User's Guide

Virtual Network Services concepts
hwc_vnsintro.fm
VNS overview
9034530-02, March 2010
226 HiPath Wireless Controller, Access Points and Convergence Software V7.11, User Guide
Breaking the VNS into two main parts, permits a VNS to be created from
components that were defined at different times. For example the HWC can ship
with predefined WLAN Services that are created by the development team. At a
later date a policy can be defined on the HWC (by the administrator or Policy
Manager) and combined with the WLAN Service to create a functional SSID.
In Release V7.0 the new concepts introduced provide new capabilities such as:
• The ability to share an HWC physical port between 3rd party AP VNS and
other types of VNS so long as the VNSs are on different VLANs. Since many
HWC implementations have only 2 physical ports, this allows those
implementations to offer support for 3rd party APs in conjunction with
standard VNSs.
• The ability to have Bridged @ Controller VNSs that do not have a layer 3
presence (IP address). This greatly simplifies “Out of the box” deployments in
which the HWC is only required to function as a layer 2 device.
• The ability to assign separate inbound and outbound rate limits on a per
station basis. These rate limits will apply at the AP and the HWC
• The ability to assign stations to VLANs on a per station basis. All HiPath APs
and controllers running V7.0 software will be able to perform per station
VLAN.
• Simplification of VNS RADIUS server configuration through the migration of
various RADIUS server settings to the global RADIUS server definition.
• Support for allowing Policy Manager to define and manage policies that
specify VLAN assignment, rate limits and filters
• Support for allowing Policy Manager to create VNS by defining policies and
attaching them to WLAN Services
• Support for “Branch Captive Portal”. This feature allows the administrator to
configure any desired type of HWC Captive portal authentication for a WLAN
Service while allowing the APs to locally bridge the payload traffic of
authenticated stations.
• Workflow improvements for defining VNS and their components. One
example of such an improvement is the ability to define topologies, policies
and rate profiles globally and which can then be reused to define many
different services.
• The ability to have multiple WLAN Services use the same VLAN topology. An
administrator can now design his network so that users accessing it from
different SSIDs can share the same physical segment. Different users on the
same segment can be subject to different policies. Support for administrator-
configurable multicast and broadcast rate limiting at the AP. The more flexible
approach to handling network topologies introduced by this feature could lead
to reduced radio capacity without this enhancement being implemented.