Wireless Consulting Support

Ekahau offers an integrated family of software tools, compact scanning hardware, and collaboration services to allow organizations of all sizes to plan, validate, optimize, monitor, and debug Wi-Fi deployments. Progent's certified Ekahau experts can help you to utilize Ekahau products to carry out any stage of Wi-Fi design and maintenance. Services offered by Progent's Wi-Fi experts include:

• Establish the RF characteristics of your target environment: (floor plan, construction materials, ceiling height, sources of RF interference, etc.)
• Determine your current and future requirements for Wi-Fi coverage, workloads, and throughput
• Create a predictive plan for Wi-Fi AP models, antenna options, locations, heights, and setup
• Propose a secondary coverage plan for roaming and improved uptime
• On-premises signal strength testing and validation of your physical Wi-Fi implementation
• Onsite identification of radio interference from sources outside your Wi-Fi network
• Develop a channel strategy that minimizes co-channel competition and nearby channel disruption
• Centrally manage multiple Wi-Fi sites
• Create management reports on Wi-Fi health analytics and problems
• Troubleshoot existing problems and anticipate emerging ones before they disrupt your Wi-Fi network
• Adapt your Wi-Fi network efficiently over time in response to your evolving needs

Progent also provides onsite support for carrying out Wi-Fi network surveys with the help of Ekahau's Sidekick spectrum analyzer to measure actual performance and to identify low-signal spots, RF congestion, and other problems.

Ekahau's Products for Wi-Fi Network Planning and Maintenance
Ekahau Connect is a suite of software, hardware, and services from Ekahau for designing and maintaining advanced Wi-Fi networks. Used by the majority of Fortune 500 companies, Ekahau's Wi-Fi products are provided on a subscription basis as an integrated suite. Some products included in Ekahau Connect are also available separately. Progent can utilize Ekahau technology to design, verify and troubleshoot your Wi-Fi network or help your IT staff to use your own Ekahau products.

Key components of the Ekahau Connect product family include:

Ekahau Pro
Ekahau Pro software enables you to plan, validate and debug Wi-Fi networks. To create a predictive model, you draw a floor plan of your venue. You then manually draw walls or read them into Ekahau Pro from a CAD file. You include doors, cable conduits, stairways, and elevator shafts and list building materials. Next you pick various Wi-Fi access point models from Ekahau Pro's database, which features coverage characteristics and antenna patterns related to your selected APs. Ekahau Pro's 3-D planner lets you increase or take away APs to create a heat map of wireless coverage. You can change AP model, placement, height and antenna selection so the predictive model shows the coverage you require.

Ekahau Sidekick
Once your predictive plan is finished and your access points are in place and set up, you can test your system by performing an on-premises survey with the Ekahau Sidekick, a portable RF scanner that works natively with Ekahau Pro software. This allows you to measure true Wi-Fi coverage so you can tune your AP solution as needed. Sidekick's built-in spectrum analysis capability can detect areas experiencing RF noise from sources not part of your Wi-Fi network and Ekahau Pro software can plot these problem areas on your screen map so you can fix the issues.

Ekahau Sidekick 2
The Ekahau Sidekick 2 mobile scanner includes the capability to validate the newer 6 GHz Wi-Fi networks (Wi-Fi 6E) in addition to traditional 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz deployments. Speed and accuracy are boosted with four tri-band radios plus a spectrum analyzer that scans at 50 sweeps/second. In comparison to the previous Sidekick scanner, Sidekick 2 delivers nearly double the performance for dual-band Wi-Fi surveys and is 33% quicker at measuring tri-band networks. Nine built-in 3D antennas ensure omnidirectional measurement repeatability and virtually do away with variances between Sidekick 2 scanners. A quick-charge battery is good for two working days on an average W-Fi site survey with just one charge.

Ekahau Analyzer
Ekahau Analyzer software communicates with the Sidekick signal scanner and shows the results of key health measurements of a Wi-Fi site. To assist businesses to debug RF interference sources, the Analyzer app tests against specified requirements and uses pass/fail graphic alerts to highlight results. When a problem is detected, you can run the Sidekick's portable spectrum analyzer to pinpoint causes of RF interference or congested channels. Features of Analyzer include Auto-Test, Signal Strength Analysis, SNR Analysis, Channel Quality Analysis, and Spectrum Measurements. Results can be shown on a handheld Android or iOS phone or tablet interfaced to your compact Sidekick signal scanner, streamlining the acquisition of diagnostic data.

