OV2500 v4.2.2 cannot discover existing Stellar AP 1221 FW 3.0.2.38

[duodeath]

Hi all,

I have an implementation involving OV2500 and stellar AP 1221. The client has 20 existing AP and clustered group by 2, 10 APs on group 10 and 10 APs on group 20. OV2500 was ordered and delivered to the site with the proper license inside. I already add the alcatel switches inside the OV2500 but the OV2500 doesn't seem to see the existing stellar APs. Based on the video in youtube, stellar APs will automatically discovered by OV2500 unlike other devices that you need to manually discover them. So I tried testing all possible test that I can think of, and also read other documents for OV2500 and stellar until I ran into this one document saying that in order for me to associate the stellar AP into the OV2500, it needs to have DHCP with option 43 or 138 wherein this options are vendor option. It doesn't even say the vendor ID needed for that option to make it work. since my APs are quite few so all the 20 APs are in static IP address. Now the question:

Do I really need to restore factory default the existing APs and put it in dhcp with this option?
a. if yes, then for example if the company has 100 existing APs, we also need to restore factory them all? that's not even considered as scalable and it will be insane to the engineers involve.

b.If no, is there any work around with this?

Thanks for the future response.

[sputniki]

In opposite of "normal" networking devices that are managed and monitored by SNMP the Stellar APs in Enterprise Mode do not used to get configured by CLI or web management.
To use them with OV2500 it's mandatory to provide ip address of OV2500 with DHCP option. All configurations (SSID, AAA and vlan) is done within OV2500. Also clustering within the APs is not the way the Enterprise Mode works - the web management is only used for express mode without Omnivista.

Make sure that you run OV2500 with 4.2.2 MR2 that is needed to add Stellar APs with 3.0.2.38 and use DHCP with option 138 (or 43 alternatively) to submit the IP address of OV2500.

For the existing APs it depends on their capabilites/type how you can add them to OV2500.

[silvio]

Yes, sputniki is correct.
Do join all AP of your working cluster of AP (in express mode) to OV (for enterprise mode) you need to use DHCP with option 138 (ip to OV). Within your UI to your PVC you can update all your APs to the newest R3-release and after them you have to use "clear all config". I hope that all your static config will deleted and the APs will comming up as DHCP clients. And this will work also for both your clusters.
For OV best way is Option 138. Option 43 is also working - but this is for use with OV-cirrus.
regards
Silvio

[duodeath]

Thanks for your kind reply guys.

Since it's a mandatory procedure and no work around on this, I'll devise a proper migration for the APs since these are on production and working APs.

Follow-up question. After migrating the AP on OV, does AP will still have PVC and SVC even though they're already under OV2500 configuration? Both OV2500 and APs are in the latest version by the way.

[silvio]

After converting the AP to enterprise all management has to be done via OV. The WebUI direct at the AP can't be used for it. But the usertraffic and PVC/SVC is still direct at the AP's. So if OV is down or not reachable the WLAN isn't involved.
Best way for you will be to convert at the start only one AP, make your config at OV with this one AP and if all is working you can convert all the others.
regards
Silvio

[duodeath]

Thanks Silvio.

I will take note on this.