Controllerless Networks

Good Afternoon Colleagues

I hope you are doing good . One of my customers needs wireless solution and the best solution to fit his needs is Mesh Solution . 

 

Does Instant Controller can be used with Wireless Mesh access Points or Aruba Mobility Controller like Aruba 7205 is required?

 

Best Regards

Hello,

Instant AP’s can indeed be used for mesh however, I’m in the middle of an installation using instant mesh. Perks of this is they’re very easy to setup and it is done automatically if you do not wire the mesh point.

This being said, if you need to split the mesh for example, having one mesh portal and 2 mesh points your not able to do this using instant. For instant it has to be 1 to 1, one mesh portal and one mesh point. If you wanted a mesh portal and 2 mesh points you’d have to use a controller based solution. This includes having one mesh portal, an attached mesh point, and if you wanted to mesh a third AP to the mesh point you’d have to use a controller based solution.

I hope this helps, if you have other questions then please let me know

Thanks
Ben

Hello Ben

Thanks for your detailed replay . So let me share with you my case in details . For my customer , We will offer to him 160 * AP-303 + 10*AP-365 . SO we will have total 170 access points.

 

So i can use mesh solution in the following scenarios:

 

1. Scenario 1 (If i used Controller-less Instant solution): I need to have 85 * mesh portal  + 85 *  mesh point . Is that true ?
2. Scenario 2: If it is required to have a maximum of 40 * mesh portal  + 130 *  mesh point , In this case Controller-less Instant solution will not support this scenario and i have to use Aruba mobility controller. Is that true ?

 

Best Regards

The physical topology is what matters here, but even then, all instant AP clusters should be defined to be less than 128 APs. In both scenarios you have more than that, so things have to be split. Or you can use standalone mesh for your deployment but that means managing a bunch of APs individually which you likely don't want to do...

 

But at the end of the day, the overall physical topology will define what is possible.

 

Good Morning Jerrod

Thanks for your input . So i think based on your replay , The below Instant Mesh scenario is applicable:

 

1) Divid the 170 access points into 2 Instant Mesh clusters where cluster 1 will have 90 access points and the other cluster will have 80 access points.

2)Each cluster will act as separate Instant Mesh cluster where one access point from each cluster will be the virtual controller for the other access points in the cluster.

3) For cluster 1 , 45 access points will be configured as Mesh Portal (One of them will be the virtual controller for this cluster) and the other 45 access points will be configured as Mesh Points. 

4) For cluster 2 , 40 access points will be configured as Mesh Portal (One of them will be the virtual controller for this cluster) and the other 40 access points will be configured as Mesh Points.

 

Does the above will be applicable for Instant Mesh Solution?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Best Regards

Again, it depends on the topology and how the APs are physically deployed. In an instant VC-based mesh clusters, there's a single MSSID that all the APs share, so there's no 'control' over the topology (as in, which points join to which portal). So long as there's sufficient spacing and isolation between each physically placed portal and point, then they should join up fine in PtP fashion. If however the intention is a dense deployment of APs, you may find PtMP multihopping in the topology. If that happens, there's lower throughput and higher latency. 

 

Any mesh deployment that large with that many points needs to be scrutinized in these respects to ensure you don't hit any unintended side-effects of the possible topology. So what is the use-case, what is the topology/installation locations look like (do you have a map, etc)? You can PM me for direct email if you want.

Good Afternoon Jerrod

Thanks for your support . I have send you PM.

 

Best Regards