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multiple devices multiple networks best practices help 1

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evr72

MIS
Dec 8, 2009
265
US
Hello,

I am new at this sort of stuff, i am helping out a friend to improve his network, he owns a restaurant, he often has issues with the not being able to access the internet, he also offers free wifi ant any point upto 150 people can be connected to the internet, he does not have any restrictions on internet usage. current setup:
cable modem receives the internet connection 25Mbps from there it goes to a sonicwall tz100, then it goes to another sonicwall tz100
according to him, this is to segregate his internal network from the wifi network, this goes to a tplink switch that feeds the wifi connection, wifi is for clients only "but sometimes used for busines", a Nighthawk router for wifi connection. from the Nighthawk, his entertainment system is hooked up to a switch, about 20 different tv screens.

my proposal is to get rid of both sonicwalls, get a sonicwall tz300 create a vlan for the office, a v lan for the entertainment devices and a vlan forthe wifi, use existing switches both gigabit switches. repace the nighthawk with 3 ubiquiti access points, upgrade internet connection to fiber, does this sound doable? better worse?

any suggestions are greatly appreciated
 
Hi,

yes, I think your proposal is better than what your friend has going on currently. Gigabit switches should do, and I'm unsure about the tz300 or the ubiquiti but specs should give you more info about how many users they can handle, throughput, etc. Also, of course consider costs of upgrading and whether you truly can justify those costs. VLANs as you mentioned would be beneficial to help separate network traffic, provide security (such as block all wifi to office and entertainment devices) and make it more manageable overall with routing occurring solely at the tz300. You could also include a management VLAN just for him to management equipment. One of the biggest concerns would be the wifi users because you never know what people are doing on their phones and laptops (security, bandwidth issues).

Hope that helps.
 
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