Greetings, frequent reader, seldom poster.
I am in the process of building out a second retail store location for my business. This new facility is 2 metal buildings jointed in a "L" configuration. The front "main showroom" is a 10,000 sq ft rectangle and the rear building is an 8,000 sq ft rectangle. The ceilings are at about 15 feet in the front building and 20 ft in the rear.
Since I am starting the LAN from nothing, I am looking at all my affordable options. My current store has a mixture of brands of accesspoints, and it is a chore to change settings as I must log into each unit, and each manufacturer's panel is completely different.
I plan on starting with 4 ceiling (or wall) mounted access points in the larger showroom and 2 in the rear building.
The wifi will be used for my salespersons on the floor to do price lookups and regular web browsing, etc... I would like to have multiple SSIDs, to separate my internal web browsing from Point of Sale and also allow a guest SSID that is sandboxed from the rest of the network.
I need accesspoints that support WPA2, and IOS (iPhone/iPad,) and the capability to operate with multiple SSID. Many complaints I've seen are centered around the inability to deal with one or more of these situations.
For longevity and to maximize time before obsolescence, I am leaning towards accesspoints that offer simultaneous dual band usage.
I have searched several manufacturers websites and found some promising hardware that allows for centralized management. Some of these options are even affordable, others start at $5K and easily run to $16K.
The Netgear WMS5316 Prosafe Wireless Access Management System is currently available from a vendor on Amazon for a special price with 2 WNDAP350 dual-band access points. The package price is about the equivalent of getting the accesspoints for about $50.
The Engenius EAP600 offers the EnGenius Zone Controller, Access Point Management software. Has anyone used this setup?
I am open to any suggestions or advice.
Thank you,
Rob
I am in the process of building out a second retail store location for my business. This new facility is 2 metal buildings jointed in a "L" configuration. The front "main showroom" is a 10,000 sq ft rectangle and the rear building is an 8,000 sq ft rectangle. The ceilings are at about 15 feet in the front building and 20 ft in the rear.
Since I am starting the LAN from nothing, I am looking at all my affordable options. My current store has a mixture of brands of accesspoints, and it is a chore to change settings as I must log into each unit, and each manufacturer's panel is completely different.
I plan on starting with 4 ceiling (or wall) mounted access points in the larger showroom and 2 in the rear building.
The wifi will be used for my salespersons on the floor to do price lookups and regular web browsing, etc... I would like to have multiple SSIDs, to separate my internal web browsing from Point of Sale and also allow a guest SSID that is sandboxed from the rest of the network.
I need accesspoints that support WPA2, and IOS (iPhone/iPad,) and the capability to operate with multiple SSID. Many complaints I've seen are centered around the inability to deal with one or more of these situations.
For longevity and to maximize time before obsolescence, I am leaning towards accesspoints that offer simultaneous dual band usage.
I have searched several manufacturers websites and found some promising hardware that allows for centralized management. Some of these options are even affordable, others start at $5K and easily run to $16K.
The Netgear WMS5316 Prosafe Wireless Access Management System is currently available from a vendor on Amazon for a special price with 2 WNDAP350 dual-band access points. The package price is about the equivalent of getting the accesspoints for about $50.
The Engenius EAP600 offers the EnGenius Zone Controller, Access Point Management software. Has anyone used this setup?
I am open to any suggestions or advice.
Thank you,
Rob