Wireless Access

Our customer has two 7205 MCs in an active/standby cluster, supporting 199 APs.

The max license count on the 7205 is 256 as I understand.

They'd like to add another 72 APs to their environment.

What would be the easiest (maybe cheapest) way of doing this?

• As I understand, adding simply a 3rd 7205 ("stacking" style) to share the load is not an option;
• Apparently I could have a Mobility Master to manage 3 7205's and the APs would register to one of them, enabling us to support 512 APs (one MC can fail);
• Install a cluster of smaller MCs (7030?) as local and add the extra 15 to that cluster;
• Something completely different?

Thanks,

Tamas

Not sure what you are running now as clustering is an ArubaOS8 technology that requires a Mobility Master (MM).

Are you running ArubaOS8 or 6?

If you are running Arubaos 6.x you could simply add a second local controller. A single master can control multiple locals. You could have the master act as failover for both locals too (just at the same time). 

If you are running ArubaOS 8.x this would be called an MCM (Master Controller Mode) with MC's (Mobility Controller). Here also you could simply add additional MC's.

Regardless really, your best option would be to install a MM and have it manage 3 MC (aka MD).

It gives you all the features you get with a Mobility Master and you would be able to support the number of AP's you need with proper redundancy included.

Probably not the cheapest, but it is what you should be recommending as this is the de facto standard setup these days.

Have a look at the ArubaOS 8 Fundamentals Guide for more info. You can find it here: https://community.arubanetworks.com/t5/Controller-Based-WLANs/ArubaOS-8-Fundamentals-Guide/ta-p/428914

Thanks for the extensive reply Koen!

The cluster is running 6.x, but might as well upgrade it to 8 during the project. There's only 2 PSK networks on it, so I wouldn't expect anything to break during the upgade.

Most likely we'll go with the MM+3MC solution.

Out of curiosity, how would the extra controller work staying on 6.x?

One 7205 as master, 2x 7205 as locals under it, attach the APs under the two locals, if any local fails then the APs from it go to the master?

Regards,

Tamas

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@TimotiSt wrote:

 

Out of curiosity, how would the extra controller work staying on 6.x?

One 7205 as master, 2x 7205 as locals under it, attach the APs under the two locals, if any local fails then the APs from it go to the master?

 

Regards,

Tamas

 

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Yep,  you would configure 2 AP-groups and then work with 2 different LMS profiles:

1) lms: local 1, bkp-lms: master

2) lms: local 2, bkp-lms: master

This way all AP's would primarily connect to a local controller with backup for both groups being the master controller.

Better yet then the above LMS config would be to configure a high availability group where both locals are active with the master being standsby. With over-subscription configured the master could then handle all STANDBY connections from both locals.

If a failover would occur the master would still be limited to its 256 AP limit so only a single local can have an active failover at the same time.

More info: https://www.slideshare.net/ArubaNetworks/emea-airheads-arubaos-high-availability-with-ap-fast-failover