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Cisco Aironet 1520, 1130, 1240 Series Wireless Mesh Access Points, Design and Deployment Guide, Release 6.0
OL-20213-01
Mesh Network Components
MAPs communicate among themselves and back to the RAP using wireless connections over the
802.11a radio backhaul. MAPs use the Cisco Adaptive Wireless Path Protocol (AWPP) to determine the
best path through the other mesh access points to the controller.
All the possible paths between the MAPs and RAPs form the wireless mesh network.
shows the
relationship between RAPs and MAPs in a mesh network.
Figure 1
Simple Mesh Network Hierarchy
Network Access
Wireless mesh networks can simultaneously carry two different traffic types: wireless LAN client traffic
and MAP Ethernet port traffic.
Wireless LAN client traffic terminates on the controller, and the Ethernet traffic terminates on the
Ethernet ports of the mesh access points.
Access to the wireless LAN mesh for mesh access points is managed by:
•
MAC authentication—Mesh access points are added to a referenceable database to ensure they are
allowed access to a given controller and mesh network. Refer to
“Adding Mesh Access Points to the
Mesh Network” section on page 57
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WCS
Network
RAP
MAP 1
MAP 2
MAP 3
MAP 4
MAP 6
MAP 5
MAP 7
MAP 8
MAP 9