Access Point Conversion Overview; Software Overview - Symbol WS5000 series Reference Manual

1.2.4 Access Point Conversion Overview

Some of the features available after converting an access point (AP 3020, AP 3021 or AP 4121) are:
• A central point of management for all access port conversions from the wireless switch
• Automatic updates of firmware files, when applicable, through the wireless switch
• Operation of legacy hardware
• A more centralized and consistent interface to manage all devices through the same SNMP, GUI, or CLI
interface
• Improved QoS capabilities because the Wireless Switch can apply QoS on a per-packet basis to all
access port conversions universally, based upon a global view of the WLAN network utilization
• More types of encryption; the AP 4121 supports WPA and EAP authentication types
• Management of QoS through bandwidth allocation for AP 4121
• Diffserv, an architecture for providing different types or levels of service for network traffic
• Support of multiple ESSIDs
• Support of multiple VLANs
• Disabling of serial port access
Conversion to access ports makes the following access point features unavailable:
• Mobile IP functionality, although the use of VLAN mapping can substitute for this functionality
• Wireless bridging and wireless repeater mode
• FH units supporting 40-bit WEP encryption only
• ACS for FH access port conversions

1.3 Software Overview

A WS5000 Series Switch uses a set of rules, or "policies," to configure the wireless LAN (WLAN), the access
ports that it adopts, and to integrate the wired LANs and VLANs. The policy-based management architecture
lets a network administrator create a class of service (CoS) by defining network access, type of WLAN security,
and quality of service (QoS) for a group of users.
The principal policies of the WS5000 Series switches are displayed in
• Switch Policy – Acts as a container for all the other policies, and contains an "adoption list" that controls
the types of access ports (APs) that can be adopted.
• Ethernet Port Policy – Configures the switch's Ethernet ports, and associates multiple WLANs with
multiple LANs or VLANs. There are two Ethernet ports on WS5000 Series switches. By convention, port
1 (the left port) connects to the wireless LAN, and port 2 (the right port) connects to the wired LAN.
• Access Port Policy – Defines access port configuration details such as an AP's beacon interval, RTS
threshold, its set of supported data rates, and so on. The AP policy is also responsible for adding WLANs
to the AP and for attaching a security policy, access control list, and network policy (or packet filter) to
each AP.
• WLAN Policy – Defines attributes that are applied to mobile units on a portion of the wireless LAN.
These attributes include things like ESS ID, beacon rate, DTIM interval, and so on.
WS5000 Series Switch Overview
Figure 1.1 and described as follows:
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