Ruckus Mesh question

[atamakosi]

Hi all,

I have an temp building for some classes that needs network access and was thinking about putting a ruckus wap in mesh to do this. While all i've read online so far is about the benefits and sunshine of mesh with Ruckus, the ZoneDirector gives me a warning that some feature will become unavailable if i enable mesh and can not undo this. The question is, what features would we lose?? I can't seem to find an answer anywhere.

[snagrat]

Although enabling mesh cannot be erased, if this is a temporary setup then you could reset the ZD when mesh is no longer needed.

 

Backup and restore the ZD would bring it back to where you are now with no mesh.

 

The maximum number of available SSID's drops down 1 I believe. And you will lose the 5Ghz on the meshed APs.

 

All depends on the AP models you have and your current setup

[White_Fi]

Hi,

 

Just a couple of corrections if I may.

 

Depending on the firmware running on the ZD (9.4 and up) you can disable MESH on a per AP basis.

 

The APs must match radios: so a 7363 (Dual Band) can MESH with a 7372 (Dual Band) but not a 2942 (2.4GHz only)

 

DualBand APs will MESH using their 5GHz radio for a cleaner link with potential higher throughput but of course 5GHz is more prone to attenuation.

 

The 5GHz radio will not be disabled for clients access. Clients will be able to continue using the APs 2.4GHz and/or 5GHz radio regardless of the MESH status.

 

Thanks

[atamakosi]

Thanks for the answers. These are 7982 models with a new ZD 3000, btw.

 

I was hoping initially just to put the WAP in that building in Mesh along with the nearest WAP's to provide the bridge. It sounds like I'll either need to A) mesh the entire network or B) mesh the entire network and then disable mesh on a per WAP basis. Sounds like an experiment to be conducted during the holidays.

[White_Fi]

Just another point, each mesh hop will use ~50% of the bandwidth and no more than 4 hops is recommend.

 

The 7982 APs have 3x3:3 radio chains - the maximum data rate on the mesh is 450Mbps and will be cut in half on each MESH hop.

 

For example a station at the end of a single mesh hop will see (in best conditions) ~225Mbps of bandwidth. Actual throughput will be lower due to 802.11 overheads.