Setting Meraki MR46 and Cisco 9120AX in Parallel

[prakashcsco]

Due to business Requirement I need to setup Meraki MR46 and Cisco 9120AX Catalysts in parallel to each other.  Its a One floor Building and We have 9800 Controller for Cisco 9120AX and cloud controller for Meraki.

Since Development and R&D teams wants to use different APS, we have come to this plan. 

Both teams uses different SSIDs.

I have few plans like

1. Turnoff 2.4GHz in Meraki and broadcast only 5GHz which have different channel than Cisco APS.

2. Keep the static channel on 5Ghz on cisco APS

Please share your suggestions related to interference and Collision and other WIFI aspects.

But this a must need for both teams.

@Rasika Nayanajith @Flavio Miranda @Rich R @marce1000 @Leo Laohoo 

Please share your valuable comments and suggestions.

[Scott Fella]

I had to do this also for a dev team where they wanted to test various AP’s. I actually just put them in and let it be as they were in one large room. If they wanted suggestions, I would provide that or other teams would have one on for a few days and then switch to another. I too run this setup at home and I do have around 9 AP’s. I don’t hard set the channels to be honest because it’s not affecting my use and it’s like my production at home. It’s a different situation if you are co-locating wireless with two vendors, then you should spend time breaking down what vendor can use what channels. For your case with one of each…. Let it be.

Also, they wanted to also test on both bands. Your requirement might be different. 

[Rich R]

The only thing to add to what Scott has said is to ensure the power levels are adjusted to limit the cell size as much as possible to avoid overlap between the two networks.  Of course you can never have seamless roaming between the two networks but since they're using different SSIDs that shouldn't be an issue.

This is really a policy decision that should be made at CTO level on what the company's strategic direction is - using one or the other - not leaving it to individual teams to choose what they want for themselves!  The testing use case Scott mentioned is a bit different but it sounds like this is just two teams disagreeing on what technology to use.