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How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

triplebyte.com

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Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#81

Post by rconti »

basch wrote: post #6

>Assign static IPs for infrastructure like access points. This makes them easy to reach when reconfiguration is needed Am I missing something, or did they buy consumer routers to use as access points? Triplebyte, I can save you a ton of management, troubleshooting, and learning time: switch to Ubiquiti Unifi or an equivelant now, youll have one pane of glass to reconfigure every device. The devices will talk to each…

Usually these blogposts are written to raise the awareness of your company. In this case, not in a good way.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#82

Post by basch »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #59

Anyone have a recommendation of a company in the Bay area that solves this issue for startups? Someone I can just call, have onsite and get my people back to work in <5 business days?

do you mean strategy/planning/design/bestpractice or troubleshooting and implementation? the former can get complicated if you dont scope right, which is why business analysts and enterprise architects exist. just because youre a startup, doesnt mean you dont want to explore where components can be reused, how many places you need to log in to manage your company, how things compliment and overlap each other, and which vendor you should use for which service. good foresight and some lucky guesses can make your life easier later. when you buy three kitchen sinks, and they all offer payroll services, you have to pick which is authoritative. same with file services, corporate planning, financial forcasting.

where do you want to put your portfolio management, in something dedicated like clarizen, smartsheet, or wrike; somewhere simplistic like or asana or trello, with finance like anaplan. now that anaplan is on the table, it might change how you feel about adaptive insight. now you might need to replace your gl. losing adaptive insight for anaplan might push you away from workday and towards ultimate, because of the ownership structure (not at all a technical decision.) ten cascades later, you are asking yourself aryaka+hyperv+qumulo+simplivity+ruckus+salesforce+gsuite+adaptiveinsight+workday or velocloud+esxi+nasuni+nutanix+ubiquiti+anaplan+dynamics+office365teams. your either or's become complex and intertwined. you might think some of these decisions are just "IT/technical" but at the the end of the day every decision cascades into another, changing the scope of the next decision.

if my somewhat silly rant didnt make my point: too often companies want to outsource decision making that belongs in the c suite, that can give them a competitive edge, if done right, in house by magicians. you lose your magic and secret sauce by going with what everybody else does. its akin to whatsapp being erlang based vs going with metoo ruby. or how newspaper publishers have an edge when they also develop the hosting platform and license to others (vox chorus, gizmodo kinja, wapo arc, say tempest, bi viking, vs wordpress.)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-do-the-biggest-companies-ke...

http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/09/newsonomics-the-washington-...

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#83

Post by slantyyz »

basch wrote: post #13
comboy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The above may sound like an Ubiquiti ad, but I've tested a few top specs routers about 2 years ago and settled with unifi for my home installation. I needed a good coverage and reliability for my home automation, e.g. when I switch lights on/off I want a consistent few milliseconds latency.

One of the FEW downsides for smaller installations, is them not selling a Cloud Key, Gateway, and Switch in a single box.

That's not happening any time soon.

The gen2 cloud keys don't do that, although the gen2 plus model merges the cloud key and NVR appliance into one device.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#84

Post by jahabrewer »

slantyyz wrote: post #66

While it doesn't really matter whether you use EIA-586-B or EIA-586-A so long as you're consistent, I've been told that EIA-586-A is the standard in Canada. addendum: Re crimping RJ45 - the better way to do terminations is to use the EZ-RJ45 pass-through plugs like the ones made by Platinum Tools. You need a special crimper, but it's night and day easier. If you're using AWG23 Cat 6, you also need to make sure your p…

Only thing I've found annoying about passthrough plugs is it's easy to not quite cut the wires flush with the end of the plug. This can make the plug not seat fully.

At least, this is true for me. Maybe I did it wrong.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#85

Post by slantyyz »

lostlogin wrote: post #70
basch wrote: post #6

>Assign static IPs for infrastructure like access points. This makes them easy to reach when reconfiguration is needed Am I missing something, or did they buy consumer routers to use as access points? Triplebyte, I can save you a ton of management, troubleshooting, and learning time: switch to Ubiquiti Unifi or an equivelant now, youll have one pane of glass to reconfigure every device. The devices will talk to each…

> You can either pay a couple hundred a year for the management interface, or $80 for an on prem tiny little stick that hosts it. Or save more and put it in a Pi. If you have no idea what your doing it’s a great intro into the world of networking, ssh, Linux and docker, Ansible etc. But yes, this loses the cloud features.

IIRC, depending on your use case, you don't need the controller running 24-7.

Before I got deeper in the Unifi ecosystem, I just ran the controller on Windows when I needed to (when I only ran 2 APs -- in that case, you only needed an always-on controller if you wanted to run the captive portal).

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#86

Post by swingline-747 »

linsomniac wrote: post #73

Generally pretty solid advice. I say that as someone who is known for solving tough wireless problems. :-) On the cable termination part: I've (mostly) stopped crimping cables because I've had too many go flaky and don't have 4-5 figure testing equipment. One thing I'll add is that there are ends for solid conductor and stranded, make SURE you have the right ones for the cable you are using. These days I always just…

Been There, Done That, Bought The T-Shirt.

Solid core is generally for premise wiring (PVC jacketed in walls, PTFE-jacketed through ducts); stranded is typically for patch cables. If you try like the first place I worked at in the mid-90's trying to put stranded ends on solid-core wire, breaking of tools and unreliable cables will make.

