How To Make

What is WLC AP Management?

An Access Point (AP) is a the device that receives the signals from WLC and deploys this signals to the hosts according to a coverage area.

 A Wireless LAN Controller (WLC) is a centralized device in the network which is used in combination with the Lightweight Access Point Protocol (LWAPP) to manage lightweight access points in large quantities by the network administrator or network operations center.

Also called “fat” access points, these access points on the network are managed, operated, and configured independently. The WLC automatically handles the configuration of wireless access points.

There are two types of Access Points. These are:

Autonomous Access Points (AP) are independant devices. They do not need WLC. These APS can be managed centrally also by Wireless  LAN Solution Engine (WLSE). With Autonomous Access Points (AP), SSID and VLAN must be statically configured in all the access point for roaming.

Lightweight Access Points (LWAP) or Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAPP) are used together with Wireless LAN Controllers (WLCs). In this architecture Lightweight Access Points is responsible for real time processes. The roles of WLC are more: Authentication, Security, QoS, Mobilliy Mangement, Forwarding etc.

User traffic between AP and WLC is tunneled with different protocols. The protocols used between WLC and LWAP are:

Lightweight Access Point Protocol (LWAPP)

Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points Protocol (CAPWAP) used on XENTINO solution.

Both of these protocols work with UDP.

Wireless LAN Controller can be or can not be in the same ip subnet with Lightweight Access Point. The only important thing is they can reach together over IP.

Benefits of a Wireless LAN Controller?

It is secure. With all the daily news about hacking and data breaches, security is an essential factor to have in mind for any organization. Wireless LAN Controller (WLC) fights against all kinds of threats to your organization based on user ID and location thanks to built-in security characteristics.

Having a Wireless LAN Controller (WLC) will help you to administer and supervise your access points in the centralized hub.

A Wireless LAN Controller (WLC) gives the network administrators the ability to see all the data and information linked to the network. They are able to observe on the device the hardware status, the situation of the physical ports, and a summary of the Access Points (APs) connected anytime they want.

Lightweight Access Points (LAPs) can be managed with Wireless LAN Controllers (WLC). A WLC can manage 6 to 300 Access Points accourding to its capacity.

SSID, VLAN etc. configurations are done on WLCs.

WLC and the LAN switch has a link between them. This link can be one link or a Link Aggregation  can be used on it.

There are common standards or protocols of wireless networks : 802.11a/n/ac and 802.11b/g/n protocols.

According to the need, wireless network sizes change. For different size wireless networks, we can use different types of Wireless Controllers.

Our Product Recommendation as WLC : Xentino AC080 Enterprise Gateway & WLAN Controller