Using one VLAN over several WLANs without maxing out controller

[LCC-IT]

Hi,

I need to provide several WLANs that need to have different SSIDs, but can all go on the same VLAN.

An example would be if i have 40 schools and one large, flat guest LAN that I want to use for them all. I'd like to put (SSIDs of)school0001, school0002, school000n etc onto this same VLAN without breaking my limit of 16 WLANs on the controller.

Does anyone know if the cisco 4404 (or 5508) can do this? and if so, how.

Thanks in advance,

[ericgarnel]

The 16 wlan limit is hard set.

Here is a good reason why:

"... limit the number of service set identifiers (SSIDs) configured at the controller. Based on your access point model, you can have configured 8 or 16 simultaneous SSIDs, but as each WLAN/SSID needs separated probe responses, and beaconing, the RF pollution increases as more SSIDs are added. The results are that some smaller wireless stations like PDA, WiFi Phones and barcode scanners cannot cope with a high number of basic SSID (BSSID) information. This results in lockups, reloads or association failures. Also the more SSIDs, the more beaconing needed, so less RF space is available for real data transmits. "

from

http://supportwiki.cisco.com/ViewWiki/index.php/Wireless_LAN_Controller_%28WLC%29_Configuration_Best_Practices

You may want to consider using multiple controllers & limiting the # of wlans per controller.

You should also check into AP groups to limit what wlans are broadcast on what APs to help control the rf pollution where possible.

[LCC-IT]

Thanks for the reply. I understand the issues that I would cause were I to push out all these SSIDs on one LAP, but what I meant was that in school 1 I'd have a WLAN called School0001Wifi and one called School0001Guests, but this guests WLAN is actually one VLAN that I've just given differnet names to depending on the AP that it gets pushed out of.

I think I won't be able to do this, but i thought I'd ask just in case. Thanks again for the quick response.

[b.smeets]

Sure, you can have multiple SSIDs in one VLAN, we have it running (although with only 2 SSIDs). But you cannot have one VLAN across multiple schools interconnected with routers, of course.