User's Manual Part 2

Wireless LAN Array
222 Appendix C: Technical Support
Frequently Asked Questions
This section answers some of the most frequently asked questions, organized by
functional area.
Multiple SSIDs
Q. What Are BSSIDs and SSIDs?
A. BSSID (Basic Service Set Identifier) refers to an individual access point
radio and its associated clients. The identifier is the MAC address of the
access point radio that forms the BSS.
A group of BSSs can be formed to allow stations in one BSS to
communicate to stations in another BSS by way of a backbone that
interconnects each access point.
The Extended Service Set (ESS) refers to the group of BSSIDs that are
grouped together to form one ESS. The ESSID (often referred to as SSID or
“wireless network name”) identifies the Extended Service Set. Clients
must associate to a single ESS at any given time. Clients ignore traffic
from other Extended Service Sets that do not have the same SSID.
Legacy access points typically support one SSID per access point. Xirrus
Wireless LAN Arrays support the ability for multiple SSIDs to be defined
and used simultaneously.
Q. What would I use SSIDs for?
A. The creation of different wireless network names allows system
administrators to separate types of users with different requirements. The
following policies can be tied to an SSID:
z Minimum security required to join this SSID.
z The wireless Quality of Service (QoS) desired for this SSID.
z The wired VLAN associated with this SSID.
As an example, one SSID named accounting might require the highest
level of security, while another SSID named guests might have low
security requirements.