What kind of hardware for 150-200 simultaneous wireless users?
-
Devising a wLAN setup and considering using pfSense but I've never used it at this scale.
This is a commercial business conference space with 5 areas that need wireless service.
Two areas are rather large - one of them could potentially have 200 wireless users simultaneously while the other could easily hold another 100-150 simultaneous.
The other 3 areas are small though one of them is the facility office and I would like that to be a secured (wpa/2) connection while the others should be captive portal.What kind of hardware should the router be on for this number of users (assume all of them on email, browsing sites w/ Flash, and maybe even all going to youtube at once)
What would you recommend I be using for APs for this number of users?
Or is there a way to calculate what is needed (processor, ram, type of wireless card, etc) based on the number of users?
Thanks much,
J. -
The router hardware is going to be determined by the bandwidth available and the packages you use. Adding something like snort will dramatically increase the hardware requirements.
As to the wireless, most vendors recommend no more than 25 clients per AP. My personal recommendation would be something more along the lines of 15-20.
I've had really good luck with Netgear's ProSafe APs & Wireless Controllers. They're a high-quality but cheap alternative to something like Cisco hardware. You can do multiple SSIDs and forcibly tag them with VLANs which can then be routed, filtered, etc. by your pfSense box.