ExtremeWireless (WiNG)

Hello everyone,

Can a NX5500E controller be supported max to 1024 AP when it run in HA mode with second NX5500E on unique GUI to manage all AP? (like HA mode of Enterasys controllers)

And the max of controller in Cluster to be supported in a system?

Thanks so much.

Max. Cluster members for NX is 2 with the WiNG. But I think for WiNG Express would be the same.

Thanks Timo.

Hi Son,

When it comes to WiNG Express this is designed for simple(r) deployments, hence missing some advanced features like manual cluster setup.
Anyway, WiNG controllers are not recommended to be used in HA (active / active) in order to extend adoption capabilities. When one goes down, you'd exceed maximum number of APs adopted by single controller resulting in adoption loss.

Also, there is an article about cluster members on GTAC knowledge base
Timo is right - limitation is 2 members for a cluster.

Regards,
Ondrej

Hi Ondrej,

Can WiNG controllers to be used in HA (active/actve) in order to extend adoption capabilities? Because for some reason, we want to add more controller for this purpose.

Thanks.

Son,

As I said - if you extend the adoption capabilities you won't be able to perform failover in case one of cluster members go down. That means you will lose as many APs as single controller cannot handle.

However, you can configure cluster this way - on your own responsibility.

Regards,
Ondrej

Hi Ondrej,

In this way, do two controllers have a unique GUI (Web UI) to manage all APs in the system?

Son,

There are two realms you shall consider - cluster master & adopting controller.

• Cluster master - centralized point of configuration

• Adopting controller - controller responsible for AP management

So in this case, you'll still have centralized management (single GUI) and two adopters. However, officially unsupported solution.

Makes sense?

Regards,
Ondrej

Hi Ondrej,

Very clear explanation. So it means Extreme Networks will not support in case of deployment this solution?

Hi Son,

this is to protect system as you might use advanced features requiring centralized management.
Adoption wise it is better to have one dedicated adopter as you may end up with neighboring APs adopted across cluster.

Take it as official recommendation

Regards,
Ondrej

Thanks so much, Ondrej.

As described above, when you max out both controllers, on a fail over you will lose adoption on half of the APs. What can possibly play in your favor would be if you are running the WLANs in bridge mode local and not tunneling traffic back through the controller. If a controller goes down, the AP will still function handling all traffic as normal. Users will not know. In bridge mode tunnel, if a controller goes down, then half of the users will be ringing your phone off the hook complaining they lost network connectivity.

Either way, local or bridging, half of the APs will not adopt to the running controller. Always use the N+1 number when doing HA configurations.