Wireless Access

Need some suggestions: Should I go with Outdoor IAP or Outdoor MESH?

I am designing a outdoor MESH network for a food processing site with 3 plants. There is limited cable/fibre ran among the plants on site. So Wireless MESH is prefered and four access points are required (one will be wired in business office and three for the plants). Attached screenshot is for illustration purpose of the setup. The MAX distance between plant to business office OR each plant is 200 Meters. The MESH setup is only for connecting different plants not for wireless clients.

If I use the Outdoor IAP, I can save money of controller assuming Outdoor MESH AP needs controller; If I use the Outdoor MESH AP (such as MST200), then I got the benifit of built-in directional attenna. 

BTW, Can I use Aruba MeshConfig tool for managing/monitoring/troubleshoot MST200 without a controller? 

Suggestions?

/S

MST200s are stand-alone FatAP, you can use MeshConfig to manage and monitor MSTs/MSRs. Note that MST200 is 11n AP, and will not be as fast or feature-rich as the 11ac IAPs or AOS APs.

As far as your links, are they two separate PtP links or are you looking for redundant portals and points between two buildings? If they are two separate PtP links, are the spatially separated such that the two PtP pairs will not be able to hear each other?

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@jhoward wrote:

MST200s are stand-alone FatAP, you can use MeshConfig to manage and monitor MSTs/MSRs. Note that MST200 is 11n AP, and will not be as fast or feature-rich as the 11ac IAPs or AOS APs.

 

As far as your links, are they two separate PtP links or are you looking for redundant portals and points between two buildings? If they are two separate PtP links, are the spatially separated such that the two PtP pairs will not be able to hear each other?

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Sorry, just added some clarification to my orginal post. The site has three plants and wired AP will be at business office. I am not really worried about speed per say. There would not be whole lot of traffic on this MESH, mainly for process control network data.

Go with MST 200s then, they are super easy to setup, inexpensive, and work very stably without any weird quirks. 

Thanks. So for initial configuration, I need to configure MST 200s one by one manually and manage them with MESHConfig tool on laptop "centrally" once installed, right? Is there any license required for the MESHConfig tool?

Yes, essentially configure the MST200 IP address, the Mesh SSID and PSK, set neighbor whitelist, and configure wired interfaces for whatever network(s) you need them to backhaul. that's it. 

No license on MeshConfig. Just purchase it and install on a Windows server somewhere.

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@jhoward wrote:

Yes, essentially configure the MST200 IP address, the Mesh SSID and PSK, set neighbor whitelist, and configure wired interfaces for whatever network(s) you need them to backhaul. that's it. 

 

No license on MeshConfig. Just purchase it and install on a Windows server somewhere.

When you say "Just purchase it", you mean the MST200 unit not the MeshConfig, right? If not, would you mind sharing a part# for purchasing the MeshConfig?

http://www.arubanetworks.com/assets/og/OG_MST200.pdf

The part number for MeshConfig is "MESH-SW-MC" (list price is US$995, but work with your sales team on pricing for that).