Wireless Access

Looks like we want to start looking at AC, so I'll be getting a couple of AP-225 to play with.  I've looked at a couple of posts about this model and just need a little clarification of a few things.

2 enet ports - do both need to be plugged in?  Is there benefit to using both?  I believe the AP-135 has 2 ports, but 1 is to be used if you need to daisy chain another AP (hope that is correct).

PoE - AP-225 needs a .at power source.  We currently use the 3501, but have a quote for the 9001.   Will these APs work with the PoE ports on our existing 620 controllers?   Will they work with the 650 controller (getting a few of those to test as well)?  Or, am I going to need to order power injectors for each AP?

Firware/AOS/Code - controllers will need to be at 6.3.x in order to use these APs.  We are currently at 6.1.3.10, so I will need to upgrade everything if/when I start rolling these out?

Airwave - Airwave doesn't have this AP as an available model until the latest version - 7.7.9.  I'm currently at 7.6.2..  I believe  7.7.x requires OS upgrade to CentOS 6.x.  Currently waitiing on a new server before I can do that upgrade.

So, do I have everything correct?  I have a couple of new offices opening, and we wanted to look at the latest equip.  If the above is correct, I'll likely have to plan on using our current stuff - I'm not going to be able to get everything upgraded and tested before these offices are scheduled to open.

Thanks!

• The two ethernet ports can be aggregated for either redundancy across switches and/or increased bandwidth.
  
  
• The 225 does support .af power with some limitations. The 2.4G radio will run with a single stream and the USB and second ethernet port will be disabled. All 5G 11ac functionality is enabled.
  
  
• Yes, you will need 6.3.x for the AP-225. If you are using 11af power, you will need at least 6.3.1. The 600 series controllers have a limited featureset on 6.3 (No AirGroup, AppRF, IF-MAP, IAP-VPN)
  
  
• AirWave support was added in 7.7.2. If you are looking to do some modeling, you can use the VisualRF Plan tool which is standalone from the AirWave server. 
  
  http://support.arubanetworks.com/DownloadSoftware/tabid/75/DMXModule/510/Command/Core_Download/Default.aspx?EntryId=12590

One thing worth mentioning is that with dual ports, only one of them is receiving PoE at a time.  If the link that's receiving PoE should fail, the AP will rebootstrap.  Just something to keep in mind.

Our master is Aruba3200-US on 6.2.1.2 and the local controllers are Aruba6000-US on 6.2.1.2.  Will we need to update these as well to 6.3.x to use the AP-225?  Any way to keep controller on 6.2.1.2 and use AP-225?

Thanks,

Bill

Unfortunately no. The minimum supported AOS release for the AP-225 is 6.3.x

Thanks.  So, the controllers will still be limited to .af regardless of code, or the ports on both the 620 and 650 will be sufficient once the code is upgraded to 6.3.x?

The data sheets for both 600 series controllers list PoE+ with the 620 having 10/100 and the 650 supporting 10/100/1000.

I guess there isn't much sense in running the 225 on the 620 with the 10/100 speed limitation?

Thanks for the reminder on the standalone Plan tool.  I'll have to go back and look at the changelogs and versions to see which is compatible with Win8.  I was looking at the 7.7.9 release notes and saw that support was added for the AP-224/225.  Wasn't sure if that was specific to the 7.7.9 release.   I believe I saw some mentions in there about issues with Win8.

The 100M ports could potentially be a bottleneck with 11ac access points. The .af is only a concern if you are worried about the 2.4G radio spatial streams, using enet1 and USB (no current use).

I have the VisualRF Plan tool running on Windows 8 without issue. The original issue was installing the application which was fixed by running the installer in Windows 7 compatibility mode.

Okay, so does that mean that the 620 and 650 controllers do not operate at PoE+ as stated in their respective data sheets?

I understand  (from a different thread) that running at .af, the AP operates in 1x3 RF chain on 2.4 GHz and 2x3 RF chain for 5 GHz.

Most of my sites are running AP-93 at 2.4 GHz.  Only recently have I been able to convince them that our standard should be (should have been!) the AP-105, and even the AP-135 due to the increased  range and client support.  But, I only have about 100 of those deployed (out of 450), and 30 of those are at our HQ location.

I'd probably have to look at each site on a case by case basis to see what type of clients they have and decide if the 1x3 stream would be acceptable.

If the controllers don't support .at for these APs, I'll have to include the PoE injectors into the pricing.

We've got 190 620s deployed.  If they are serious about moving forward with AC, I want to make sure I have everything I need to forward to management - we should move to 650 controllers because of the 620 bottleneck, added costs for injectors, etc.  They may decide that only certain locations will justify the upgrade to AC at this time.

I'm not sure about the 600 series PoE operation, but in terms of the AP-22x on .af power, only the 2.4G radio is dropped to 1 spatial stream. 5G is not touched. In the original 6.3.0.x releases, there were more limitations. All but the USB, enet1 and 2.4 1SS limitations have been removed as of 6.3.1.

Thanks for all the info.

I have a meeting with our rep in the next few weeks, so I will try to get some more info at that time.

Our ordering process can take several weeks just to get an invoice approved, so no chance I'm going to get the equipment in before these new offices open.....let alone have time to test.