Cisco Guest Anchor WLC + Licensing

When deploying guest services in a Cisco WLAN you need to have an anchor WLC controller, which is located in the DMZ, which terminates the Ethernet over IP tunnels (EoIP) coming from the other campus controller, the foreign controller. EoIP is used in order to keep the guest traffic separate from the other enterprise traffic.

This image is taken from the Cisco Mobility design guide, link below, and illustrates the anchor controller functionality.

There is no additional licensing required to implement anchor controllers and no AP licenses are required, in fact you should purchased the appropriate controller with the least amount of AP licenses. This is because APs do not register to the anchor controller but rather to the foreign controller (the main WLC for the enterprise).

References:

Enterprise Mobility Design - Wireless Guest Access Services:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Mobility/emob73dg/ch10GuAc.html