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Point of attachment (PoA) moves with user mobility and is defined as the access point to which the user joins or
roams.
There are two types of roams within the wireless network: intracontroller roams and intercontroller roams:
● Intracontroller roams occur when a user roams from one access point to another access point connected
to the same controller.
● Intercontroller roams occur when a user roams from an access point connected to one controller to
another access point connected to a different controller.
There are two types of roams that can occur within intercontroller roams: L2 roams and L3 roams:
● L2 roam occurs when the user roams from an access point connected to its controller to a different access
point connected to another controller, where the two controllers are L2 adjacent to each other. This is
typically the case in most deployments where the WLCs are centrally deployed in either the data center or a
campus services block, with the client VLANs spanned between the controllers. In the Cisco Unified
Wireless Network, in an L2 roam, both the PoP and the PoA move to the controller where the user has
roamed. The previous controller transfers the entire client context (MAC address, IP address, ACL policy,
QoS policy, IGMP group membership, and so on) to the new controller to which the client roamed.
(See Figure 17.)
Figure 17. L2 Roam in Cisco Unified Wireless Network