Dell 6.2 manual Mesh High-Throughput Ssid Profile, Adaptive Radio Management Profiles

NOTE: If you do not want the mesh radios carrying mesh-backhaul traffic to support client traffic, consider using a dedicated

802.11a/80211/g radio profile with the mesh radio disabled: in this scenario, the radio carries mesh backhaul traffic but does not support client Virtual APs.

Mesh nodes operating in different cluster profiles can share the same radio profile. Conversely, mesh portals using the same cluster profile can be assigned different RF Management Radio profiles to achieve frequency separation (for more information, see “Deployments with Multiple Mesh Cluster Profiles”).

Adaptive Radio Management Profiles

Each 802.11a and 802.11g radio profile references an Adaptive Radio Management (ARM) profile. When you assign an active ARM profile to a mesh radio, ARM's automatic power-assignment and channel-assignment 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, and 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 430.

High-Throughput 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 429.

Mesh High-Throughput SSID Profile

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 “Mesh High-Throughput SSID Profiles”.

444 Secure Enterprise Mesh Dell PowerConnect W-Series ArubaOS 6.2 User Guide