Aruba Central Meridian Beacons Management and Asset Tracking Configuration Guide Follow
Overview
This guide describes the setup and configurations required for supporting Meridian Beacons Management and Asset Tracking on the Aruba Central
Contacting Support
Table 1: Contact Support
| Main Site | meridianapps.com |
| Meridian Support | asp.arubanetworks.com |
| Airheads Social Forum and Knowledge Base | community.arubanetworks.com |
Assumptions
This article assumes that the user has admin rights to configure their infrastructure according to Aruba's deployment guide using Aruba Central and Instant Access Points (IAPs). The user must also have admin access to an active Aruba Meridian Editor account and the required Meridian SKU are enabled for beacons management and/or asset tracking.
Meridian Editor Assets
The following Meridian assets are required to complete the configurations for Central to communicate with Meridian servers for Beacons Management and Asset Tracking.
Access Token
The Access Token is used by Central to securely communicate with Meridian Servers. Initially, is not available and it must be generated in the Beacons Management menu. This needs to only be done one time because the same Access Token can be used for both Beacons Management and Asset Tracking.
If the access token has not been generated yet, follow the steps below to generate a new access token in Editor:
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In your Meridian Editor cloud account, navigate to Beacons > Beacons Management
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Click Generate your access token to get started
After the access token is generated, it will be displayed in the ACCESS TOKEN window. To the right of the window is a copy button that can be used to copy the value onto your clipboard for copy and paste operations.
Meridian Server URL
Aruba Meridian has a Standard Server for the general users and an EU Server specifically for the European Union. When configuring the Meridian configuration profiles, it is critical that you use the correct server URL. To find out which server URL to use, look at the webpage URL that you use for accessing your Meridian Editor account.
For example:
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If you access your Editor account by using https://edit.meridianapps.com, then you are using the Standard Server
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If you access your Editor account by using https://edit-eu.meridianapps.com, then you are using the EU Server.
It is important that you know which instance of Meridian Server your Meridian Editor account is set up in so that you can enter the correct Meridian Server URL when configuring or tyour devices to communicate with Meridian servers.
Beacons Management Server URL
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Standard Server: https://meridianapps.com/api/beacons/manage
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EU Server: https://edit-eu.meridianapps.com/api/beacons/manage
Asset Tracking Server URL
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Standard Server: https://tags.meridianapps.com/api/v1beta1/streams/ingestion.start
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UE Server: https://tags-eu.meridianapps.com/api/v1beta1/streams/ingestion.start
Location ID
The Location ID is only required when configuring IoT profile for Asset Tracking. It can be found in the Meridian Editor settings page or in the URL of your account.
Or you can get it from the webpage URL after you log into your Edit account. The syntax for the Meridian Editor URL will look like this:
https://edit.meridianapps.com/apps/<Location ID>
Aruba Central Configurations
Support for enabling the APB and configuring the IoT profiles for Beacons Management and Asset Tracking has been evolving in Central so please pay close attention to the firmware you are using as it will affect the way in which you configure your infrastructure to work with Meridian. Below is a matrix summarizing configuration support in each of the firmware.
Enabling the Internal Access Point Beacons
Before you start, the AP Beacons (APB) must be enabled so that it can be provisioned for use with Meridian. If the APB is not enabled, the APB will not be broadcasting the beacon ID and Meridian tools will not be able to configure the beacon for use.
Enabling the Internal BLE Radio using Global UI
*** THIS OPTION IS ONLY SUPPORTED ON 6.5.2.X - 8.5.0.8***
Enabling the internal BLE radio using Global UI will not work on
firmware 8.6.x and onward. Although the option is available in the UI,
it will not enable the internal BLE radio to broadcast the beacon ID.
BLE Operation Mode and IoT profiles are supported in firmware 8.6.x
through the use of template group configs.
To enable the internal BLE radio using on firmware 6.5.2.x - 8.5.0.8 using the Global UI, do the following:
Step 1: Navigate to the Virtual Controller, then click on Devices and, click on the Configure icon on top right hand corner of the page, then click on Show Advanced.
Step 2. Navigate to Services, scroll down the page and then click to expand Real Time Locating System to display the configurable fields. Pull down the menu for BLE Operation Mode and select beaconing, then click Save Settings. 
Configuring Beacons Management IoT Profile
Step 1: Navigate to the Virtual Controller, then click on Devices and, click on the Configure gear box on top right hand corner of the page, then click on Show Advanced.
Step 2. Navigate to Services and then click Real Time Locating System to display the configurable fields. Scroll down and check the box for Manage BLE Beacons. Go to the corresponding Meridian Editor location and copy and paste the Authorization token and the Endpoint URL. Verify that BLE Operation Mode and set to beaconing, then click Save Settings.
Leave BLE Asset Tag Mgmt Server(wss) field blank. This field cannot be edited in Aruba Central for AOS 6.5.3.0 and earlier and it is not required for AOS 6.5.4.0 and later.
Step 3. Wait 15-30 minutess to establish the connection to Meridian Beacon management server. The Beacon Management connection status in Editor will update when a connection is made.
Configure IoT Transport Profile for Asset Tracking
Configuring the IoT Transport Profile for Beacons Management is required prior to configuring the IoT Transport Profile for Asset Tracking. If you haven’t done it yet, please complete the section on Configuring Beacons Management IoT Profile before starting with this section.
Step 1: Navigate to the Virtual Controller, then click on Devices and, click on the Configure Gear box on top right hand corner of the page, then click on Show Advanced.
Step 2. Navigate to Services and then click Real Time Locating System to display the configurable fields. Scroll down and check the box for BLE Asset Tag Mgmt. Go to the corresponding Meridian Editor location and copy and paste the Authorization token and the Location ID.
Step 3. Add a tag to be tracked using the Aruba Tags mobile app. Wait about 15-30 minutes for the tag to be reported to Meridian server, then check the tag status in Editor.
Using Template Groups to Enable APB and Configure Beacons Management and Asset Tracking IoT Profiles
Starting with Central 8.6.0.x and onward, enabling APB and configuring IoT Configurations are no longer supported using the GUI. Template Group configurations are required to do this configuration.
Below is a sample of the script to be included in the group configuration template:
iot radio-profile meridian-beacons
radio-mode ble
iot use-radio-profile meridian-beacons
iot transportProfile beacons-management
endpointType Meridian-Beacon-Management
endpointURL https://edit.meridianapps.com/api/beacons/manage
endpointToken <access_token>
payloadContent managed-beacons
transportInterval 600
iot useTransportProfile beacons-management
iot transportProfile asset-tracking
endpointType Meridian-Asset-Tracking
endpointURL https://tags.meridianapps.com/api/v1beta1/streams/ingestion.start
endpointToken <access_token>
endpointID <location_id>
payloadContent managed-tags
transportInterval 5
iot useTransportProfile asset-tracking
Summary
This configuration guide provides the fundamental components necessary to configure the infrastructure to enable the APB and communicate with Meridian Servers for Beacons Management and Asset Tracking. If the system does not work as expected after completing all the steps described above, you may contact https://asp.arubanetworks.com/
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