AirWave 8.3.0 | Best Practices Guide Discovering Aruba Infrastructure | 19
Local Controller/Managed Devices Discovery
In ArubaOS 6.x, the controllers can be deployed as Conductor or Local. In a Conductor-Local
deployment, Conductor holds the responsibility of all policy configurations. This include services such as
WIPS, Initial AP configurations, user roles, and authentication-related configurations, etc. The local
controller/managed devices terminates AP tunnels, processes and forwards user traffic (including
authentication), manages ARM (Adaptive Radio Management), mobility features, and QoS.
In ArubaOS 8.x, Aruba also offers a Mobility Conductor Appliance which provides additional features
which are not available in the other controller models. In ArubaOS 8.x deployment, we can have MM-MD
deployment where there is a Mobility Conductor and managed devices (MD) forming a cluster. It
provides controller clustering capability that allows better user experience via features like Hitless
failover, Automatic user load balancing, Automatic AP load balancing, and seamless roaming across the
cluster. This type of deployment could perhaps be considered for sensitive environments where high
wireless performance and reliability are a requirement for critical services.
ArubaOS 8.X is necessary with Mobility Conductor Appliance. APs cannot terminate on any Conductor
or Mobility Conductor controllers, APs can only terminate on controllers deployed in local mode.
ArubaOS 6.X allows AP termination on either Conductor or local controllers/managed devices.
Local controllers/managed devices are added to AirWave via the Conductor controller by a discovery
scan, or manually added in Device Setup > Add. After waiting for the Thin AP Polling Period interval or
executing a Poll Controller Now command from the Devices > Monitor page, the local
controllers/managed devices will appear on the Devices > New page.
Add the local controller/managed device to the Group defined previously. Within AirWave, local
controllers/managed devices can be split away from the Conductor controller's Group.
Local Controller/managed device Discovery/monitoring may not work as expected if AirWave is unable
to communicate directly with the target device. Be sure and update any ACL/Firewall rules to allow
AirWave to communicate with your network equipment.
Thin AP Discovery
Thin APs are discovered via the local controller/managed device. After waiting for the Thin AP Polling
Period or executing a Poll Controller Now command from the Devices > Monitor page, thin APs will
appear on the Devices > New page.
Add the thin APs to the Group defined previously. Within AirWave, thin APs can be split away from the
controller's Group. You can split thin APs into multiple Groups if required.