Wireless Requirement Question?

kahn

Hello mates,

Please move this question to appropriate forum.
I have a task to design or recommend the simple wireless solution for a nursing school. there are 3 buildings with 3 floors in each building. I want to ask about the some recommendation of wireless equipments, Security whether it would be WEP, WPA-PSK, WPA2 etc. which to implement?

they just need to run internet over wireless and nothing else. Though, school has its own network Infrastructure including Exchange, ISA 2004 running for corporate client/users.?
any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

SteveO86

As far as Security you would probably pick WPA2 with some type of EAP (of course then you need a RADIUS type server for authentication and maybe a PKI) WEP, just shouldn't be around anymore, and WPA is known as 'transitional' security everywhere you read.. So save time in the future and start with WPA2. I would read about the EAP Types to pick would one you want to support. Does a nursing school fall under HIPAA? If so you would probably would definitely want some type of 802.1x authentication. (I'm not familiar with the health care industry.

I would contact your normal hardware vendor and try to get some site survey kits (maybe 2), and setup on 2/3 floors. Since you are working with 3 floors on top of each other, you have to take that into consideration. If any AP is transmitting at too high a power level you may have a problem on the neighboring floor.

If you proceed with the site survey, document everything Channels, placements, power levels, etc.

Also consider power to the AP's, some new Wireless N AP's require more power then the 802.3af standard so keep that in mind. If you decide to go with the wireless N standard, of course your client computers need wireless N cards.

As far as hardware I am Cisco kind of guy so my opinion is bias, and Cisco's WLC controls channels/power levels/etc on the fly dynamically so that can ease some pain. (and cause more). With the 3 buildings at 3 floors you definitely want some type WLC to manage the AP's and multiple WLC's in that case for redundancy and load distribution.

I would also consider getting a spectrum analyzer so you can see if you have any wireless interference. Microwaves, cordless phone, other neighboring AP's and so forth.

Some CCNA Wireless, CWTS/CWNA/CWSP would lead to some good reading for preparation. (Especially get to familiar with the concept of RF)

(Those tips are really just tip of the iceberg and all I can think of prior to finishing my morning coffee, So I think of some other good tips I'll post back.)

it_consultant

Look into a solution like Meraki or Aruba - they allow many different types of authentication which are easier than PSK or EAP solutions. There are too much to them for me to explain here, take a look a the links:

Meraki Enterprise Class WLAN Access Points | Wireless Networking through the Cloud
Aruba Networks

unclerico

If you do a POC for Enterprise WLAN solutions then you must look at Aerohive. They offer an amazing product that is controllerless. We did a POC with Aruba, Trapeze, Cisco, and Aerohive and Aerohive won hands down. We will be putting Aerohive in at my new company as well.

it_consultant

The meraki controller is cloud based, sounds similar to aerohive.