Small wireless network means - for the near future - a maximum of 4 wireless access points connected to a POE capable switch.
Besides POE, we require VLAN - multiple VLANs in fact - and RADIUS authentication.
We want multiple VLANs - and multiple SSIDs - because we want a secure network (VLAN) for employees and a "open" network for guests.
At this point, anyway, we may not even need routing between the VLANs, even regulated, because we could (I think) simply connect the respective VLANs to separate ports on our firewall.
I've talked to some people who have accomplished the above on a much larger scale (hospital with hundreds of access points) using Cisco Catalyst 3750 switches and Cisco Aironet 1140 WAPs.
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Is there less expensive material for this?
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Yes, you might want to know what the load on the equipment might be.
For the near future once again, we are looking at a dozen company laptops (12-15 maximum) that would access a file server and the Internet.
There would probably be no more that a dozen guest laptops accessing any of the access points at any given time.
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What we do not need (might be nice, or even advantageous, but given our finances we will need to do without):
- Gigabit or 10 Gigabit interfaces. 100 Mb should be fine.
- More than 16 ports (8 would probably do it, granted, limiting possibility of expansion)
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Can anyone make a suggestion? 1) For the switch and 2) for the WAP.
Thank you in advance!
David
