Meru Technical Note - What is Shared BSSID and Per-station BSSID?

What is Shared BSSID and Per-station BSSID?

KB Article Type: External

Related Products: Controller, AP

Related Software Versions: Any

Keywords: Shared BSSID, Per-station BSSID, Virtual Cell, Virtual Port

Virtual Cell 
In Meru virtual cell technology, Shared BSSID (also called as Parent BSSID) means that there will be a common BSSID for an ESS for a particular SSID, which is broadcasted by all the AP's on the network, provided these parameters should remain the same on all the AP's ( AP model should be the same)
> Operating channel should be same
> Channel width
> RF band b/bg/bgn/a/an/ac
> MIMO
> RF virtualization mode

Exception: Starting from SD 7.x, for 11ac AP's alone, channel width is not considered.

Virtual port:
Per-station BSSID (also called as child BSSID) means for each client connecting to the WLAN, will have a separate BSSID generated by the AP, and broadcasted by that particular AP on which the client is connected. The Child BSSID will be the same across all the AP's for the same BSSID and is a combination of Parent BSSID and Client MAC

For example:
BSSID: 00:0c:e6:aa:bb:cc
Client MAC: c0:ee:fb:xx:yy:zz 
CSSID: aa:bb:cc:xx:yy:cc

Exception(s):  (a)AP300's and AP400's  support virtual port 
                         (b) From SD 8.0 there is no support for AP300's