Licensing
Access points are licensed as peripheral devices. An on-box Wireless LAN Controller (WLC) is a main (classic) device; the APs it manages draw against the Peripheral unit count.
| Device | License |
|---|---|
| On-box WLC (Cisco C9800, Aruba controller) | Main device |
| Cisco AP (via WLC) | Peripheral |
| Meraki MR (access point) | Peripheral |
| Mist AP | Peripheral |
| Meraki MS (switch) | Main device |
| Meraki MX (security appliance) | Main device |
| Meraki Dashboard | None — not modeled as a device |
| Mist cloud | None — not modeled as a device |
An on-box WLC counts as a main device because Forward models it as a packet forwarder that sits in the data path — CAPWAP tunnels terminate on it and it switches wireless traffic onto the wired network. A cloud management plane (the Meraki Dashboard or the Mist cloud) is only a collection source, not a modeled device, so it consumes no license; the devices it manages are licensed individually. Aruba APs are not modeled as separate devices, so they consume no license — an Aruba deployment counts as one main device per controller.
For the broader license model, see Licenses and the Licensing FAQ.
When access points are modeled
AP modeling is driven by peripheral license capacity, not a manual setting: APs appear in the model when the organization has Peripheral units available for them. How an unlicensed AP is handled differs by vendor:
- Cisco decides before collection. Without peripheral capacity, the WLC's AP devices are never created, though the WLC is still collected and its AP command output remains available through custom commands and NQE.
- Meraki and Mist APs are always collected, then skipped at snapshot processing when they exceed the peripheral cap.