only 64 APs so 80 APs will be down.

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I think the master and it's backup need to be the same platform.  It's possible to have a different model as the master-backup, but strictly speaking I don't think this is a supported configuration.

You can elect the 3400 local to be the backup-licence-server though.

[SethFiermonti]

The mixed platform might hurt you in the long term but as of today, it should be fine.  I would keep things Master-local.  Don't do Master-backup master.  In addition, upgrade to 6.3.1.3 (however, 6.4.0.0 is also out now so that may be an option too if they are needing any features there).  

6.3 will not only give you clientmatch, but it will give you centralized licensing and support for new AP hardware.

Now - for redundancy, I would consider AP fast failover over LMS and backup LMS.  However, investigate any hardware dependencies on that based on the fact you have a 7210 and 3400.  

[Victor Fabian]

Michael , you should be able to .

https://arubanetworkskb.secure.force.com/pkb/articles/FAQ/What-are-the-limitations-related-to-centralized-licensing-on-AOS-version-6-3-0-0

https://arubanetworkskb.secure.force.com/pkb/articles/FAQ/How-does-license-server-failover-work-in-AOS-version-6-3