Wi-Fi networks are widely-available and used more often with the growth of mobile devices. These networks operate under standards such as IEEE 802.11 (promulgated by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), and others (e.g., Hot Spot 2.0). Management of these networks will become more burdensome and complex with increasing loads and numbers of connections.
Wi-Fi controllers are coupled to access points of a communication network in order to manage connections with stations seeking access to a backbone network, including the Internet. One aspect of management is the assignment and tracking of BSSIDs (Basic Service Set Identifiers) that identify access points to stations for traffic flows. SDN in the wired backbone supports the wireless portion of a communication network by centrally managing a data plane or layer 2 routing decisions.
However, the benefit of centrally managing data plane behavior comes with a burden of tunneling packets from an access point to an SDN controller. The additional overhead can slow down network performance with additional packet transfers adding to network congestion and processing loads. The effect can be exasperated by flows of local devices sharing a common access point, such as Bonjour services transmitting to nearby stations.
What is needed is a robust technique to intelligently bridge certain flows instead of tunneling.