Wireless Access

Hello,

I've done a lot of reading on the redundancy options but am having trouble understanding the best solution for my topology. I have a master controller working properly and am deploying a second controller in another campus that will host access points for that site. I'd like to have these controllers back each other up so if one fails, all of its access points can reconnect to the other controller. I believe this should be in a master / local configuration but my questions follow

1. As AP's in site 2 boot and register to the master via the dhcp name aruba-master, how do I force them to re-register to the local? I've created an ap-group and a virtual-ap but I don't see a way to tell that group where its local controller is.

2. If the controller in site 1 is a master and site 2 is a local can they back each other up properly? How do I define the backup controller for the AP?

Thanks for any advice

Go to Configuration> Wireless> AP Configuration.  Edit your AP-Group that your particular access points are in.  Expand AP, Expand System Profile and Click on the System Profile.  In the AP System Profile, there will be the LMS (local mobility switch) and Backup LMS parameters.  Put the IP address of the ap's first controller in the LMS and the Backup controller in the Backup LMS.  APs that boot up in that AP group will first go to the LMS IP address, then to the backup LMS, if the first controller goes away.  Assuming your other access points are in a different group, you will have to create a separate AP system profile for that AP group that I assume would have the opposite configuration.

One word about redundancy:

When your access points boot up, they look for aruba-master.<domain>.  If the controller at the other end of that ip address is down, your access points will NOT be able to do anything.  What you can do, is put two ip addresses in the aruba-master a-record on your DNS server, so that your APs will receive BOTH addresses and try one after the other. 

Thanks for the quick response, this is very helpful

Hi,

What is the best way of synchronzing the configuration between these two controllers?  

Also, I am assuming the BSSID of the APs that terminate on one of the controllers will need to be white-listed on the other for ARM to work correctly.

If you have two controllers in a master/backup master or master/local configuration, the global configuration is synchronized between them.  All that is left is to direct your access points in the AP System Profile of the AP-Group using the LMS-IP parameter and configure the local VLAN/port  parameters on that extra controller.

Thanks for clarification!