ADC WFX-3900-16 L11 User Manual page 154

Appendix B: Troubleshooting December 22, 2005
What would I use VLANs for?
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.
What are Wireless VLANs?
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 the WFX-3900, 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 able to access other privileged network resources.
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