SCALANCE W1750D UI
Configuration Manual, 02/2018, C79000-G8976-C451-02
383
Services
24
24.1
Configuring AirGroup
AirGroup provides a unique enterprise-class capability that leverages zero configuration
networking to enable AirGroup services from mobile devices efficiently. Zero configuration
networking enables service discovery, address assignment, and name resolution for desktop
computers, mobile devices, and network services. It is designed for flat, single-subnet IP
networks such as wireless networking at home. The users can register their personal
devices and define a group of users who can share the registered devices. Administrators
can register and manage an organization's shared devices such as printers and grant global
access to each device, or restrict access according to the username, role, or user location.
In large universities and enterprise networks, it is common for devices to connect to the
network across VLANs. As a result, user devices on a specific VLAN cannot discover a
service that resides on another VLAN. As the addresses used by the protocol are link-scope
multicast addresses, each query or advertisement can only be forwarded on its respective
VLAN, but not across different VLANs. Broadcast and multicast traffic are usually filtered out
from a wireless LAN network to preserve the airtime and battery life. This inhibits the
performance of AirGroup services that rely on multicast traffic.
The distributed AirGroup architecture allows each AP to handle multicast DNS (mDNS) and
Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) queries and responses individually instead of
overloading a VC with these tasks. This results in a scalable AirGroup solution.
The AirGroup solution supports both wired and wireless devices. An AirGroup device can be
registered by an administrator or a guest user
1.
The AirGroup administrator gives an end user the AirGroup operator role, which
authorizes the user to register the client devices on the ClearPass Policy Manager
platform.
2.
APs maintain information for all AirGroup services. AP queries ClearPass Policy Manager
to map each device’s access privileges to the available services and responds to the
query made by a device based on contextual data such as user role, username, and
location.