There's cheapo Chinese cable tester kits on eBay, AliBaba and Amazon that do a good-enough impedance at GbE spectrum testing to not have to spring for a Fluke "will-survive-nuclear-winter" "official" tester. Backfilling connectors with epoxy is another idea to avoid corrosion... as long as it doesn't affect the impedance or dielectric values much. No-snag boots, axial aligned label zipties are also a big help. Barcode label and floorplan everything.

Finally, always test every cable with iperf3 (two laptops or one laptop w two ethernet ports) and reject for reworking/replacment any cable with abnormal latency or bandwidth figures.

PS: our head-office networking guy was awesome; worked 10% time just to keep benefits since his wife was GOOG's first admin.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#87

Post by linsomniac »

slantyyz wrote: post #76
linsomniac wrote: post #73

Generally pretty solid advice. I say that as someone who is known for solving tough wireless problems. :-) On the cable termination part: I've (mostly) stopped crimping cables because I've had too many go flaky and don't have 4-5 figure testing equipment. One thing I'll add is that there are ends for solid conductor and stranded, make SURE you have the right ones for the cable you are using. These days I always just…

>> I've (mostly) stopped crimping cables because I've had too many go flaky and don't have 4-5 figure testing equipment. I just redid a lot of the ethernet wiring in my house, and it's super easy compared to how I did it 10+ years ago. If you use EZ-RJ45 jacks (the only way to go, imo), it's super easy to get cables working properly the very first time. The wires feed through the jack so you can verify wire order bef…

I did a look at those EZ-RJ45 ends when another replied about them in this thread and notice that they are rated for solid or stranded, which I think would help. They look pretty good.

I've installed a few (and have a few more to install) of the Ubiquiti cameras, and I've been using keystone at the end and then patch cables. That has worked well, but I'd be tempted to just crimp the outside end. I'd have to see how the shielding works with the crimping, that gear is all on shielded cable per spec. Shielded plenum rated cable is kinda spendy...

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#88

Post by slantyyz »

jahabrewer wrote: post #84
slantyyz wrote: post #66

While it doesn't really matter whether you use EIA-586-B or EIA-586-A so long as you're consistent, I've been told that EIA-586-A is the standard in Canada. addendum: Re crimping RJ45 - the better way to do terminations is to use the EZ-RJ45 pass-through plugs like the ones made by Platinum Tools. You need a special crimper, but it's night and day easier. If you're using AWG23 Cat 6, you also need to make sure your p…

Only thing I've found annoying about passthrough plugs is it's easy to not quite cut the wires flush with the end of the plug. This can make the plug not seat fully. At least, this is true for me. Maybe I did it wrong.

I think this depends on which crimper you use. I used a cheapo crimper from China I bought off Amazon (I wasn't doing enough terminations to justify Platinum Tools' top of the line crimper which cost more than 2x what I paid) and it was leaving maybe a mm or less of wire hanging off, because of the crappy tolerances.

On the other hand, I saw some videos on Youtube of people using other cheap crimpers, and they were getting clean flush cuts. Luck of the draw is a big thing when you get the cheaper tools.

Originally I thought that 1mm or less was preventing my plugs from seating fully but on further inspection I found that the locking lever on my plugs weren't consistently locking. I made the mistake of not using the matching Platinum Tools strain relief boots for my plugs, which actually have a piece of plastic that pushes the locking lever up a little more to ensure a more secure mating between the plug and port.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#89

Post by slantyyz »

linsomniac wrote: post #87
slantyyz wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I've (mostly) stopped crimping cables because I've had too many go flaky and don't have 4-5 figure testing equipment. I just redid a lot of the ethernet wiring in my house, and it's super easy compared to how I did it 10+ years ago. If you use EZ-RJ45 jacks (the only way to go, imo), it's super easy to get cables working properly the very first time. The wires feed through the jack so you can verify wire order bef…

I did a look at those EZ-RJ45 ends when another replied about them in this thread and notice that they are rated for solid or stranded, which I think would help. They look pretty good. I've installed a few (and have a few more to install) of the Ubiquiti cameras, and I've been using keystone at the end and then patch cables. That has worked well, but I'd be tempted to just crimp the outside end. I'd have to see how t…

I just finished installing the G3AFs (outside) and G3 Flexes (inside) at my house, and I crimped the outside ends.

For my outdoor cameras, I used outdoor rated cat6 solid. It's a little harder to work with, and I had to buy a spool of 1000 feet because the 500 feet spools were out of stock when I needed them.

Are you using back boxes? I think it would be extremely hard to use keystone and patch cables given how little room the cameras have for running the cables, especially the G3AFs with the shielded cables if you are not using back boxes.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#90

Post by basch »

rconti wrote: post #78
basch wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The setting is a mbps setting. If the negotiated rate falls below X, disconnect.

Nah it's RSSI-based.

thats not how they visually expose the setting in the gui. you choose a transmission rate floor, not a power amplitude minimum.

https://i.imgur.com/imKDQ14.png

there is also a minimum RSSI, but its a per device setting, not a per site setting. https://i.imgur.com/Z6Jsxjl.png

Fast Roaming and 802.11 Data Rate Control are the way I would set this setting, vs trying to pick a manual dBm.

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