Tunnel and Mixed Mode Deployment

WLAN Wireless Local Area Network. WLAN is a 802.11 standards-based LAN that the users access through a wireless connection. is required to establish wireless connection between devices and thereby eliminating the need for cables. WLAN helps build personal and business networks without wiring the building with Ethernet Ethernet is a network protocol for data transmission over LAN.. It also provides a way for small devices, such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and Point of Sale (POS) machines to connect to the network.

The ArubaOS 10 in tunnel mode consists of at least one gateway cluster for security and network resiliency. The network created on tunnel mode or mixed mode acts as a virtual network on top of the physical network that is created on bridge mode. In the tunnel-mode of ArubaOS 10, VLANs Virtual Local Area Network. In computer networking, a single Layer 2 network may be partitioned to create multiple distinct broadcast domains, which are mutually isolated so that packets can only pass between them through one or more routers; such a domain is referred to as a Virtual Local Area Network, Virtual LAN, or VLAN. are configured on gateway cluster and APs tunnel traffic to gateways. APs function as authenticators and send authentication and accounting requests to the gateway cluster.

In the Mixed mode of ArubaOS 10, VLANs are configured either on the gateway cluster or on APs which tunnel client traffic to the gateway cluster based on the optimum traffic route.

The hardware infrastructure of the tunnel mode and mixed mode deployments require APs and gateways running ArubaOS 10.0.0.0 or later version.

The following figure illustrates the tunnel deployment mode.

Figure 1  Tunnel Mode Deployment