WESM zl Management and Configuration Guide WT.01.28 and greater

4-3

Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs)

Overview

A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a LAN that uses a wireless medium; typically it provides

wireless stations a connection to a private LAN, the Internet, or both. The WLAN

might include multiple radio ports (RPs), each of which is identified by an individual

basic service set identifier (BSSID), but supports the same service set identifier

(SSID). Stations associated to one RP can roam to another RP that provides access

to the same WLAN (shares the same SSID).

By default, all RP radios adopted by a ProCurve Wireless Edge Services zl Module

support all WLANs that you enable on that module. In “Configuration Options:

Normal Versus Advanced Mode” on page 4-4, you will learn about how the module

assigns these WLANs to BSSIDs on each RP radio. (This process may affect which

WLANs operate in open and which in closed system.) Mastering these concepts will

help you better design your network, and is particularly important when you plan to

configure more than four WLANs.

The WLAN defines settings that control the wireless communications. These range

from the method that wireless stations must use to authenticate themselves to the

encryption algorithms that protect data to the parameters by which stations compete

for access to the wireless medium. When you configure the WLAN, you must choose

these settings, as described in “Configuring a WLAN” on page 4-26 and “Traffic

Management (QoS)” on page 4-88.

Because all RPs in a WLAN must agree upon settings, the Wireless Edge Services

zl Module, as a single wireless controller, greatly simplifies configuration. After you

configure and enable a WLAN on the module, the module can automatically

configure these settings on all adopted RPs.

The RPs send and receive traffic in these WLANs. The traffic that they receive from

wireless stations, they forward (via Radio Port virtual LANs [VLANs]) to the

Wireless Edge Services zl Module, which assigns this traffic to a VLAN. The module

can:

■ assign all traffic from a WLAN to the same VLAN (manual VLAN assignment)

■ assign traffic to different VLANs depending on the identity of the user that sent

the traffic (dynamic VLAN assignment)

You will learn about both of these options in “VLAN Assignment” on page 4-79.