Wireless Access

So looking to possibly do an outdoor deployment and while looking at the data sheet of 270 series AP I noticed that it does not support fiber connectivity, it also does not have DC power support.  So that brings up a challange how to connect multiple AP's to the back bone network in an outdoor environment via Ethernet. 

 

Any thoughts ?

Use mediaconvertors And poe injectors. So you have a part fiber And a part copper with poe. You Will need power within 90 meters of the ap

Thank you, however I do not like the media converter idea.  I have always had issues dealing with them and just another thing I am adding to the mix that can/will fail.  So basically Aruba does not have an outdoor AP that supports fiber and DC connectivity in short?

 

Also do these support meshing at all?

There are a number of reasons why we don't support fiber (heat, cost, etc). However, the best solution where fiber is needed is to use something like the PowerDsine PDS-104GO, which has a fiber transceiver port and up to 4 ports of POE out (60W x 60W x 30W x 30W). This switch is managed as well so you can manually up/down ports, etc. 

 

http://www.microsemi.com/products/poe-systems/pds-104go-4-1-outdoor-switch

 

Are you needing DC from a solar kit? If so, you would just convert the DC to AC directly in to the PDS-104GO, or if you have a large neough project, you can engage PowerDsine about doing a DC-powered injector.

Also, yes the AP-270s support mesh.

Thank you for the reply.  So the challenge with using a device like that would be smilar to the media converter/poe injector.  Also these will need to be secured as well in an outdoor deployment (campus/park etc environment).  I can probably get away with the AC vs DC issue but trying to figure out the fiber part.

 

So if I have to use Ethernet each Root AP (Mesh Portal in Aruba's world) will need to be some where I can connec it to a hard wired switch and with an outdoor deployment that can become challenging if you are adding a large number of AP's.

 

I downloaded an outdoor Aruba VRD going to look through it as well to see if I can find anything.  What about 175 do they support fiber/DC?

You have the highest failure rates with outdoor temperature rated fiber SFP modules, then outdoor temp rated transceivers, then the lowest with these outdoor rated POE switches with fiber modules. Fiber transceivers mounted inside an AP have to deal with ambient temps inside the AP case at MUCH MUCH higher temps than what you find with the same fiber module in an outdoor POE or switch, so with heat being the number one killer of electronics, better to put the fiber module in the device that will be cooler. it also saves cost as those same high temp rated fiber transceivers can be thousands of dollars on their own. Usually an AP-275 with a PowerDsine solution is many thousands less than a competitor's solution where their APs cost 2-3x as much and then you add the ultra high cost temp rated fiber module, antennas, etc. 

 

You mention the 175, you are talking about the Aruba AP-175? What does it have (outside of a DC support model) that the 27x won't? Also note that all AP-175 models are end of sale, so the only place to find them would be on the street (VARs or retailers that have stock left over). Note the 175 is also only 11n so will be orders of magnitude slower, will cost more, and will cost MUCH more to install (there is weatherization, a more complicated mounting bracket, a separate solar shield, etc). So just be aware of those caveats.

 

The outdoor VRD is a very good starting point. 

So looks like using a PDS-104Go would be the best option if I am doing an outdoor deployment with Aruba for Mesh Portal Access Points.

 

Enable client serving on 2.4 and 5GHz add extra Mesh Portals to support the needed bandwidth.