Wireless Access

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Access network design for branch, remote, outdoor, and campus locations with HPE Aruba Networking access points and mobility controllers.
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Mobility between two controllers, users on same vlan

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  • 1.  Mobility between two controllers, users on same vlan

    EMPLOYEE
    Posted Dec 18, 2012 04:06 AM

    Hi,

     

    What is the best setup for mobility if I have two local controllers with APs 'peppered' between the two?

     

    The controllers are both on the same subnet and the users are on the same vlan.  What sort of mobility is that, vlan or ip?  I was thinking to setup a mobility domain, but need to put the vlan and home agent in, so not sure now.

     

    Any ideas?

     

    Thanks



  • 2.  RE: Mobility between two controllers, users on same vlan

    EMPLOYEE
    Posted Dec 18, 2012 05:31 AM
    You should have to do nothing. If you are using 802.1x it should almost be transparent to the end user. If you are using captive portal authentication, they will have to login again.

    Make sure you are achieving your goals with a salt and pepper design, however. Some statistics are only retrieved every 5 minutes from a controller, so troubleshooting client issues while the client is roaming between both could present a challenge in terms of collating data between platforms.


  • 3.  RE: Mobility between two controllers, users on same vlan

    Posted Apr 24, 2013 03:09 PM

    We have 5 controllers, 1 master and 4 local.

    We have 3 SSIDs each one with one VLAN and one IP range.

    Questions:

    1. Do I need IP Mobility enabled? (I think I don't)

    2. Do I need VLAN Mobility enabled? (I think I don't, because the clients don't change VLAN when are roaming)

    3. How I see the roaming process of clients between APs and controllers to troubleshoot?

     

    We're running AOS 6.1.3.7 and Airwave 7.5.7.



  • 4.  RE: Mobility between two controllers, users on same vlan

    EMPLOYEE
    Posted Apr 24, 2013 03:15 PM

    If the VLAN isconsistent  for the clients on all controllers, you should not need to enable any type of mobility.  If on the same controller a user will roam from one access point to another one where the client VLAN for the virtual AP is different, you need to enable VLAN mobility on the Virtual AP so that the client retains his/her VLAN.  If a client will be roaming from an access point on one controller to an access point on a different controller and the layer2 VLAN will be different that is when you would need to look into IP Mobility.

     

    To see what access point your client is associated to (mobility trail), you should type "show ap association <client mac>" or in Airwave use the "show ap association "dropdown in Client Details.  The Airwave record should also have what access points the client has been on.  To speed up collection of the roaming/client data with Airwave, please configure AMON on all of your controllers to point to your Airwave server:  http://community.arubanetworks.com/t5/Community-Knowledge-Base/Why-you-should-always-enable-AMON-on-your-Aruba-Controller-when/ta-p/72104



  • 5.  RE: Mobility between two controllers, users on same vlan

    Posted Apr 24, 2013 04:29 PM

    Thank you cjoseph.

    I didn't know the AMON.

     

    One more question: is there an option to start a debug log level on all controllers for a client with problems, because when the client is roaming quickly, when I start a debug in one controller it may be on other controller now.

     

    We deployed APs in one floor each one for a different controller. Is this a design problem?



  • 6.  RE: Mobility between two controllers, users on same vlan

    EMPLOYEE
    Posted Apr 24, 2013 04:43 PM
    @zemarcio wrote:

    Thank you cjoseph.

    I didn't know the AMON.

     

    One more question: is there an option to start a debug log level on all controllers for a client with problems, because when the client is roaming quickly, when I start a debug in one controller it may be on other controller now.

     

    We deployed APs in one floor each one for a different controller. Is this a design problem?

    There are some businesses that deploy with APs on one floor for each controller.  That is because they cannot afford any downtime, so when upgrade time comes, only half of their infrastructure will be down.  This is the exception, because even 24/7 businesses like hospitals schedule a 1 hour outage to upgrade their controller (it takes much less time than that), and they are fine.

     

    The side effect of putting access points on everyother floor to a different controller is that it is MUCH more difficult to decipher a roaming or a client issue, because logs are spread across both controller.  If you do not need to have absolutely zero downtime, you would save yourself some administration worries if you put all the access points in the same building on the same controller.

     

    Putting every other floor on a different controller does increase your uptime, somehow, but having all the access points fail over to a backup controller would accomplish the same thing without making troubleshooting more difficult....

     

    That is just my general opinion.  Maybe your local Aruba SE or reseller who knows about your specific setup can give you better advice.