Information Systems:Advanced wireless administration (WLAN)

It is quite important to note that the term 'controller' in this scenario does not refer to a traditional wireless controller, where there is centralized traffic forwarding i.e. all wireless traffic passes through the controller, and the APs can't function without one. Rather, what we have is known as a distributed architecture, where the APs are independent and can function without a controller, yet their settings are configured and their stats are monitored by the adopting controller. This means any AP can even be turned off/disconnected without affecting the other APs (and their existing wireless connections). This wireless architecture is highly efficient as it centralizes management but avoids a hardware appliance, which as a single point of failure would make for a less fault-tolerant setup.

Due to the fairly potent internals of a typical AP in the market today, this feature is being offered more and more by vendors, and is completely feasible for smaller deployments (e.g. the management of 5 other APs by this controller is actually well under the recommended maximum of 64 devices).

It is highly important to understand this following section if you are involved in the technical administration of the APs.

WiNG APs adopted by a controller are managed through a system profile. This profile is specific to a model of AP and is stored and managed by the controller. It contains base/default settings and applies them to adopted APs. Therefore, the method of configuring settings specific to a device (access point) is thus to configure device overrides that override the system profile. For example, the system profile sets the following:

• Have the device acquire an IP address by DHCP.
• Only VLAN 1 enabled by default, port type is Access.
• Turn off the 2.4GHz radio, turn on the 5GHz radio with auto channel and auto power.
• No SSIDs are mapped to either radio

Configuring the device overrides, the settings for a particular AP would then be as follows:

• AP is set with a static IP.
• Ge0 (ethernet port) of AP is set as a VLAN trunk, with VLAN 1 being native, and VLAN 2 being tagged on the port.
• 2.4GHz radio is activated if necessary, 5GHz radio is set to a custom channel and power.
• Select SSIDs are mapped accordingly, as BSSIDs on either or both radios.
• Device name is configured.

The system profile in use - given we have only 1 type of access point - is called default-ap7532.

Of course, only a fraction of the settings need to be overridden, so the settings a device will consist of the those applied from the system profile, plus those configured as overrides.