Users Guide

585| Secure Enterprise Mesh Dell Networking W-Series ArubaOS 6.5.x| User Guide
features automatically select the radio channel with the least amount of interference for each mesh portal,
maximizing end user performance. In earlier versions of this software, an AP with a mesh radio received its
beacon period, transmission power, and 11a/11g portal channel settings from its mesh radio profile. Mesh-
access AP portals now inherit these radio settings from their dot11a or dot11g radio profiles.
Each ARM-enabled mesh portal monitors defined thresholds for interference, noise, errors, rogue APs and
radar settings, then calculates interference and coverage values and selects the best channel for its radio band
(s). The mesh portal communicates its channel selection to its mesh points via Channel Switch Announcements
(CSAs), and the mesh points change their channel to match their mesh portal. Although channel settings can
still be defined for a mesh point via that mesh point's 802.11a and 802.11g radio profiles, these settings are
overridden by any channel changes from the mesh portal. A mesh point takes the same channel setting as its
mesh portal, regardless of its associated clients. If you want to manually assign channels to mesh portals or
mesh points, disable the ARM profile associated with the 802.11a or 802.11g radio profile by setting the ARM
profile’s assignment parameter to disable.
Mesh points, unlike mesh portals, do not scan channels. This means that once a mesh point has selected a
mesh portal or an upstream mesh point, it tunes to this channel, forms the link, and does not scan again unless
the mesh link gets broken. This provides good mesh link stability, but may adversely affect system throughput
in networks with mesh portals and mesh points. When ARM assigns optimal channels to mesh portals, those
portals use different channels. Once the mesh network has formed and all the mesh points have selected a
portal (or upstream mesh point), those mesh points are not be able to detect other portals on other channels
that could offer better throughput. This type of suboptimal mesh network may form if, for example, two or
three mesh points select the same mesh portal after booting, form the mesh network, and leave a nearby
mesh portal without any mesh points. Again, this does not affect mesh functionality, but may affect total
system throughput. For details about associating an ARM profile with a mesh AP, see
Assigning an ARM Profile
on page 552.
High-Throughput Radio Profiles
Each 802.11a and 802.11g radio profile also references a high-throughput profile that manages an AP or AP
group’s 40Mhz tolerance settings. For information about referencing a high-throughput profile, see Assigning a
High-throughput Profile on page 552.
Mesh High-Throughput SSID Profiles
High-throughput APs support additional settings not available in legacy APs. A mesh high-throughput SSID
profile can enable or disable high-throughput (802.11n) features and 40 MHz channel usage, and define values
for aggregated MAC protocol data units (MDPUs), and Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) ranges.
Dell provides a “default” version of the mesh high-throughput SSID profile. You can use the “default” version or
create a new instance of a profile which you can then edit as you need. High-throughput mesh nodes operating
in different cluster profiles can share the same high-throughput SSID radio profile. For information about
configuring mesh high-throughput SSID profiles, see Creating and Editing Mesh High-Throughput SSID Profiles
.
Wired AP Profiles
The wired AP profile controls the configuration of the Ethernet port(s) on your AP. You can use the wired AP
profile to configure Ethernet ports for bridging or secure jack operation using the wired AP profile. For details,
see Configuring Ethernet Ports for Mesh on page 608
Mesh Recovery Profiles
In addition to the “default” and user-defined mesh cluster profiles, mesh nodes also have a recovery profile.
The master controller dynamically generates a recovery profile, and each mesh node provisioned by the same
master controller has the same recovery profile. The recovery profile is based on a pre-shared key (PSK), and