CLI Reference Guide

90 CHAPTER 3: GETTING STARTED
Defining a Mobility
Domain
A Mobility Domain is a collection of WX switches that work together to
support roaming users. One of the WX switches is defined as a seed
device, which distributes information to the other WX switches defined in
the Mobility Domain.
A Mobility Domain allows users to roam geographically from one WX
switch to another without losing network connectivity. Users connect as
a member of a VLAN through their authorized identities. If the native
VLAN for a user is not present on the WX to which the user connects, the
WX creates a tunnel to that VLAN.
A network plan can contain more than one Mobility Domain. Standalone
WX switches and third-party APs do not need to be configured within a
Mobility Domain.
You use 3WXM to create a Mobility Domain and define its seed device
and the other WX switches in the Mobility Domain. If you already have
WX switches installed and configured, you can upload the configurations
of the switches to 3WXM to have them included in a Mobility Domain.
Roaming Behavior For a client session to be considered a roaming session (and not a new
session), the following criteria must be met:
 The client associates or reassociates with a MAP in the Mobility
Domain, and the client already has a session on a different MAP in the
Mobility Domain. The existing session can be in one of two states:
 Active—The normal state for a client that has left radio range
without sending a request to disassociate
 Deassociated—The state of a client that has sent an 802.11
disassociate frame, but has not roamed or aged out yet
 Mobility Domain communications are stable. Generally, the
communications required for roaming are the same as those required
for VLAN tunneling. Roaming between ports on a WX is possible even
if the Mobility Domain is down.
 Authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) on the MAP to
which the client roams is successful on the first attempt. An
authentication or authorization failure clears the client session.
Depending on when the failure occurs, roaming can be disqualified or
delayed.