Gateway 7001 Series Cluster formation, Intra-clustersecurity, Cluster size and membership, Auto-Synchof Cluster Configuration

You can re-enable cluster mode on a standalone access point. (See “Adding an access point to a cluster” on page 52.)

Cluster formation

A cluster is formed when the first Gateway 7001 Series self-managed AP is configured. (See “Quick Setup” on page 15 and “Configuring Basic Network Settings” on page 29.)

If a cluster configuration policy is in place when a new access point is deployed, it attempts to rendezvous with an existing cluster.

If it is unable to locate a cluster, then it establishes a new cluster on its own.

If it locates a cluster but is rejected because the cluster is full, or the clustering policy is to ignore new access points, then the access point will deploy in standalone mode.

Cluster size and membership

The upper limit of a cluster is eight access points. The Network Web administration page provides a real-time, visual indicator of the number of access points in the current cluster and warns when the cluster has reached capacity. (See “Configuring basic settings and starting the wireless network” on page 27.)

If a cluster is present but is already full, new access points will deploy in standalone mode.

Intra-cluster security

To make sure that the security of the cluster as a whole is equivalent to the security of a single access point, communication of certain data between access points in a cluster is done using Secure Sockets Layer (typically referred to as SSL) with private key encryption.

Both the cluster configuration file and the user database are transmitted among access points using SSL.

Auto-Synch of Cluster Configuration

If you are making changes to the AP configuration that require a relatively large amount of processing (such as adding several new users), you may encounter a synchronization progress bar after clicking Update on any of the Administration pages. The progress bar indicates that the system is busy performing an auto-synch of the updated configuration to all APs in the cluster. The Administration Web pages are not editable during the auto-synch.