70-80 yards wireless (or other point-to-point) network suggestion?

[davebainum]

Hi all,

This might be slightly off-topic - but since we intend to use OnPlus to monitor the two locations in question - and we want to ensure that network performance & security wouldn't be compromised - I wanted to throw this out there.

We have a potential client (and office neighbor, actually), who literally is about 60-70 yards down the street from us, in the same office complex.  They are running out of physical space, and are considering moving several of their servers out of their office into a co-lo facility - or at least, somewhere else in the same complex.

We are checking to see what our other options are (e.g. point to point circuit via an ISP, site to site VPN, etc.) and the landlord has tentatively approved running an Ethernet or Fiber connection between the buildings if needed.  However I wanted to see if anyone else had experience/suggestions with some sort of a high-speed, high-performance wireless bridge or similar - that might potentially work for that sort of distance (60-70 yards).

Of course, we realize that with wireless that it may potentially involve reception, security, latency issues.  But if it's lower cost and hassle than the other alternatives... it might be a contender...  The last time we seriously designed and worked with such a technology (wireless point-to-point) for a SMB project (and I'm dating myself, now), it was around 2001 and we used some sort of microwave wireless to do point-to-point between buildings in the same office park.  It worked, but was high latency - and that was before the era of streaming videos, VoIP, etc., etc....

Thanks in advance,

-- Dave Bainum, PMP*  (dbainum@ritetech.net)

RiteTech LLC / www.ritetech.net / Tel. +1 (703) 561-0607

[*PMP=PMI Certified Project Management Professional]

[Brian Bergin]

We’ve had customers in one colo facility or another for over a decade.  The use Remote Desktop Services on 2008 R2 Server (or virtualized desktops like Win7 Pro on Hyper-V) to access their data and essentially their existing desktops into thin clients.  There are even tools to remote scan documents directly to their RDS servers (http://www.remote-scan.com/). 

Start with an RV082 (my preferred right now (unless they're willing to pay for an ASA-5505 with the IPSecurity option), they’re inexpensive and can be replaced later with higher end equipment without too much loss in capital) or SA520 (though I’m not thrilled with the SA, double the cost and only do round robin load balancing so if one is much faster than the other, say 30+Mb/sec cable vs. 3-6Mb/sec ADSL) and get 2 high speed Internet connections from 2 different providers if possible and either load balance (on the RV082) and you’ll want matching firewall hardware in the colo facility to create a site-to-site IPsec tunnel.  With 2 connections from 2 different providers, unless the last mile is cut where both connections are likely to enter the office park, chances are they’ll be on-line 24/7 no matter if one provider goes down.  Also, supposedly the RV and SA will VPN to an ASA, but I’ve yet to find anyone to get it to work for me at Cisco and it’s as yet undocumented at Cisco.  There won’t be any streaming video out of those servers but they should be rock solid reliable if the colo facility is high quality.

You print locally via IP printing to IP printers in the office or via use of RDS printing which is almost perfect in 2008 R2/Windows 7, but very solid even with 2003 Server and XP as a desktop client if done properly.

There are lots of other good reasons to go to a colo facility, including, but absolutely not limited to security and power backup.  Definitely worth considering IMHO.

As for wireless point-to-point what you need is line-of-site connections and 802.11x connections with omni-directional externally mounted antennas and you likely can go several hundred yards. We had a ski resort use it to connect to webcams on their slopes as far as 600’ away (that's as far as they wanted to go so I don't know how much farther it would have gone). It worked quite well, but as you know even 802.11n is slow compared to copper and gets bogged down quickly if they have a lot of users even if you use high-end Aironets.

IMHO, keep a small server in the office if they require streaming video and put the rest of the company’s data in a datacenter.

[mrn]

Hi Dave,

Personally, if my landlord is willing to give me a fiber connection between the buildings I will stick with that.

For places where the cost is prohibitive, the Cisco Aironet Wireless Bridge can do a pretty good job:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/wireless/ps5679/ps5279/ps5285/product_data_sheet09186a008018495c.html

The building to building kit would probably give you everything you need:

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/witc/ao350ap/prodlit/brgei_ai.pdf

This device uses an 802.11a radio, so it has up to 54 Mbps of throughput. The security issues are the same as they are with your current office wireless network, so you should already have a good understanding of how to deploy.

- Mark

[davebainum]

Thanks, guys... Great suggestions, and greatly appreciated.

I'll definitely look into either or both of these.  Could get interesting!

According to the landlord, there's no current inter-building cable.  They're open to allowing additional cabling, but obviously that would involve trenching, digging, figuring out rights-of-way, and all the joys/hassles related to same.

I looked into point-to-point from one of the ISP's that serves the building - not inexpensive, but more importantly, very slow compared to the potential 54MBS for that Building-to-building kit mentioned by Mark, above.

I've definitely got some more homework to do.  By the way, setting up wireless cameras at a ski slope sounds like a very neat assignment.  Although, the first (and last) time I came down a ski slope, it was in the rescue sled.  ;-)  But, that's a story for another day.  Since then, I stick to waverunners & other "warmer weather" types of sports...

-- Dave Bainum, PMP* (dbainum@ritetech.net)

RiteTech LLC / www.ritetech.net / Tel. +1 (703) 561-0607

[*PMP=PMI Certified Project Management Professional]