Q: MX65-W in the Security Appliance Network, can a Wireless Network be combined?

[Welles]

If you have an MX65-W in a "Security Appliance" network, any issues with combining this with a "Wireless Network"?  Just wanted to make sure that since this is a W unit, I didn't want to run into an issue down the road that you can't combine it with a "Wireless Network".

i.e. you add a Meraki AP, powered off the MX65W. 

Also, can the radios in the 65W be turned off? i.e. is there an actual setting to disable the radios? 

Thanks.

[PhilipDAth]

You really don't want to run a "W" with an access point at the same geographic location.

I don't think you can disable the "W" radios - but you don't have to configure any SSID on them.

[Welles]

“You really don't want to run a "W" with an access point at the same geographic location.”

Why?

[PhilipDAth]

They don't share any configuration information, so you have to configure the two access points separately.

I also don't think they share any roaming information, or radio spectrum data.  The Air Marshall on the AP is likely to see the "W" as attacking it by presenting an SSID with the same name.

[WirelesslyWired]

If you use the MX65W in a combined network with Access Points, you just need to disable the radios in the MX. This can be done by turning off the power to the radios, or not configuring SSIDs on the MX. This does not cause any issues, and allows you to scale from maybe only needing the MX wireless initially to scaling out to multiple APs. There is a warning that is presented but it does not cause any issues. 

[DStanley]

Thanks for this good info.

Would you be able to provide a walkthrough of how to disable the radios, or disable power to the raios in the MX device from the portal? I've done a lot of digging as well as poking around in the portal and can't find where that is an option. I am running a MX-68W and two MR42 APs so I want to kill the wireless on the MX device and just let the APs handle the wireless at this location.

Thank you!

[Bruce]

I don’t believe there is a way to disable the wireless radios on the MX-W devices. The best you can do is under Security & SD-WAN -> Wireless Settings set all the SSIDs to Disabled, this means the MX won’t be advertising anything but I don’t believe it actually powers off the radios. You may want to check with support to see if they have a backend way to turn them off.

[blakekrone]

Nothing attacks so terminology is a little off here.

The MX65W can be in the same dashboard/network as additional MR units, so they would be known and things would be ok. Matter of fact that is a recommended deployment for smaller locations where only a small handful (i.e. 2 or 3) of APs are needed.

[MerakiDave]

To add to what @WirelesslyWired stated, just in case you're not familiar with the "combined network" terminology, while you can certainly run an MX-W appliance in a combined network with wireless APs, this does not "combine" the wireless network.  It just means you'll have a "Security Appliance" locale and a "Wireless" locale in the same Dashboard network.  Like @PhilipDAth said, you could actually run wireless on both the MX65-W and separate wireless APs, but you wouldn't really want to do that.  You could still do it, but it'll be 2 separate wireless networks, and managed separately from different locales.  So try to not do it 🙂  As was stated, this often comes up when customers start out with a single MX65-W and then need to scale to a larger wireless deployment with multiple APs.  

[PhilipDAth]

@blakekrone this is not a recommended deployment - but I would be happy to be proven wrong by you posting a link to any Meraki documentation suggesting that this is in fact a recommended deployment - using a built in access point and a stand alone access point at the same geographic location.

[blakekrone]

It’s been recommended by meraki members in many customer accounts for years and does work. Not ideal but it does work. 

[MerakiDave]

Agreed, it can (and does) work, but definitely not ideal and not something I'd recommend, having to manage 2 separate wireless networks in the same local area, not to mention no seamless roaming between them.  The typical use case is starting out with a single MX65W, then there's a need for a larger wifi footprint.  That is the tipping point where I'd deploy two (not 1) MR access points, disable wireless on the MX and only have wifi on the MR APs.