Granted Patent B2

US 7,804,806 · App. 11/480,051 · Granted Sep 28, 2010

Assignee: Symbol Technologies, Inc.

Abstract

Claims (24)

1. A method for wireless switches in a mobility domain to discover other wireless switches in the mobility domain across layer 3 (L3) subnets of a wireless local area network via a Discover Agent (DA) wireless switch, the method comprising:

using an IP address of the DA wireless switch to establish a connection from each of the wireless switches to the DA wireless switch, wherein the IP address is configured in each of the wireless switches;

transmitting a registration message from each of the wireless switches to the DA wireless switch to register each wireless switch with the DA wireless switch, wherein each registration message comprises registration information associated with the particular wireless switch;

updating, at the DA wireless switch, a peer database for wireless switches in the mobility domain with registration information received from the wireless switches, wherein the registration information includes a mobility domain identifier of the mobility domain for configuring the wireless switches in the peer database, wherein the mobility domain is used by the DA wireless switch to determine whether the particular wireless switch is a member of the mobility domain;

transmitting, from the DA wireless switch, a peer discovery message to each of the wireless switches in the peer database which have registered with the DA wireless switch, wherein the peer discovery message comprises registration information associated with each new wireless switch in mobility domain which has registered with the DA wireless switch;

updating a peer database at each wireless switch which receives the peer discovery message; and

using the registration information in the peer discovery message at each of the wireless switches to establish a peering session with each of the other wireless switches in their respective peer database to exchange mobility related control plane information and create a mesh network implementing a L3 mobility protocol.

2. A method according to claim 1 , wherein each of the wireless switches in the mobility domain join a wireless switch multicast group.

3. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the registration information for a particular wireless switch comprises an IP address/port number of the particular wireless switch.

4. A wireless local area network (WLAN) including at least one mobility domain, comprising:

a plurality of wireless switches which are part of the mobility domain across layer 3 (L3) subnets of the WLAN; and

at least one Discover Agent (DA) wireless switch operates to: use its IP address to establish a connection from each of the wireless switches to the DA wireless switch, wherein the IP address is configured in each of the wireless switches, receive a registration message from each of the wireless switches to register each wireless switch with the DA wireless switch, wherein each registration message comprises registration information associated with the particular wireless switch, update a peer database for wireless switches in the mobility domain with registration information received from the wireless switches, wherein the registration information includes a mobility domain identifier of the mobility domain for configuring the wireless switches in the peer database, wherein the mobility domain is used to determine whether the particular wireless switch is a member of the mobility domain, transmit a peer discovery message to each of the wireless switches in the peer database which have registered with the DA wireless switch, wherein the peer discovery message comprises registration information associated with each new wireless switch in mobility domain which has registered with the DA wireless switch, and

wireless switches in the mobility domain operable to update a peer database at each wireless switch which receives the peer discovery message, and use the registration information in the peer discovery message to establish a peering session with each of the other wireless switches in their respective peer database to exchange mobility related control plane information and create a mesh network implementing a L3 mobility protocol.

5. The network according to claim 4 , wherein each of the wireless switches is configured with an IP address of the DA wireless switch.

6. The network according to claim 4 , wherein each of the wireless switches is configured to transmit a deregistration message to the DA wireless switch to deregister with the DA wireless switch.

7. A network according to claim 4 , wherein the registration information for a particular wireless switch comprises an IP address/port number of the particular wireless switch.

8. A network according to claim 4 , wherein the DA wireless switch comprises a primary DA wireless switch, further comprising:

a backup DA wireless switch within the mobility domain.

9. A method according to claim 1 , further comprising:

defining the mobility domain, wherein each of the DA wireless switch and the wireless switches in the mobility domain are configured to enable a wireless client device to roam within the mobility domain at layer two retaining a layer three IP address.

10. A method according to claim 1 , further comprising:

connecting with a roaming wireless client;

using the peering session to send a layer three roaming message to a home wireless switch of the roaming wireless client; and

tunneling all data packets from the roaming wireless client to the home wireless switch.

Assignments (11)

Continuity (1)