SOHO network upgrade

[cybercop]

Tired of wireless not being available in some areas and need a more enhanced home network for testing and other things.

I have a 3 story home and a another building with my new home office in the top floor. I have acreage I want to cover.

I plan on having a switch-SwitchB in the second (main level) of my house, a switch-SwitchA (possibly layer 3) in my basement where my DSL terminates, and a switch-SwitchC in the 2nd story (new home office) of the other building. I have CAT 6 pulled to all three of these switch locations

I haven't had to deal with switch infrastructure in years, so not sure which VLAN protocols I need in a device to support what I want to do.

I want to have 2 to 3 VLANs. The DSL modem connects to ethernet and I would like that to be VLAN2 (DMZ). I want VLAN2 to be available on all three switches so I can have routers on those VLANs to support home internet access and testing.

I plan on having multiple access points to cover all areas of my property. I plan on putting the access points on the same IP network as all other devices.

I will either put in a Wireless Router for my internet access or put in a real FW/Router for Internet access and just access points everywhere.

My question is what small switches should I use that will let me distribute my VLANS and what are the recommended PoE Access Points?

What are the NetGear Unmanaged Plus switches? Do they let you distribute VLANs?

Any opinions on a Wireless Router that is worth a #$@# that will work well with multiple access points? Or should I forget the idea of a Wireless Router and just get a dedicated FW/Router? Any recommendation on which one?

I was thinking a Cisco SG300-10P or similar for SwitchA, so I can also have layer 3 capabilities, and 2 Linksys SRW2008MPs for SwitchB&C. I plan on connecting my access points with PoE.

Thanks!

 

[fistv]

If you have the wiring already in place I would go with a wired router then add a managed switch off of that for your vlans. From there via wire to switches and access points where you want them. Some of the wireless routers can be turned into access points and that allows you to use the switch ports as switch ports so you end up with a AP with 3-4 switch ports.

 

[cybercop]

Thanks Fistv.

I thought about using a router on the same switch next to the dsl and then VLAN out the DMZ zone for other uses. Might even setup two routers to have a real DMZ.

Do dedicated access points have better range/coverage than the Wireless routers like the Netgear Nighhawk?

Would my selection of the Cisco SG300-10P and Linksys SRW2008MPs good for my use case? Any other suggestions?

Also, any suggestions on access points? I am definitely not a wireless guy. Should I worry about 802.11.ac or just put in 802.11n. Wireless is mainly for mobile devices/video streaming and working from around the pool (VPN to work)

 

[fistv]

I've had mixed luck with linksys/cisco consumer AP's. I use Cisco 891W's w/poe daughter card which turns 4 of the lan ports into PoE and Cisco SAP1600E's here, pricey but they work. The 891's go months between reboots, I have not rebooted either 891W in over a year on one and 9 months on the other, same with the SAP's [Stand Alone access Point], I prefer PoE so I only need one wire to the AP.
The 891 is a real cisco router and can be bought with or without the wireless built in. You can pretty much do anything with the 8 ports and what you can't do with the GUI you can do with command line, setting up any of those ports as vlans though you might want to leave one for web management though I suppose you could leave the blue cable plugged in to a serial port if you are comfortable with command line.
That said I replaced my home router with a WRT1900AC a few months ago and so far have been satisfied, signal on all the floors of the house is good including the wireless blue ray player in the master BR on the second floor, router is in the basement.
One of these days I'm going to pick up an edge router lite and play with that.

 

[LoneWolf]

Have you considered going with Ubiquiti access points for your wifi?

I don't know whether or not I'd use them in larger than small business environments (their range isn't as good as some or usage for high numbers of concurrent clients), but for home, a couple of them should cover, and you could actually run a network of 2-3 of them if you're going hardcore.

Either the UAP-PRO (11.n dual-band) or UAP-AC (11.ac) would be what you'd be looking for. Pricing is a lot better than some of the competitors, and you can buy three-packs if you wish. I recommend not looking at the other, cheaper versions, as older Unifi access points had funny PoE requirements that might not work without special injectors. EDIT: After further reading, I'd double-check PoE requirements for any Ubiquiti AP. I'd probably also look at the Cisco SG300-10PP or SG300-10MPP as you get PoE+ and (on the 10MPP) higher power.

Cisco also makes the Small Business WAP371-A-K9, a dual-band AC access point. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any reviews to give a good idea of how good these are or whether there are any firmware kinks, etc.