Wireless Access

Hi Folks,

I just finished my fresh wifi setup consisting of two Aruba 7030 controllers running in master-master (active/standby) configuration placed at our core layer3 switch, running up to 32 accesspoints distributed over three bulidings and three small locations elsewere, every connected to the main building with 1 Gb/s up to 10 Gb/s connections.

Now I'm at the point either to finish my controllersetup with AOS 6.5 (testing the controller failover to be sure it's working and begin rolling out the new accesspoints, introducing everything to the other it staff) or upgrade to AOS 8.2 which seems to be the much more modern software with very interesting features in automatically managing the radios (channel distribution and transmit power).

At the moment I'm unsure about the consequences for my setup because i read that AOS 8 can't handle accesspoints at a master controller and i'm unsure if I can re-use my licences with AOS 8 or if I'll have to buy new / different ones.

I would be glad for getting some tips.

Best regards,

Stefan

The preferable option would be to run AOS8 with Mobility Masters layered on top of your existing controllers. You are correct in saying that Mobility Masters cannot terminate APs. So you would need to either consider a hardware MM or a Virtual MM. You can re-use your existing AP/PEF/RFP licenses but depending on your MM choice, you may need MM licenses as well.

Just a note, you would need to migrate your configuration on the MM's, then import (which will reset the controller configuration) your hardware controllers into the MM Managed Network.

Thank you for your answer, that helps me a bit.

My problem is that I won't be able to legitimate the use to buy additional licences just for having newer software with features that are really cool but not essential.

Is there a way to build a good solution with the two controllers on AOS 8 without the need to buy additional licences?

You can use AOS8 without a MM's but certain features will not be available (such as clustering, airmatch, or any other 8.0 MM specific features). A lot of the legacy features are available but they are considered legacy now.

Thanks for your help.

I just took a look in the AOS 8.3 Manual und some other community posts, so if I'm not totally wrong I would have to configure a redundancy between two standalone controllers and lose some good features like central configuration and some other (mostly new) stuff.

So I think in my case it would be better to keep runnig AOS 6.5.

Correct, you should plan for an AOS8 upgrade at some point, but you would need to consider your environment first and the best approach.