WLAN Services Overview

A WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) Service represents all the RF, authentication and QoS attributes of a wireless access service. The WLAN Service can be one of the following types:

• Standard — A conventional service. Only APs running Extreme Networks ExtremeWireless software can be part of this WLAN Service. This type of service may be used as a Bridged @ Controller, Bridged @ AP, or Routed VNS. This type of service provides access for mobile stations. Therefore, roles can be assigned to this type of WLAN service to create a VNS.
• Third Party AP — A wireless service offered by third party APs. This type of service provides access for mobile stations. Therefore, roles can be assigned to this type of WLAN service to create a VNS.
• Dynamic Mesh and WDS (Static Mesh)— A group of APs organized into a hierarchy for the purposes of providing a Wireless Distribution Service. This type of service is in essence a wireless trunking service rather than a service that provides access for stations. As such, this service cannot have roles attached to it.
• Remote — A service that resides on the edge (foreign) controller. Pairing a remote service with a remoteable service on the designated home controller allows you to provision centralized WLAN Services in the mobility domain. This is known as centralized mobility.

  The remote service should have the same SSID name and privacy as the home remoteable service. Any WLAN Service/VNS can be a remoteable service, though deployment preference is given to tunneled topologies (Bridged@Controller and Routed).

  To reduce the amount of information distributed across the mobility domain, you will explicitly select which WLAN Services are available from one controller to any other controller in the mobility domain.

  The WLAN Service remoteable property is synchronized with the availability peer, making the WLAN service published by both the home and foreign controllers.

  The following types of authentication are supported for remote WLAN services:

  • None
  • Internal/External Captive Portal
  • Guest Portal
  • Guest Splash
  • AAA/802.1x