Wireless Access

Hi community,

this is my problem, we have two 7030 Controller in the HQ in Master/BackupMaster design.

Now the costumer needs more than 64 APs but full redundancy. We want to put 2 7205 Controller as Master/BackupMaster in the HQ and the two 7030 Controller as locals.

- Can we terminate AccessPoint on the master controller in a master/backupmaster + local controller design?

- If we had only 1 Master in Master/local design what happens if the master fails? Can the local serve the APs?

- If centralized licenses is enabled on the Master controller the licenses from the locals where pushed in the license pool?

Thanks

Hi Friend,

Q : Can we terminate AccessPoint on the master controller in a master/backup master + local controller design?

A : Yes we can terminate APs on master, in your scenario configure VRRP IP as the LMS ip so that, whn primary master fails APs will be terminated on backup master.

Q : If we had only 1 Master in Master/local design what happens if the master fails? Can the local serve the APs?

A: WHen Master fails, it will not effect the Local controllers, Local controllers can continue to serve their APs and Client. but, if you want to change the configuration or if you want to provision any new APs Master controller is needed.

Q : If centralized licenses is enabled on the Master controller the licenses from the locals where pushed in the license pool?

A : Master-Local setup is not mandatory for centralised licensing therefore even if the Master fails, Licensing will be handled by backup licensing server

Hope I answered all your questions, please feel free for any further clarity on this.

Hi,

As a best practice, if you are going to use Master-Standby for master redundancy, enable AP fast fail over to nullify the failover latency.

Please feel free for any further help on this.

Hi, thanks for this answer.

do you have some documents for this?

My aruba se tells me the complete opposite of your answer.

The aurba se says that in a Master/BackupMaster Local Controller szenario we can only terminate APs on the local controller and not on the master. He also said that when the master in a master/local design fails the local and the aps went down. ---> I cannnot belive this so I asked the community.

But I really need correct answers to this problem. I must redesign a wireless solution for one of our costumers. Do you have some document that discribe this?

Hi,

APs always go and terminate on LMS ( which is configured in AP system profile ) they don't care whether that is a Master or a Local :).

Master Local setup needed to sync the configuration and local database, AP traffic and Client traffic will be processed by the Local so Local don't care whether it is able to communicate with the master or not for managing the WLAN.

Hope you got some more clarity.

Hi,

Thanks for your answer.

does anyone have some documents or test documentations for this?

Does anyone hava a deploment like the with master/backupmaster + local design where APs terminate on the Master controller?

HI,

Master has got many responsibilies such as Global monitoring, Processing IDS events and alerts, Initial AP termination, Centralized License Server,CPSec trust anchor hence it is not recomanded to terminate APs on Master but still we can terminate APs on Master if it is required, where HQ APs will be terminated on Master and BO APs will be terminated on Local. AP fast failover feature is more suitable to terminate APs on Master-Standby setup.

Let me check if I have any VRD on this, will share if I find any.

VRDs to read:

http://community.arubanetworks.com/t5/Validated-Reference-Design/Aruba-Mobility-Controllers/ta-p/155472

http://community.arubanetworks.com/t5/Validated-Reference-Design/Campus-Network-Design-V-8/ta-p/155134

http://community.arubanetworks.com/t5/Validated-Reference-Design/Campus-Redundancy-Model/ta-p/155584

As it's been said it's NOT recommended to put APs on the master when the master is managing other locals, but if you're willing to risk some performance penalties when loaded, as a failover risk, then it will work. 

Note that the ONLY controller that will not terminate APs in a master/master-backup/localX/localY configuration is the master-backup controller. Even if you point APs to it directly, the controller will not terminate Aps. 

Everything else that has been said here is good info. Use APFF to nulify failover latencies, etc. EDIT: And if the APs are all on LocalX/LocalY and both masters go down, the locals will still function, terminate APs and clients ,etc, but ARM, WIDS, and config management are gone until the masters are back up.

Hi,

thanks for the dokuments.

Am I right?

When wie have 1 MasterController and two locals, when the master fails, the locals can serve the deployed aps and no ap is going down or had traffic problems or network problems?

The only problem I had is, I cannot configure anything on the locals and I cannot deploy new APs in this time?

Is this the same when the licese server is based on the master controller?

When I terminate some APs on the Master controller in Master/local/local deployment does Aruba support this?

What is the performance of a 7205er controller? How mutch locals can it serve? or how much local are supported for this? How much locals and aps can I terminate on this controller (maybe someone have some experience with this)?

Thanks a lot for your support ;-)

HI ,

Now you are in right track :)

Yes, When master fails, Still Local controllers will continue serving AP and Clients. you can not modify the configuration.

If the Master is the License server and if fails, until and unless a new license or license renewal required by other controllers there will not be any effect of this, other controllers will continue with the license already installed.

Q : When I terminate some APs on the Master controller in Master/local/local deployment does Aruba support this?

A: Yes . 100 % supports (LMS IP should be Master IP)

Q : What is the performance of a 7205er controller? How much locals can it serve? or how much local are supported for this? How much locals and aps can I terminate on this controller (maybe someone have some experience with this)?

A: As such there is no particular number for local controllers but it depends on concurrent IPSEc sessions and as per the data sheet, A7205 can have 4096 sessions  and it can manage Max 256 number of APs.

Hope you got all the answers

I know I´m annoying but I´ve another question:

1. In a Master (7205) and 2 local(7030) Controller deployment. Every local Controller serves 64 APs(the maximum for 7030) so I cannot bot backup lms to each other controller. Can I configure the Master Controller as backup lms for each local controller?

Does it work if one local fails, the master serves the aps?

HI,

Absolutely works because 7205 can handle Max of 256 APs but you should consider license as well, Master should have enough license when APs failover .

Hope you got your answer.

when centralized licensing ins running on master but the licenses are based on the locals, the master must haven enough licenses if a local or both fail, right?

No, the license master will 'take' all the licenses of all the controllers in the license pool and will retain those licenses for 30days when a controller with licenses on fails.

So you have plenty of time to replace the locals if they should fail without runnign into license issues.

what is about the internal user db for guests?

When guests created on the master controller can the guests login to the wifi on the locals?

When the master fails, can the guests be created on the locals or can´t guest be created?

Thanks

Yes, internaldb authentication always happens on the master unless you configure it specifically to happen on the local controllers.

When the master goes down, you're out of luck I believe (though I'm not 100%).