Meraki Control Plane

[Jimbo1]

Hi Guys,

I've read a bunch of articles on the 'net that say that the Meraki Control Plane has to have connectivity to the Internet, and so to the Cloud Controller, for things like RRM to work properly.

I've also seen articles that suggest that the situation may be changing, but can find no evidence that it has done so yet.

Can anyone advise: I know that the Data plane doesn't need to go to the Cloud Controller; I know that the Management plane must go to the Cloud Controller if adds/moves/changes are to be made; but I still don't know if the Meraki Control plane must connect to the Cloud Controller for things like RRM to work properly.

Thanks for any clarification

Jim

[PhilipDAth · Accepted solution]

My understanding is RRM is calculated by the cloud.

[Jimbo1]

Certainly that was my understanding as well, but its good to confirm it. That means, in words of one syllable, that if you loose the Internet, you've lost RRM too 😞

Thanks
Jim

[MilesMeraki]

Unfortunately, you're correct. RRM requires Cloud (Internet) connectivity. However, Meraki (MX) devices do offer quite a few options for internet connectivity to allow for extra Internet redundancy in case of a single ISP failure.  

[PhilipDAth]

If the environment is working and then you loose access to the Internet then it will keep working.  I expect you will loose the ability for the system to dynamically change channels and power settings.

[TD888]

Guys have been dealing with Airespace since inception, new to Meraki, is there any documentation around Meraki RRM, same algos as Cisco WLC?

[PhilipDAth]

It's not the same as Cisco WLC.

Simple explanantion:

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Monitoring_and_Reporting/Location_Analytics/Meraki_Auto_RF%3A__W... 

Complex explanation:

https://conferences.sigcomm.org/imc/2017/papers/imc17-final203.pdf 

[TD888]

Thanks!

[newbiez]

I too has discussed this with Cisco as a drawback because we have no way in control of our stuff and solely depending on our internet connectivity. 

I will wait till there is some kind of local control so we can manage our Wireless Infrastructure internally. This is may be useful for a small mom/pop set up but for bigger company that have in-house support staff, this will be a drawback.

Does anyone out there aware that there's a development on that direction?

Thank you.

[PhilipDAth]

Cisco Meraki will never have a locally managed, on-premise WiFi option.

I was talking with a global company last week with 130,000 staff.  They have access to every kind of IT Support specialist you can think of.  You wouldn't call them a small mom/pop operation.

They somehow seem to cope with only having cloud management.