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Mesh solutions can be used indoors or outdoors to provide connectivity where there may not be a wired infrastructure deployed in a facility.
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A group of APs constructing a mesh environment is called a Mesh Cluster. Two basic components comprise a mesh cluster. A Mesh Portal (MPP) is a cluster component located on the controller of the cluster. It has wired connectivity to the controller. All of the traffic in the cluster will pass through the MPP. Mesh Points (MP) are distributed throughout the environment where an infrastructure is needed. Many MPs may associate with the MPP, but they all send there traffic through the MPP to reach the controller.
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The Mesh Point and Mesh Portal may serve clients, either wired or wireless, depending upon your AP model. Generally, the Mesh link is configured on the 5GHz radio and client access is on the 2.4GHz radio as the 5GHz spectrum has more channels and, generally, cleaner air. While clients can run on the same radio as the Mesh link, Best Practive states that this NOT be done. The Mesh link should be reserved for Mesh communication only.
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Mesh Points may daisy chain to extend the reach of the wireless environment. You can specify that each hop must encrypt the data through the mesh profiles described later in this chapter. This of course helps to maintain user traffic confidentiality as it is transmitted through the air.
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Because all of the APs within the Mesh Cluster must by definition operate on the same radio frequency, the question arises as to “What channel” The Mesh Portal will select a channel based upon its ARM measurements. The selected channel will then be used by all of the Mesh Points in the cluster.
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You can see through the CLI and the WebUI what the topology looks like. This shows the APs within the cluster and their relationship to each other using the CLI. A WebUI example is shown later in this chapter.
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There are many things to consider when constructing a Mesh Network including factors such as how many hops will be required from the Mesh Portal to the farthest Mesh Point. Please reference the Aruba OS User Guide for details on these and other factors.
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Multiple clusters may be desired to service geographically disperse areas. But they might be needed to segment the cluster to improve the overall performance of the cluster. The more APs contained in a cluster translates to less overall bandwidth. Therefore multiple clusters might help reduce the number of APs in a cluster and improve performance.
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Here is a simple cluster with one portal and two mesh points. This is a valid configuration.
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You can provision more than one cluster as discussed earlier in this chapter. Note that Cluster1 has two Mesh Portals to provide redundancy in the cluster.
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A useful feature of clusters is their ability to improve reliability. If a node in a cluster should fail and break connectivity to the portal, the remaining nodes in the cluster could switch to another cluster if this is provisioned. Another requirement is of course that the two clusters are within RF range of each other.
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You can verify your mesh recovery capabilities using the command shown on this slide.
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Up to this point, the mesh clusters assume that the Mesh Portal is located on the Enterprise Campus. However, you might need to create a cluster where the Portal to controller connection is over a Wide Area Network. This is normally done with a Remote Access Point as discussed earlier in this course. The RAP can serve as a Remote Mesh Portal allowing you to create a cluster that is distant from the campus.
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Components of RMP
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Remote Mesh Portal (RMP)
Mesh Point (MP) RMP functions both as a RAP and a mesh portal (MPP). As a RAP, an RMP creates a secure IPSec tunnel back to the controller. As an MPP, the RMP forms the root of a mesh cluster and other mesh nodes in the branch office create mesh links to the MPP. Control traffic from the MPs reach the RMP via the mesh link and the RMP bridges this to the controller over the VPN link. MPs register with the controller and download their configuration for the mesh radio as well as access radio (if any).
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Many options exist to specify the RF behavior of the cluster. Please reference the User Guide for More details on this.
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You can create a new cluster under the AP Group as shown here.
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The cluster defines the Cluster Name, RF band, encryption options and keys. If you have more than one cluster in your network, be sure to provide each with a unique Cluster Name. Otherwise the Mesh Point could accidently join the wrong cluster.
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The access point needs to be assigned its mesh AP Group and its Mesh Role. This can be done in the WebUI as illustrated here.
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Note the Flags column in this slide. Two of these nodes are in Recovery Mode and joined the cluster because their primary cluster didn’t provide Portal connectivity.
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Logs are generated to troubleshoot the Mesh environment.
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