Outdoor WiFi solution for beach hotel

[Raul Armas]

 Hello everyone, 

​I was hoping some of you could give a hand with this:

​I'm designing a wireless solution for a beach hotel and I want to be sure we will be using the best AP <-> WLC combination and that my design works for indoor AP's too.

Checking each models, I made a little diagram attached in order for you to please advise what would be the best combination to use.

Any further questions please do not hesitate to ask.

Thanks!​

[Leo Laohoo]

Get a site survey done.  

A site survey will tell the financial authority or delegate how many APs to use and where to install.  For indoor AP model, you can't go wrong with 2600.  Don't even bother with 1600 or the 702.  Depending on how many APs you get, you could potentially look into 5508 if the amount of APs (indoor and outdoor) exceed 75.  

[Raul Armas]

Thanks Leo,

But what about the outdoor AP's? Which model would you suggest for this application?

[Leo Laohoo]

That'll depend on the budget.  

You could look at either the 1530 or 1550.

[Raul Armas]

Hi Leo,

Anything special about the NAC Guest Server that I should be careful about? (license, software, etc.) I will not be needing more than 30 APs. what should I use for the NAC Guest Server?

[Leo Laohoo]

Ummmm ... Explain what you want to do?  

Check out the two well-known and well-recommended systems:  Purple-WiFi & Nomadix

[Raul Armas]

I was looking for a solution to enable hotel customers to login through some sort of "special offerings website" (like in airports) using their room number or initials and then grant access to customers while monitoring and limiting their available bandwidth.

I thought the best recommendation was to have a Cisco device do that, so I was thinking about using the Cisco NAC Guest Server "appliance" but now that you mention Purple-WiFi & Nomadix, any other manufacturer recommendation would be great.

This hotel has aprox. 150 rooms, so I guess access to 500 hosts would be more than enough.

[Leo Laohoo]

Purple Wi-Fi and Nomadix have been in the business for some time.  Cisco's Guest NAC is just recently.  

Send the three a request for demo units (six months).  See how many respond back.

[ALIAOF_]

This is another pretty cool product that I have used once and very cost effective:

http://www.iea-software.com/products/airmarshal1.cfm

Cisco ISE can do the self provisioning too, but that might be to much.  I also know of another wireless vendor that has very cool features when it comes to guest access but then you won't be able to utilize Cisco AP's and controller.

[Raul Armas]

That's a very good point:

How could I know whether I use Air Marshal or Purple-Wifi or Nomadix if they will be 100% compatible with Cisco APs & Cisco WLCs?

[Leo Laohoo]

Request for a 6-month demo unit.