Role Of The Wds Device - Allen-Bradley Stratix 5100 User Manual

Chapter 13 Configuring WDS, Fast Secure Roaming, Radio Management, and Wireless Intrusion Detection Services
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Access points participating in radio management forward information about the
radio environment (such as possible rogue access points and client associations
and disassociations) to the WDS device. The WDS device aggregates the
information and forwards it to a wireless LAN solution engine (WLSE) device
on your network.

Role of the WDS Device

The WDS device performs several tasks on your wireless LAN:
• Advertises its WDS capability and participates in electing the best WDS
device for your wireless LAN. When you configure your wireless LAN for
WDS, you set up one device as the main WDS candidate and one or more
additional devices as back-up WDS candidates. If the main WDS device
goes off line, one of the back-up WDS devices takes its place.
• Authenticates all access points in the subnet and establishes a secure
communication channel with each of them.
• Collects radio data from access points in the subnet, aggregates the data,
and forwards it to the WLSE device on your network.
• Acts as a pass-through for all 802.1x-authenticated client devices
associated to participating access points.
• Registers all client devices in the subnet that use dynamic keying,
establishes session keys for them, and caches their security credentials.
When a client roams to another access point, the WDS device forwards
the client's security credentials to the new access point.
This table lists the number of participating access points supported by the
platforms that can be configured as a WDS device: an access point, an ISR, or a
WLSM-equipped switch.
Table 97 - Participating Access Points Supported by WDS Devices
Unit Configured as WDS Device
Access point that also serves client devices
Access point with radio interfaces disabled
Integrated Services Router (ISR)
WLSM-equipped switch
Rockwell Automation Publication 1783-UM006A-EN-P - May 2014
Participating Access Points Supported
30
60
100 (depending on ISR platform)
600