Universal Workgroup Brige feature on Autonomous access points

1200 series autonomous access points can support Universal Workgroup Brige mode. With this feature , access point configured in workgroup bridge mode can also associate to non-cisco APs.  WGB assoicates as  a client  and only a single wired client can be connected with the Universal WGB.  It also operates in World Mode providing the capability to operate in different 2.4 Ghz across the countries.

Support for Universal Workgroup Bridges on LWAPP environment.

From the controller release of 4.1 Workgroup bridge (WGB) is supported.  Cisco Aironet autonomous access points operating in WGB mode can now associate to Cisco Aironet lightweight access points (except Cisco Airespace AP1000 series access points) to provide an 802.11 wireless connection to wired devices. The WGB is supported only in client mode and not in infrastructure mode and must run Cisco IOS Release 12.4(3g)JA or later (on 32-MB access points) or Cisco IOS Release 12.3(8)JEB or later (on 16-MB access points). WGB functionality is not supported for use with hybrid REAP.

The controllers only support one MAC address per Association Table entry.   So In universal workgroup bridge mode, the autonomous AP doesnt use  it's own MAC address when making the association to the controller/LWAPP AP. Instead it uses the wired ethernet client's MAC address.  [ Once universal workgroup bridge mode is enabled, the WGB becomes  unmanagable by telnet/SSH or the IOS GUI, since there is no MAC address of the device in use. To again mange the WGB disable the wired client ].  This solution also supports only 1 wired client behind the universal workgroup bridge.

Note: Controller Release support for WGBs extends to all Cisco LWAPP APs including AP 1310 (but the AP1000 series is not supported)  Controller  can also support third-party WGB provided they act as a standard 802.11 client.

Relevant documents

• Universal Workgroup Bridge Mode 
  
  
• Understanding Workgroup Bridge Mode