Each controller has a defined number of communication ports for access points. When multiple controllers with unused access point ports are deployed on the same network and one controller fails, the dropped access points automatically poll for unused controller ports and associate with them.

The following are some guidelines for configuring failover priority for access points:

• You can configure your wireless network so that the backup controller recognizes a join request from a higher-priority access point, and if necessary, disassociates a lower-priority access point as a means to provide an available port.

• Failover priority is not in effect during the regular operation of your wireless network. It takes effect only if there are more associations requests to controller than the available AP capacity on the controller.

• AP priority is checked while connecting to the controller when the controller is in full scale or the primary controller fails, the APs fallback to the secondary controller.

• You can enable failover priority on your network and assign priorities to the individual access points.

• By default, all access points are set to priority level 1, which is the lowest priority level. Therefore, you need to assign a priority level only to those access points that warrant a higher priority.