Controlled failover between wireless controllers

Controlled failover between wireless controllers

1+1 Wireless Controller HA

Instances of failover between FortiAP units was too long and lead to extended periods of time where WiFi users were without network connection. Because WiFi is considered a primary network connection in today’s verticals (including enterprise, retail, education, warehousing, healthcare, government, and more), it is necessary for successful failover to occur as fast as possible.

Primary and secondary ACs

You can now define the role of the primary and secondary controllers on the FortiAP unit, allowing the unit to decide the order in which the FortiAP selects the FortiGate. This process was previously decided on load-based detection, but can now be defined by each unit’s pre-determined priority. In addition, heartbeat intervals have been lowered to further improve FortiAP awareness and successful failover.

1+1 redundancy

1+1 HA is a form of resilience whereby a component has a backup component to take its place in the event of component failure, and successfully manage FortiAP without long failover periods.

CLI syntax

config wireless-controller inter-controller set inter-controller-mode {disable | l2-roaming | 1+1} Default is disable. set inter-controller-key <password> set inter-controller-pri {primary | secondary} Default is primary. set fast-failover-max [3-64] Default is 10. set fast-failover-wait [10-86400] Default is 10. config inter-controller-peer edit <name> set peer-ip <ip-address> set peer-port [1024-49150] Default is 5246.

set peer-priority {primary | secondary} Default is primary. next

end end

 

Multiple PSK for WPA Personal (393320)                                                                        1+1 Wireless Controller HA

This entry was posted in Administration Guides, FortiOS 5.6 on by .

About Mike

Michael Pruett, CISSP has a wide range of cyber-security and network engineering expertise. The plethora of vendors that resell hardware but have zero engineering knowledge resulting in the wrong hardware or configuration being deployed is a major pet peeve of Michael's. This site was started in an effort to spread information while providing the option of quality consulting services at a much lower price than Fortinet Professional Services. Owns PacketLlama.Com (Fortinet Hardware Sales) and Office Of The CISO, LLC (Cybersecurity consulting firm).

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