Work group bridge nomadic roaming

摘要

In an example embodiment, an 802.11 or Ethernet work-group local area network (WG-LAN) is assigned a global name. The WG-LAN name is bound to a local virtual local area network identifier (VLAN-ID) in parent access points (APs). A path update protocol is employed to synchronize the WG-LAN/VLAN-ID bindings in a work-group bridge with the bindings of its' parent AP.

主权项

1. An apparatus, comprising:
a transceiver; a controller coupled with the transceiver and operable to send and receive data via the transceiver, wherein the controller is operable to:
bridge a work-group local area network with an enterprise network, the work-group local area network comprising a plurality of hosts and having a name;associate with a first parent access point associated with the enterprise network;receive from the first parent access point a first list of bindings of virtual local area network identifiers to work-group local area network names for the first parent access point;determine a first virtual local area network identifier (VLAN ID) for the work-group local area network from the first list of bindings;upon roaming to a second parent access point associated with the enterprise network, receive from the second parent access point a second list of bindings of virtual local area network identifiers to work-group local area network names for the second parent access point;determine a second virtual local area network identifier (VLAN ID) for the work-group local area network from the second list of bindings; andupon determining that the second parent access point is on a different subnet than the first parent access point based on the second VLAN ID being different than the first VLAN ID, trigger all of the plurality of hosts within the work-group local area network and currently bridged by the apparatus to obtain a new Internet Protocol (IP) address.