WESM zl Management and Configuration Guide WT.01.28 and greater

4-15
Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs)
Configuration Options: Normal Versus Advanced Mode
Manually Assigning WLANs to the Radio Adoption Default Configuration.
Configure the radio adoption default configuration to customize the WLANs that the
Wireless Edge Services zl Module sends to all newly adopted radios. This configu-
ration actually divides into two parts—one for 802.11a radios and one for 802.11bg
radios.
Note If you decide to use advanced mode configuration after the module has already
adopted RPs, any WLAN assignments established in the radio adoption default
configurations will not apply to these RPs. You must instead assign the WLANs to
specific radios, as explained in “Manually Assigning WLANs to a Specific Radio”
on page 4-18.
You should configure the radio adoption default configurations when you want all
RPs in your network to support the same WLANs (as they would with normal mode
configuration), but for some reason the normal WLAN assignment is inadequate.
For example:
■ You have added several WLANs to your network. You now want RP beacons to
include one of the new WLANs in preference to one of the old, but the new
WLAN has an index number higher than 4.
■ You have temporarily disabled several WLANs and you want to spread the others
more evenly over the BSSIDs.
■ You want to enable more than 16 WLANs on a single RP, so you assign some
of the WLANs to 802.11a radios and some to 802.11bg radios.
■ You want to configure different WLAN settings for stations that use different
802.11 types.
If you are using advanced mode to restrict one WLAN to a certain area, then you can
create WLAN assignments in the radio adoption default configurations for all other,
non-restricted WLANs.
For example, to restrict WLAN 1 to one building, you will explicitly assigned that
WLAN to RPs in that building, as described in “Manually Assigning WLANs to a
Specific Radio” on page 4-18. All other RPs in the wireless network should support
WLANs 2 through 5. You create a default configuration for both types of radios
(802.11a and 802.11bg), in which you assign these WLANs.
Figure 4-9 displays an environment such as this. This figure also shows the option
of enabling SSID A (WLAN 1) on the default configuration, but having SSID E
(WLAN 5) be the primary WLAN. (Stations in WLAN 1 can then roam into areas in
which WLAN 1 operates in closed system.) In this example, WLAN 1 is less a
restricted WLAN than a WLAN that is primarily used by employees in one area.