I wanted to ask a question about running multiple default gateways.

Scenario: a hospital has two wings where patients access the internet over the WiFi. Currently there is one DSL connection that becomes slowwwww due to too many users at once.

I was thinking the hospital could run TWO default gateways (two identical DSL connections) on what is the same LAN segment and send users on wing one to DFG1 and users on wing two to DFG2.

Although there is one common DHCP server for the LAN segment, I see that ZoneDirector managed APs allow manual configuration of the DFG address.

What if I were to assign the different DFGs at the AP settings, would this send clients connecting to APs on wing one to DFG1 and clients connecting on wing two to DFG2?

Cheers, dom

No, defining different Default gateway on the Access Point will not affect connected clients. Also the default gateway must correspond to the IP subnet used for theAccess Points and can not just be any convenient value or routing will not work. The clients learn the Default Gateway from the DHCP server that provides the IP address, subnet mask and DNS settings.

The best way to segregate traffic and to use multiple Internet access is to use VLAN’s each with its own DHCP server providing the correct IP address, subnet mask, Default Gateway and DNS needed for that network. You can seperate clients into the VLAN’s based on different WLAN/SSID’s, or using the VLAN override feature of WLAN groups, you can have different VLAN’s for different AP’s in different buildings. Create two WLAN groups, assign the WLAN/SSID’s to both groups, then set the VLAN for each group for the VLAN in each building. You then apply the WLAN group to the specific AP’s in the specific buildings (per radio for dual radio products). Of course the client VLAN’s must be tagged on the ports where the AP’s will reside, and a DHCP server or DHCP relay to a central server with multiple scopes needs to exist on the VLAN’s.

Some routers can have multiple WAN connections and may be able to load balence between them, but the clients will still access this router via a common Default Gateway and this type of connectivity will be independent of the Ruckus LAN connectivity.

I hope this is helpful.

Ruckus Support.