Controllerless Networks

We are in the process of planning our upgrading our IAP clusters from 6.5.4.7 to 8.3 releases due to the purchase of new AP345's that won't support anything lower. When we first heard about version 8 code coming, it was suggested that we start with a completely fresh configuration, once the upgrade is complete. The reasoning behind it was that the code in 8.3 was much better on radio and client management.

 

Wondering what the community feedback is on the advice?

Wondering what your experience is with the 8.3 release?

 

Our Environment:

We have Airwave and use Clearpass for 802.1x authentication with 21 sites, each with their own IAP cluster. All AP's are 325's with newer purchases being 345's (so we will have a mixed AP environment). We also have a project in place to start installing 367's in the next 3 months for our outdoor locations.

 

Hi

There are some differences between 6.x and 8.3 instant regarding EIRP. But these are all settings you can set also on an upgraded config.
Best practice on ArubaOS 8.x is to start from scratch to ‘loose’ old not used config. AFAIK instant doesn’t have this unused old ‘config’

I would just upgrade and see if the radio settings need to be changed and switch on client match.

Good luck.

Frank,

 

Sorry for the late reply, but really do appreaciate your feedback.

 

We have started the upgrade process on our 20+ sites, started with our site and have been slowly increasing additional sites based on usage or new hardware requirements. We hope to have all sites upgraded by the end of this month.

 

So far no real problems due to the upgrades that we have been able to detect.

Hi

Great to hear that it's going okay. Thanks for the update!

Just a quick question - regarding your upgrade to 8.3.  Did you go directly to 8.3 from 6.5 or did you start with 8.0 ?  Our 7210 wirless controller is in need of an upgrade as well for some new Ap 375's we purchased.  

For ArubaOS 6.5 you can go to 8.3 (or even 8.4) in one go