Yesterday’s fat access points and legacy wireless LANs typically can’t handle mission-critical, real-time applications, nor do they have a migration path to 802.11n. Aerohive Networks has developed a new controller-less architecture that provides an innovative way to handle tomorrow’s wireless challenges – like voice over WLAN and migrating to 802.11n – without costing you a fortune. This paper discusses the benefits of this approach and the key underlying technologies of cooperative control, including best path forwarding and policy enforcement at the edge.
White Paper
Cooperative Control
Wireless LAN ArchitectureVersion 2.1
Aerohive Networks, Inc.3150-C Coronado AvenueSanta Clara, California 95054Phone: 408.988.9918Toll Free: 1.866.918.9918Fax: 408.492.9918www.aerohive.comTable of Contents Introduction........................................................................................................................3 The Aerohive Approach - Cooperative Control Architecture................................................ 3 Key Aerohive Concepts and Naming Conventions ............................................................. 4 Cooperative Control.............................................................................................................6 HiveAP Auto Discovery & Self Organization...................................................................... 6 Roaming Issues with Autonomous APs............................................................................ 7 Fast and Secure Layer 3 Roaming .................................................................................. 8 Tunnel Load Balancing in Large Scale Layer 3 Roaming Environments ................................. 9 Cooperative RF control ................................................................................................. 9 Station Load Balancing................................................................................................10 Policy Enforcement at the Edge ......................................................................................... 11 User Profiles and Identity-Based Policy ..........................................................................11 QoS Policy Enforcement at the Edge..............................................................................12 Security Policy Enforcement at the Edge ........................................................................15 Built-in Captive Web Portal ..........................................................................................16 Identity-Based Tunnels................................................................................................17 Guest Access Policy Enforcement at the Edge .................................................................18 Best Path Forwarding ........................................................................................................ 18 Wireless Mesh............................................................................................................19 Scalable layer 2 routing and optimal path selection .........................................................19 Security with Best Path Forwarding ...............................................................................21 Scalability with Best Path Forwarding ............................................................................21 High Availability ................................................................................................................ 21 No Single Point of Failure.............................................................................................21 Self Healing by Dynamically Routing Around Failures .......................................................22 Dynamic Mesh Failover - Converts access to mesh if a link failure occurs............................23 RADIUS Server Built into HiveAPs .................................................................................23 AAA Credential Caching ...............................................................................................24 Centralized Management ................................................................................................... 24 Simple and Scalable Management with the HiveManager NMS Appliance.............................24 HiveManager Components and Communication ...............................................................25 Simplified Configuration Management............................................................................26 Zero Configuration for Wireless Access Point Deployments................................................26 Simplified Monitoring, Reporting, and Troubleshooting .....................................................27 Rogue AP Detection ....................................................................................................28 Conclusion......................................................................................................................... 28
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