HPE Networking Instant 8.5.0.x 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 HPE Networking Instant.
Contacting Support
Table 1: Contact Support
Main Site | meridianapps.com |
Meridian Support | |
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 HPE Networking deployment guide. The user must also have admin access to an active Meridian Editor account with the required Meridian SKUs enabled for beacons management and/or asset tracking.
General WLAN Configurations to Support Meridian
The HPE Networking Wi-Fi network infrastructure is configured using a HPE Networking IAPs.
Configuring Clock/NTP services
Time synchronization is an essential part of managing beacons and tracking asset in your network so make sure that all the nodes are synchronized with the same reference server and time.
Configuring preferred DNS to reach *.meridianapps.com
The controller should have DNS configured and be able to reach *.meridianapps.com server.
Meridian Editor Assets
The following Meridian assets are required to complete the configurations for Beacons Management and Asset Tracking.
Access Token
The Access Token is used by the controller 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:
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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
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://edit.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>
HPE Networking Instant Configurations
Enable the Internal Access Point Beacons
Enabling the internal BLE using HPE Networking Instant is supported in the graphical user interface. The internal BLE must be enabled so that it can be provisioned for use with Meridian.
Enabling the Internal BLE Radio using the GUI.
Step 1: Log in to the Virtual Controller, then click on Configuration > Services > RTLS > Instant.
Step 2. Pull down the menu for BLE Operation Mode and select Beaconing, then click Save.
Configure IoT Transport Profile for Beacons Management
After the BLE radio has been enabled on the AP, you are ready to configure the IoT profile for Beacons Management. The Beacons Management IoT profile is required for sending data such as beacon mac address, uuid/major/minor, battery level, transmit power, hardware type, firmware, etc to the Meridian Beacon Management server. This is also required if you plan to use Meridian Asset Tracking.
Configuring Beacons Management IoT Profile
Complete the following steps to configure the beacons management IoT profile. On the Virtual Controller, navigate to Configurations > Services > IoT. In the IoT Endpoints section, click on the +, enter the following, then click Save.
- Name: <Beacon Managemen IoT Profile Name>
- Type: Meridian Beacons Management
- State: Enable
- URL: <Beacon Management Server URL>
- Transport Interval: 600
- Authorization token: <Access Token>
Note: Meridian manages the Transport Interval as needed, so while it is a required configuration, the value entered will only be used for the very first connection. Meridian's default is 3600.
Verify the connection to Meridian has been established in Editor
After the changes are set and deployed, the connection to Meridian beacon server should be established. In Meridian Editor, navigate to the Beacons Management page to make sure the status for Beacon Management is Connected: Your HPE Networking network is connected to the Meridian Editor. The Editor last heard from your network a few seconds ago.
Configuring Asset Tracking IoT Profile
Asset Tracking IoT Prerequisites
The following are two prerequisites must be done before configuring the Asset Tracking IoT profile:
1. Configure Beacons Management IoT Profile. Even if you are not planning to use Meridian Beacon Management, configuring the IoT Transport Profile for Beacons Management is required prior to configuring the IoT Transport Profile for Asset Tracking. The Beacons Management IoT profile is required for sending data such as tag mac address, uuid/major/minor, battery level, hardware type, etc to the Meridian Beacon Management server. If you haven’t done so, please go to Configure IoT Transport Profile for Beacons Management before proceeding with this section.
2. Add the DigiCert Root Certificate to the Virtual Controller. A rootCA certificate is required on the controller when connecting the the tags server.
To add the certificate to the Virtual Controller,
- Navigate to Maintenance > Certificates and click on Upload New Certificate.
- Download and add the DigiCert Root Certificate. The root CA certificate for Meridian is can be downloaded from here.
- Browse for the certificate file and upload it
- Certificate type: CA
- Certificate format: X509 (.pem .cer or .crt)
- Click Upload Certificate
Complete the following steps to configure the Asset Tracking IoT profile. On the Virtual Controller, navigate to Configurations > Services > IoT. In the IoT Endpoints section, click on the +, enter the following, then click Save.
- Name: <Asset Tracking IoT Profile Name>
- Type: Meridian Tags
- State: Enable
- URL: <Asset Tracking Server URL>
- Transport Interval: 5
- Authorization token: <Access Token>
- Location ID: <Location ID>
At least one asset tag must be added and within in range of a configured AP before the AP will initiate the connection to the Meridian asset tag server.
Summary
This guide provides the fundamental components necessary to configure the infrastructure to 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, please contact asp.arubanetworks.com.
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