Migrate Mesh AP's to new controller

[Andre_Brits_Kan]

We currently have 3660 Ap's deployed in a Mesh.
The mesh consists of 7 AP's with a single "Mesh Portal"

This was installed as a POC running on a V2110 controller,
The client have moved to a production environment with a pair of C5210 controllers.

The questions I have is, how do we migrate the Mesh AP's to the new controllers, without physically taking them down and re provisioning them on the new controllers?

Do we replicate the configuration on the new controllers, then update the "Wireless Controller Search" list on the AP's?

I would think that if the AP's boot for the first time on the new controller it will see that the Mesh config is not applied to it (Because the new controller have not discovered them yet), that it would clear all mesh config, and we would loose comms.

Regards
Andre Kannemeyer

[Jason1]

Hello Andre,

I would recommend replicating the configuration on the new controllers, and updating the Wireless Controller Search list, as you mentioned.

I tested this today and it worked well with 4 AP's (1 mesh portal) and the AP's moved to the new controller.
The steps I took were:
- Verify both controllers are running the same version
- Copy the AP configurations to the new controller exactly as it is (serial number, model, name, antenna settings, channel, power etc)
- Configure the Mesh VNS exactly as it is on the V2110 (name, WPA-PSK key etc) and add the AP's also
- Do a Multi-edit on just the Mesh AP's first, and set the new Controller IP in the search list.
- Edit the Mesh Portal AP last and configure it's search list for the new controller
- Delete the AP's from the V2110 controller

What I saw was, in my lab setup, the Mesh AP's actually moved to the new controller, through the Mesh Portal, before I had a chance to delete the Mesh Portal AP. After setting the search list on the Mesh Portal AP, the Mesh AP's rebooted until the Mesh Portal moved over.

Make sure the antenna settings are accurate! The first time I tried this, the antennas were not set on the Mesh Portal and the radio did not turn on. After re-configuring the antennas correctly, the Mesh Portal was up, and the Mesh AP's came up fine.

Reference - https://gtacknowledge.extremenetworks.com/articles/How_To/How-can-I-migrate-my-Mesh

Best regards,
Jason