Wireless Access

Hi,
Earlier someone in the air heads community told me that Aruba os 8 is only for mobility master. We can't use OS 8 without a mobility master.It was true because, we upgraded to OS 8 in our controller and it was asking for a mobility master during the initial configuration.

But yesterday, one of our customer who is using ap 303, which requires aos 8 ,upgraded to aos8. We told him it won't work without a mobility master. Then he opened a ticket in tac and they told him that it will work without a mobility master. He proceeded with the upgradation and it worked for him. So, don't we require mobility master for aos8 to work in a live environment?

No.  You can run an ArubaOS 8 controller without an MM.

No its absolutly not required as cjoseph metioned. But without a Mobility Master your miss some advanced new features like clustering, airmatch, live-upgrade etc. Well worth to study this features and looks whats best suite in your situation.

OK, but I think if we run multiple controllers in our environment with Aos 8, there will be problems with syncing between the controllers if we are not using a MM, right?

You can still use Controller options such asMaster Controller Mode to allow for configuration propagation throughout an estate without a MM.

 

Take a look at the AOS8 Fundamentals Guide, it gives a really good overview of the available options.

 

https://community.arubanetworks.com/t5/Controller-Based-WLANs/ArubaOS-8-Fundamentals-Guide/ta-p/428914

k, thank you for the confirmation

Hello Aruba Gurus,
based on your experience, if I don't have MM in my BoM, is it preferred to use AOS6 over AOS8?

AOS should be what you use moving forward, especially for new deployments. All the latest APs, and any future APs, will require AOS 8. 

Aos8 is the way to go. Mobility Master inwould recommend because had have some great features like clustering, airmatch, live upgrades, etc.... but aos8 can also work without an mm

The Mobility Master (MM) is a management platform that manages all of your MMs and APs using a hierarchical inheritance structure. APs do not and can not communicate with the MM, they communicate with the Mobility Controllers (MCs). The MM also performs other centralized tasks for the network and allows other capabilities, such as; AirMatch, Clustering, Live Upgrade, and MultiZone, to name a few. Deploying ArubaOS 8 in an MM environment is the best way with the most features.

 

You can also install ArubaOS 8 as a standalone. This standalone can operate with a VRRP backup, it you need redundancy. In this configuration, the APs will connect to the standalone controller. This configuration will operate similar to the way ArubaOS 6 operated. Most of the new features of ArubaOS 8 will not be implemented.

 

Lastly you can install ArubaOS 8 as what is know as a Mobility Controller Master (MCM). In this configuration, one controller operates similar to how a Master controller operated in OS 6, and one or more controllers will operate similar to Local controllers in OS 6. A difference is that in OS 6, the MCM CANNOT terminate any APs. So, the one device is dedicated  only to management. The additional controllers will terminal any APs. In OS 6 it was not uncommon for APs to terminal to Local controllers, and failover to the Master controller. This is not possible in an MCM environment.

 

So, yes, you can install ArubaOS 8 without a Mobility Master, however you are much better off deploying it with one, because of the added new features (Clustering is hands down a reason to do it).

 

I hope this helps,

 

Hello 

thanks for the details you provided, appreciate. 

I started reading the AOS 8 Fundamentals book ... and I recommend it, 

 

 

@westcott

Thanks for clarifying some of my questions. I am one of those that have 2 x 72xx controllers running AOS6.x on Master/local architecture with a Master is in Site (A) and local in Site (B), and would like to upgrade to AOS8.x. So if I upgrade to 8.0 I can only terminate on one controller because the master will become MCM and cannot terminate APs correct?

if that is the case then I need to plan on getting  a VM or  x86. 

can you point me to the specs and the steps for the upgrade process.

 

 

Thanks in advance!

Talk to an SE to determine which version of AOS 8 you should upgrade to. Then go to the Aruba support site where you can find the "Virtual Appliance Installation Guide" (I'm assuming you will go the VM router). In that document are the OS VM Requirements, along with the installation steps for the VM. I would recommend taking your existing config and going through it and rebuilding the configuration as opposed to trying to use the 6.x to 8.x migration/upgrade tool. This is an ideal time to clean up your environment and re-evaluate your current configuration.

 

I hope this helps,

@xzyan We were is the same position. To support newer APs going forward we migrated last summer. We had 7210s in a master/local config and we migrated to a MM on a VM environment. We clustered the two 7210s and made our remote 7030s locals with the clustered 7210s backups via LMS. We did have to get a license for a MM-1K but that all worked out. We have since started to deploy AP5xx APs that require 8.x code. The clustering works as designed and we failed over/back to make sure. I would recommend that you get together with your local support/VAR and go through the details/plans.

Hi Xzyan,

 

I suggest you check this Fundamentals Guide (Section Migration to AOS https://community.arubanetworks.com/t5/Controller-Based-WLANs/ArubaOS-8-Fundamentals-Guide/ta-p/428914