User's Manual

Wireless Array
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VLANs are defined and implemented using the wired network switches
that are VLAN capable. Packets are tagged for transmission on a
particular VLAN according to the IEEE 802.1Q standard, with VLAN
switches processing packets according to the tag.
Q. What would I use VLANs for?
A. Logically separating different types of users, systems, applications, or
other logical division aids in performance and management of different
network devices. Different VLANs can also be assigned with different
packet priorities to prioritize packets from one VLAN over packets from
another VLAN.
VLANs are managed by software settings — instead of physically
plugging in and moving network cables and users — which helps to ease
network management tasks.
Q. What are Wireless VLANs?
A. Wireless VLANs allow similar functionality to the wired VLAN
definitions and extend the operation of wired VLANs to the wireless side
of the network.
Wireless VLANs can be mapped to wireless SSIDs so that traffic from
wired VLANs can be sent to wireless users of a particular SSID. The
reverse is also true, where wireless traffic originating from a particular
SSID can be tagged for transmission on a particular wired VLAN.
Sixteen SSIDs can be defined on your Wireless Array, allowing a total of
sixteen VLANs to be accessed (one per SSID).
As an example, to provide guest user access an SSID of guest might be
created. This SSID could be mapped to a wired VLAN that segregates
unknown users from the rest of the wired network and restricts them to
Internet access only. Wireless users could then associate to the wireless
network via the guest SSID and obtain access to the Internet through the
selected VLAN, but would be unable to access other privileged network
resources.
See Also