Network Management

Do managed controllers count against your AirWave license count?  Or does AirWave count APs only?

Access points AND controllers.  A controller consumes a single license.

 

 

AirWave is licensed by the number of managed infrastructure devices: APs, controllers, switches, etc.

 

Licenses can be purchased in bundles of 25, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000, and 2500. Licenses can be combined (150 devices can be managed with AW-50 plus AW-100, 5000 devices can be managed with 2 x AW-2500).

 

Customers can deploy the licenses on as many servers as are necessary to manage their infrastructure, so one AW-2500 can be used to managed 1250 devices on two different servers. Expansion licenses are also available to buy an exact number of APs for gradual network expansion or to take advantage of discounted pricing for purchases over 2500 devices.

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@Paul.lewis wrote:

Do managed controllers count against your AirWave license count?  Or does AirWave count APs only?

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A couple of additional comments to the above reponses by Colin and Abilash....

 

• A controller whether its configuration is being "managed" or in monitoring only mode will consume a license.
• A virtual controller (VC) for Instant APs does NOT consume an additional license (it will show as a separate device, but does not consume a license).

 

 

Greetings, everyone!

So if Airwave counts a license for each mobility controller, do we need AMP licenses for managed APs?

For example we have 2 controllers (with 50 AP licenses total) and 50 APs managed (no instant), then we add Airwave and here is a question:

1. is it enough to have 2 lcenses (just for MC) to monitor all network?

2. do we need to have exactly 52 licenses for AMP?

I'm wondering why would someone have licenses for managed APs if for example a controller fails (or both in that case). Will Airwave support these 50 APs (not instant)?

 

Kind Regards,

Alex.

Hi Alex,

 

My understanding is that you certainly need AMP licences for all your APs and all your controllers, even though the controllers are 'managing' your APs.   Assuming you're running AOS 6.3 or later (from which version license pooling can be used) you don't need to double up your licences anyway, to provide resilience:  put 50 licences in the pool and they are available to either controller.  These days I don't think of controllers managing APs, but controlling them (strange that!).  As heat maps etc. disappeared from AOS onto AirWave with 6.3 too, that became easier to understand (even if it was difficult to explain to some pre-6.3 customers who didn't like losing it!  Fact is the horsepower needed for it could probably be better used for other things e.g. AppRF / DPI).

Just think of it as per IP address. Every device in AirWave that has a unique IP address will consume a license.


Thanks,
Tim

Does Airwave control and monitor APs if controllers are down?

I'm pretty sure monitoring of APs happens via a/the controller but, assuming you have dual controllers, your APs should fail over to the opposite controller to restore management of those APs.  If you have a single controller, my guess is you lose management of the APs, should the controller fail, but bear in mind that, in standard tunnel mode (where all WLAN traffic passes through the controller - giving you maximum visibility and control [firewalling]), if you lose the controller, you lose user connectivity anyway...   SSIDs in bridged mode would potentially continue working but, I think, with no visibility.  My advice: if you're going controller-based design use tunnel mode and provide controller resilience, unless you really can't...

Airwave doesnt controll or monitor thin APs when the respective controller is down. You will see AP in down status on Airwave with reason controller down.

 

Tim do you still go by this rule for Airwave? I know time has passed..

Yes, every device controller/AP/IAP/switch consume single license each. For stack switch airwave consume only single license not multiple.