I have academic experience in Cisco networking (no certification), and no industry experience either. I just joined a company as a Junior and have been given the following client requirements for a Wi Fi System to understand and submit a RFP (Request For Proposal) with Bill of Materials.
If anyone can help me understand the client's requirements, due to my lack of experience, would be very much appreciated. This is a continuous document, to make it simpler to understand I have separated it with asterisk with my my questions in (brackets in bold) after the clients requirement which I have bolded as well in each asterisk point.
With all due respect, this is my first networking job and 1st network project as well so I'm looking to gain experience from this project, kindly refrain from passing unnecessary remarks as it will just be a waste of time.
WiFi System
* The Institutes Dublin and Belfast buildings both have public lecture rooms, private office floors and mixed public/private floors in each location, however it is envisaged that the WiFi solution will reside outside the private office networks (does this mean the client wants it as a separate network ?) of each building.
* Please include details on DMZ setup and location of wireless controllers, WiFi Switches and APs (Is the client asking what devices connect to what for example, outer firewall has a separate DMZ network inside which are the AP and switches etc) for each location.
* Access to the Institutes internal networks will require authentication through each office firewall using Global Protect. Please confirm that your proposed solutions will be compatible with this method of access (Did not understand). Each building is protected by a NextGen PaloAlto firewall in both locations.
* The Belfast building is serviced by 100mb circuit, and the Dublin building has an etherflow 1gb circuit. Also, there is a 100mb circuit between the Dublin and Belfast buildings. There is triangulation configured between buildings on the edge routers in order to maintain service in the event of any one of the three circuits failing (I understand till here). For example, if the Dublin/Belfast circuit fails then the edge routers will initiate a cloud-based VPN tunnel and diverse routing will be established to compensate for the failed link (What I understand is that the edge routers will redirect traffic to cloud-based VPN). Please provide details on the wireless controller topology that will take advantage of this enhanced resilience (If somebody can explain what do they mean by take advantage of enhanced resilience).
* It is also envisaged that each building can operate independently in the event of a catastrophic failure in either location (I understand this). Please provide details on how your proposed WiFi topology will achieve this requirement, with emphasis on the placement of wireless controllers, APs and switches (What I understand is they are asking how the redundant equipment will be placed such that if one switch gets damaged a second switch placed elsewhere will takeover ?!).
* There is a requirement to provide wireless controller redundancy for each building in your proposed solution. Please provide details on how this requirement will be achieved (What do they mean by WLC redundancy ?!).
* The Dublin building has a distributed backbone topology with a dual fibre backbone from the mezzanine floor to the dual core switches, Cisco 6500 (one core switch can fail without impacting on network traffic) in the Computer room located on the third floor. Please confirm that each proposed WiFi switch in the stack will be configured with dual power supplies, with in addition, the top and bottom switch in the stack configured with a fibre module for stack backbone redundancy (The only thing I understand from this is they want to know if the switches support fibre connections ?!).
The Belfast building has a star network topology with all switches located on the first floor Computer Room.
* Please note that end user devices of external users are typically provided by their employers and as such any access control should be network switch based as we do not have permission to load VPN software onto third party client devices. It is envisaged that access control should be similar to that provided by hotels, and/or conference venues (Not sure what access system they are talking about).
Capacity, frequency and channel capability are key to the design and commissioning of any proposed solution. It is critical that there is no interference with existing RF equipment, proposed DAS or between APs on any of the building floors. Please provide a schema of channels per device demonstrating no overlap on the floor in question and the immediate floors above and below (Did not understand this).
The following are the floor WiFi concurrent connect capacity requirements that your proposed solution should cater for:
Dublin Building
Floor -1: 4 x Lecture Halls each with a concurrent access capacity of 150 users (600 concurrent users in total) with multiple devices (mobile and Laptop)
Floor 0: Canteen, Study Area, Reception, potentially 300 concurrent user access with multiple devices connecting to the WiFi
Floor 1: 2 x large Lecture Halls and 4 medium sized Tutorial Rooms, allow for 600 concurrent user access with multiple devices
Floor 2: Lecture Halls and Meeting rooms, allow for 200 concurrent user access with multiple devices
Floor 3: Office floor, allow for 150 concurrent user access
Floor 4: Office floor, allow for 150 concurrent user access
Belfast Building
Ground Floor: 2 x Lecture Halls, plus Office and Member Lounge areas, allowing for 400 concurrent user access with multiple devices
1st Floor: Office and Meeting Rooms areas, allowing for 60 concurrent user access with multiple devices
The proposed solutions in each buildings should be standalone and independent from internal networks and provide the necessary fault redundant WiFi dedicated switches, APs and Wireless controllers to achieve this requirement.
There is a requirement to provide the number of APs proposed for each floor, detailed at a Lecture Hall, Meeting Room and Office Area for both the Dublin and Belfast buildings.
In addition, please provide the number of WiFi switches (including stack configuration) (What is meant by stack configuration mean ?)and wireless controllers proposed for each building.
Thanks in advance.
