Wireless Access

Hi All,

Please help me understand the below concept. I am new to wireless so please help me.

Referring to Aruba User Guide, Deployment Scenario #2.

Deployment Scenario #2: APs All on One Subnet Different from Controller Subnet

Its mentioned that the link between controller and switch should be access Vlan 1. When the traffic is tunnelled back to controller, based on AP group, controller will determine that traffic belongs to Vlan 101 (just for example), if the link is access, how can controller send out traffic to VLAN 101 ?

The administrator has the option of making any port access, or making it a trunk.  The access port can pass any vlan, and the trunk can pass a number of different VLANs.  It does not just have to be VLAN 1; that is just an example.  When you define a WLAN, and the traffic is tunneled back to the controller, the user traffic can be placed on any VLAN that is on an access or trunk port connected to the controller.

For example, the controller can have a trunk connected to a router that is passing VLANs 10, 20 and 30.  I can have 3 WLAN defined - an Employee WLAN on VLAN 10, a Device WLAN on VLAN 20 and a Guest WLAN on VLAN 30.  Any access point that is deployed can tunnel the traffic back to the controller and the controller will place the user traffic on VLAN 10, 20 or 30, depending on the WLAN that the user is connected to (Employee, Device or Guest).  It does not matter what VLAN the access point is on, as long as it is routable to the ip address of the controller and can send traffic to it;  Everything is sorted out when it gets to the controller.

I hope that helps.

Thanks Colin for helping me out. 

Its starting to make sense now. What you have explained, it stands true if controller is deployed in Layer 2 or Layer 3 ? 

Layer 2 = The router is the default gateway for clients

Layer 3 = The controller is the default gateway for clients and the router has a route to the controller for those user subnets.

The answer is Yes in both scenarios.