Migrating from NX to VX

[Sharpy]

Hi,

I am looking to migrate from a centralized physical controller sat in a DC to a VX. Is there a guide or steps I need to take to accomplish this?

Ideally I want to keep all config and VLANs the same otherwise it will be a lot of work. 

Am I able to just point DHCP option 191 to the new box, reset the AP’s and they will be picked up on the VX or do I have to do something else for them to be picked up?

Also, if I were to give the VX one of the IP’s of the current physical box’s, say the secondary, would that also accomplish the same thing or would there then be a conflict between the 1 remaining NX and new VX?

Any other suggestions welcomed, perhaps there is a better way to do this?

Thanks in advance,

Chris

[Sharpy]

Hi Tomasz,

Thanks for the response!

The idea is to move away from the NX platform as it is now end of support. As one of the cluster has already blown up the idea was to re-use that IP, configure the VX exactly the same (minus the cluster part) and once the AP’s can be seen over mint, turn off the remaining NX.

All mint links are currently level 2 and if we re-use the IP of the failed controller, option 191 will still be valid so no changes required (that would be a pain). Will it cause any issues if one controller is NX and one VX? I know I cant cluster them but that wont be an issue.

It almost sounds too simple so wanted to check there were no gotchas but by the sounds of it thats all there is to it once we get a VX appliance license and transfer the AP licenses.

Thanks,

Chris

[Tomasz]

Hi Chris,

I think it might be important to let us also know, do you wish to keep NX in place?

I mean, with WiNG you can achieve something that one may call a hierarchical adoption, with VX in some HQ we may have big sites (>256 APs) and then one option is to split a site into multiple RF Domains or to have a controller appliance on site to serve as RFDM and adopt to the HQ controller.

It may be a decision-driving factor.

Other than that, if it’s just a plain takeover, DHCP Option 191 adjustment + reboot might be the easiest (when it’s a good time for a reboot of course). Please remember about MINT link levels (1 or 2) that may need a change (e.g. if you had NX in the same subnet with APs and now you need to reach beyond with more sites that appeared). You can also try to provide the same IP for VX as NX had but take it off of NX to avoid duplicate IP issue (both for APs and CLI/GUI access).

Please remember that g1 native vlan interface IP address is used for VX serial number ‘creation’. License should be generated and applied once IP address is settled. If you generate a license and apply it, but then you change the IP address, you will have to call GTAC to recreate the license key.

Hope that helps,

Tomasz