Enabling Mesh

[garrett_collier]

We have two zone directors, our production ZD3000 with all APs and a test unit ZD1200 (0 APs at the moment). There appears to be an area that it is impossible to reach with standard cabling which would be a prime place to try a meshed AP as there is power there. My question is, if I enable mesh on my ZD1200 will that affect anything with my production appliance given that they are on the same vlan? All APs are associated with the 3000 and do not have the 1200 as a failover etc. This seems to be a no-brainer, but I do not want to find out I'm wrong. 

My plan would be to pull one of the wired APs from the 3000 onto the 1200 and then mesh it with the new AP. 

Thanks in advance.

[DarrelRhodes]

Hi Garrett,

It sounds like enabling Mesh will be a good solution for hard-to-reach location.  Just make sure you have good signal strength from a wired AP in this area.

Can you clarify that you have both ZDs on the same VLAN? In my experience this would normally cause problems as the ZDs would conflict by trying to adopt each other's APs, as ZoneDirector has L2 discovery and adoption.

Please be aware that once SmartMesh is enabled on a ZD, it's not possible to disable it without doing a factory default, so ensure you take a config backup prior to enabling it.  However it is possible to disable Mesh on an individual AP basis.

Thanks,
Darrel.

[garrett_collier]

Thanks for the information, Darrel. 

Both ZDs are on the same vlan, but they are disabled from automatically joining APs. -Originally these devices were in two different physical locations, but we ended up joining them over a metro-e and folded in the second location's APs onto the bigger 3000 appliance, thus making the 1200 unnecessary and relegating it to my test bench. 

I was just concerned that enabling mesh on the one might interfere with the operation of the other, which it sounds like isn't a problem.

[DarrelRhodes]

Hi Garrett,

Thanks for the update.  Sounds like your two ZDs are co-habiting happily! It certainly shouldn't be an issue for you to run SmartMesh on one of them, even if you need to swap an AP from one ZD with Mesh to the other without Mesh, then the AP will be fine.

Hope that helps,
Darrel.