Steps/Experience for Migrating from SZ-100 to SZ-144 Cluster

[JimmyDeanChoo]

Hey Everybody, thought this may be the best place to reach out and ask for some guidance.

We have around 250 ruckus APs, which includes R720's and H550's, all running on their own VLAN with a Smartzone-100 controller.

We recently acquired two new SZ-144 controllers, which have been configured in a cluster. The goal is to migrate all these access points over to the new cluster in one-go. Does anybody on here have experience migrating from an SZ-100 to SZ-144 cluster with this many APs? Will the APs pick up the new controller automatically, or would I have to set an Option 43 on the DHCP, as I thought APs were able to discover the new controller automatically.
I found the Commscope documentation, but our SZ-100 does not seem to have the option to switch over the APs to a new cluster by Zone, that and the documentation is very short and I thought it may be better to ask those that have actually done it.

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

[vignesh_ramasam]

Hello Jimmy,

Good Day!

Please share the following details to suggest an appropriate next action plan:

What is the current version of the SZ-100?

What is the version of the new SZ-144 cluster?

What is the AP zone version?

Do you have DHCP option 43 configured on DHCP?

Do you have both the controller setup (SZ-100 & SZ-144) on the same network/subnet?

Regards,

Vignesh

[JimmyDeanChoo]

Hello!

Our SZ-100 is on 3.6.2.0.250 and the SZ-144 I believe is 6.1.1.0.(something).  And All APs look to be on 3.6.2.0.759 firmware.  We currently have an Option 43 on the DHCP for our current SZ-100 set, but according to other IT, this doesn't work, and they said the APs Autodiscover the controller.  Controllers will both be on the same network and subnet.

[vignesh_ramasam]

Hello Jimmy,

Thanks for sharing the details.

Could you let me know which AP models you have deployed? Are you using windows DHCP server?

Also, please note that it is not possible to restore the cluster backup from SZ-100 to SZ-144. Restoring the configuration backup from the old to the new controller with the existing 3.6.2.0.250 is not possible as sz144 only supports version starting 5.1.x. For further explanation, please refer to the following articles:

https://support.ruckuswireless.com/articles/000010856

https://support.ruckuswireless.com/articles/000010855

Regards,

Vignesh

[JimmyDeanChoo]

We have R720's and H550's deployed, and our DHCP server/scope lives on our core cisco switch.  When I configured the SZ-144 cluster, I was able to restore a configuration from the old SZ-100.  I downloaded the config and uploaded it to the new cluster.