Enabling Fast Transition with Assisted Roaming on Legacy SSID

[joshua Slaney]

Hello,

I'm running WLC code 8.0.121 (soon to be 8.0.132) and I'm looking to enable Fast transition with assisted roaming on my corporate network. The goal is to not have to create a separate SSID for fast transition clients.  I've read that the code version I'm running allows for me to enable this on an existing network.  My SSID has the following settings configured:

WPA2-AES

802.1x

CCKM

WMM Allowed

Aironet IE

DTIM Period 802.11a - 2

CCKM TSF Tolerance......................... 5000

FT Reassociation Timeout................... 20

I plan to follow the best practices guide for Apple devices and implement the following technologies:

802.11k, 802.11r, and 802.11v.

I have some new devices that support both CCKM and 802.11r fast transition. Will that device try to use 802.11r over CCKM?  How is that typically determine?   My TAC engineer stated this:

"There may be older clients that may suffer disconnections if we enable both or any of this roaming methods, as there are some older clients that are not able to handle this extra information."

Will my existing clients potentially have issues if they don't support CCKM or FT?

Any input would be apprecated.  

Thank you,

[Rasika Nayanajith · Accepted solution]

Will my existing clients potentially have issues if they don't support CCKM or FT?

Yes, unless all your clients support FT there may be connectivity issues with certain type of clients. You have to verify all your clients devices support 802.11r before enabling this on your SSID.

If you have authority, the you can enable it first and see what devices affecting, but this is disruptive & not advisable.

Refer this thread, as I have listed certain client types that support mixed mode 802.11r at the time of 8.0 software release. This list may have increased as of now

https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/12314591/8021r-and-fast-roaming

HTH

Rasika

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[joshua Slaney]

Thanks for the response. I have a lot of unique devices like old handhelds and printers Most I suspect have not had the firmware kept up-to-date and will probably have issues.

[George Stefanick]

Having done considerable device testing you will find that many devices won't connect to a 11r enabled WLAN. Also you need to watch if you are doing over the air or over the DS. 

To date the apple ios devices are the majority of devices support 11r. Test your legacy devices first before you enable it. 

[joshua Slaney]

Is it advisable to create 2 separate WLAN with the same SSID? I'm thinking one that supports 802.1x FT and one that supports 802.1x with CCKM?