Recommendation needed for more professional home network equipment

[vjekobalas]

I’d appreciate a recommendation for new  networking equipment to cover 4 floors including the cellar.

At the moment I have the following equipment:
Location - cellar rack
- ISP router acting as modem (location cellar rack)
- Asus RT-N16 router (router + cellar/1st floor wifi)
- TP-link gigabit switch

Location – 2nd floor
- Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH (access point 2nd/3rd floor wifi)

With the update in equipment, I would like to cover several needs:
- more professional equipment with more advanced functions from which I would learn more about networking
-better control and logging, tagged VLANs, gigabit lan, wifi -ac
- better wifi coverage (maybe I need 3 access points)
- would like to connect the following separate networks:
(1) home automation (5 fixed ports + Wifi) ,
(2)video/audio streaming
(3)visitors (4 fixed ports + Wifi),
(4)my network (5 fixed ports + wifi ),
(5)VoIP phones (5 fixed ports + wifi )
(6)test network (3 fixed ports + wifi)
. Ideally I would like separate SSID’s for each Wifi network and authentication via mac or wap depending on network.
-preferably fanless

Together with the networking equipment in the cellar, I will have a server running vmware with backup + backup NAS. Network cabling is cat5E which I don’t intend to change for now.

Two additional questions:
(a)Should I run all the above networks into one switch (with tagged vlans) ?
(b)Which equipment would you suggest  ?

[Karsten Iwen]

• Professional and easy to manage:
• 1 Cisco Meraki MS220-8P (Switch) per floor
• 1 Cisco Meraki MR33 (Access-Point) per floor
• optionally 1 Cisco Meraki MX85 (security-appliance/router with included switch) in the cellar rack instead of one MS220-8P
• Cisco Small Business Line (cheaper and still quite easy to manage):
• 1 Cisco SG300-8P (Switch) per floor
• 1 Cisco WAP150 (Access-Point) per floor
• Professional and maximum flexibility (will be most challenging to implement):
• 1 Cisco Catalyst 2960CX-8PC (Switch) per floor
• 1 Cisco Aironet 1830 (Access-Point) per floor
• 1 Cisco WLC 2504 (Wireless LAN Controller) or vWLC

[vjekobalas]

Thanks for the info !
All CAT5E is going to cellar rack- there I need something like a 24/28 port switch (for all networks Imentioned). Would you just connect all the mentioned networks to the one switch ?

So, ISP router would stay acting as modem and the switch would do routing for the small business line or I need a router ?

This is a home network, so I don't want to go into yearly licenses etc. - is the small buiness line then my only option ?

[Karsten Iwen]

Ok, then you don't need the switches per floor. And ideally the Switch should support Layer3 functions. I would run all of that on a single switch. So the switching from above would change to:

• Meraki MS320-24P or Meraki MS250-24P
• SG300-28P
• 2960X-24PSQ-L (fanless, but only 8*PoE)

For Meraki, licenses can be bought for 5 or 10 years. In IT, that's kind of "lifetime" ...

You still need an extra router or security-appliance in that scenario. One device has to take the role of NAT and firewalling.

[vjekobalas]

I need to be a bit more specific about the logging requirement
as it may impact the choice of equipment (would appreciate
a few tips on what I need to set this up): From the logged
information, I would like to be able to setup an email or similar
to be sent to me depending on specific occurances (eg. access
point failure/internet is down etc.) and be able to extract information
such as Wifi workload. Other than that, I have a feeling that any one
of the solutions above will be better than what I have now.

From both the finacial perspective and due to size of network, I
think the SG300 is most suitable for me.

For the access points, I see that both the Aironet 1830 and
WAP150 both have single point setup (don't need a controller)
but the 1830 has better specs and simple multiple access
point setup. Is it worthwhile to go for the more expensive 1830's
for my scenario ? I saw that there is a virtual wireless controller
but I guess that costs a bit also in licenses ?

Regarding the router, maybe I could try the existing Asus RT-N16
(without wifi i.e. only access points supplying wifi functionality)
for a start, but what would be a reasonable solution for the future
- an x86 appliance with pfsense or ?

For the future equipment setup (ISP modem router (acting as DSL modem),
router, L3 switch and access points), where tagged VLAN's will be used, how
many ports does the router need to have for optimal throughput  (DSL
is less than 40Mbs) - I ask because I'm not sure whether the L3
switch will do all routing of "local" traffic and one  1Gbs port would
be sufficient on the router ?

Once the new equipment is installed with access points placed
centrally on each floor,  how does one check wifi coverage - mobile
wifi signal app or is there a better solution (assuming no hardware
wireless controller) ?

[Karsten Iwen]

For this situation, I would prefer the Meraki MR33 over the 1830 because of the ease of use. And without a controller you get more features for less work. But for the 1830 you can use the vWLC which is not that expensive. (Listprice of $750 with 5 AP-licenses).

[vjekobalas]

Unfortunatelly, that is not a solution within my pricerange.

[vjekobalas]

Would like to hear from others what you are using for router/L3 switch and access points in your home networks.

[vjekobalas]

bumpity bump - noone else with a home network budget here ?

[vjekobalas]

Should have rephrased this slightly - what would be a good lower speed (802.11 n)  cheaper/used alternative as the above is too expensive ?

[Karsten Iwen]

Have you looked at the Small-Business devices from Cisco? They are typically also a good choice with limited budget.

Or a used 2504 with 1602i APs. The 1602 only does 802.11n and no 802.11ac, but it's still good equipment. Especially if you also want to practice with that stuff.

[vjekobalas]

Can you please indicate what is your reasoning for the need of the
WLC 2504 (Wireless LAN Controller) or vWLC for the 1830 AP if it doesn't need a controller / what would I gain by adding a controller ?

[Karsten Iwen]

From your initial post:

- more professional equipment with more advanced functions from which I would learn more about networking 

Using a controller is the actual and professional way to configure APs in the Cisco world. You can also use the Build-In controller (Mobility Express) of the APs, but the features are limited.