Cisco Cisco Aironet 1522 Lightweight Outdoor Mesh Access Point Guide De Conception

In a Cisco wireless outdoor mesh network, multiple mesh access points comprise a network that provides 
secure, scalable outdoor wireless LAN. 

 shows an example of a simple mesh network 

deployment composed of mesh access point (MAPs and RAPs), controllers, and Cisco WCS.

The three RAPs are connected to the wired network at each location and are located on the building roof. 
All the downstream access points operate as MAPs and communicate using wireless links (not shown).

Both MAPs and RAPs can provide WLAN client access; however, the location of RAP are often not 
suitable for providing client access. All the three access points in 

 are located on the building 

roofs and are functioning as RAP. These RAP are connected to the network at each location.

Some of the buildings have onsite controllers to terminate CAPWAP sessions from the mesh access 
points but it is not a mandatory requirement because CAPWAP sessions can be back hauled to a 
controller over a wide-area network (WAN). (See 

For more details on CAPWAP, see the 

.

In a Cisco wireless backhaul network, traffic can be bridged between MAPs and RAPs. This traffic can 
be from wired devices that are being bridged by the wireless mesh or CAPWAP traffic from the mesh 
access points. This traffic is always AES encrypted when it crosses a wireless mesh link such as a 
wireless backhaul (

).

AES encryption is established as part of the mesh access point neighbor relationship with other mesh 
access points. The encryption keys used between mesh access points are derived during the EAP 
authentication process.

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