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What is the best way to manage multiple (~50) Cisco Wireless Lan Controllers (5508, 4402) from one application without having to loggin to each controller through the web browser? I know Cisco used to have Cisco Wireless Control System Navigator - but its end of life.
(Cisco Prime infrastructure is not an option)
What is the best way to manage multiple (~50) Cisco Wireless Lan Controllers (5508, 4402) from one application without having to loggin to each controller through the web browser?
One option to consider: use the AIRESPACE-WIRELESS-MIB; this gives you full control over the LWAPs.
If you go this route, you probably would want to write scripts to manage them over the long term... I almost never touch Prime Infra... everything I do uses AIRESPACE-WIRELESS-MIB in a script.
Wireless Control System (WCS) had it's functionality extended to start managing switches as well and became Network Control System (NCS). The community tended to like this solution better then Ciscoworks/LMS, and so Cisco rolled it all into the one package and this is now Cisco Prime Infrastructure. There is no longer a WCS product and there will not be anytime in the near future.
Since you have ruled out the Cisco provided product, you have a couple of options. Find a non-Cisco solution that will work with Cisco controllers. I have heard of several organizations that have used Aruba's Airwave product with their Cisco controllers, but I can't speak personally to what features/capabilities you may be lacking if you use it.
The second option is that you can "roll your own" solution. Most of the Cisco controller features can be managed via SNMP. You can create your own management system based off of scripts/code that uses SNMP and SSH/telnet to both configure and pull information from the controllers you manage.