Ekahau Insights
Ekahau Insights software offers unified monitoring of Wi-Fi site quality throughput multiple Wi-Fi venues around the globe. Insight enables businesses to find and sort predictive planning and Wi-Fi site survey projects, rank projects according to network health, maintain a database of active APs organized by location and technology generation, and track survey operations to make sure you validate your Wi-Fi sites regularly. Automated analysis reports how your Wi-Fi deployments operate in comparison to your goals by network, floor, and area within a specific floor. A heatmap viewer provides visualizations for primary and secondary signal strength, channel congestion, SNR, and additional Wi-Fi network health data. Support for tags speeds up file and workflow organization by permitting you to classify and peruse Wi-Fi projects by client, site type, workflow state, and other contextual categories.

Ekahau Capture
Ekahau Capture software works with the Ekahau Sidekick signal scanner to capture Wi-Fi packets in order to help experts to solve complex network issues. Capturing Wi-Fi packets may be necessary to resolve issues in areas such as connectivity, roaming between access points, poor audio, dropped phone calls, uneven channel utilization, faulty Wi-Fi drivers, hardware failure, improperly configured APs, outdated devices, or cybersecurity risks like unencrypted Wi-Fi traffic or DoS attacks. You can also utilize Ekahau Capture software to calculate Wi-Fi traffic stats such as retry frequency, average data rate, and frame class distribution. Ekahau Capture saves packet captures in the de facto standard libpcap (pcap) file format so you can analyze them with third-party packet analyzers. Ekahau Capture can collect and save 802.11/a/b/g/n/ac frames and execute captures on a single channel or on multiple Wi-Fi channels.

Progent's Predictive Wi-Fi Modeling Services
Progent's predictive Wi-Fi planning services can be carried out offsite and utilize Ekahau's cutting-edge RF modeling and analysis tools to plan an efficient wireless network. With predictive planning, you send Progent's Wi-Fi professionals your building's floor plans and a description of your environment including walls, doors, cabling, stairways, and fabrication materials. You also specify your coverage, density, and throughput targets as well as any constraints. Also, you project the kinds of endpoint devices your clients will connect, the apps they will run, and the peak traffic volume they will produce. Progent will use your information to create a digital simulation of your facility and develop a plan that includes the preferred manufacturers for your APs and controllers, the required number of APs, their optimal placement and antenna type, their most effective configuration and their anticipated performance.

Progent's On-premises Wi-Fi Site Survey
Progent's onsite Wi-Fi survey uses Ekahau's specialized Wi-Fi signal measurement instrument and related software tools to help you to validate, optimize, and troubleshoot an existing Wi-Fi deployment. These services are commonly undertaken immediately after a recent installation or used as a diagnostic tool to expand, tune, or debug a mature wireless LAN. Offered throughout the U.S., Progent's on-premises wireless survey services feature walkthrough testing for radio frequency coverage and contention, checking for access point overpopulation, RF propagation tracking, security auditing, and selection of the best placement for customer-specified Wireless APs.

Progent can deliver remote and onsite guidance for a broad selection of Wi-Fi access points and offer services such as Aironet wireless access point integration, Meraki Wi-Fi AP cloud management, Cisco Small Business 100/300/500 wireless access point configuration, Cisco Catalyst wireless access point deployment design, Ubiquiti UniFi wireless access point configuration, and Apple AirPort Wi-Fi AP installation. Progent's onsite survey features interviews with your IT management staff to determine performance parameters for the Wi-Fi network. Progent's RCCD and Ekahau certified wireless site survey engineers can recommend affordable Wi-Fi network enhancements that incorporate the latest Wi-Fi products and deliver top business value.

Progent can provide help for building a modern BYOD wireless environment by providing services such as iPhone and iPad integration, and Android phone and tablet consulting. Apple iPhones and tablets, Androids, Windows Phones, and other handheld devices can present client density issues and can also create transmit power mismatches that call for special configuration of APs. Progent's wireless site survey services provide the information necessary to address these issues and design an efficient and productive BYOD ecosystem.

Deliverables for Progent's predictive and on-premises Wi-Fi site surveys can include:

• RF Spectrum Analysis including identification of RF issues related to your facility's layout, material structure, and other potential causes of interference so you can anticipate and resolve problems during the WLAN planning process.
• Coverage Maps in the form of color RF contour images (heat maps) for the spots requiring coverage to help you to determine the optimal quantity and position of Wi-Fi APs and identify likely RF spillover areas and coverage gaps
• Capacity Plan for specifying and providing the bandwidth needed to support all applications and users
• Cable Paths indicated as line diagrams you can supply to cabling installers
• Device Installation advice on where and how to install Wi-Fi devices plus description of special equipment that may be required (NEMA enclosures, antennas, etc.)
• Infrastructure Requirements to specify all facility and networking equipment necessary to support the wireless deployment like available switch interfaces, Power over Ethernet, electrical, and rack space

Advanced Network Infrastructure Expertise
Progent has one of the largest rosters of certified Cisco CCIE network consultants of any independent IT support company in the U.S. and can assist your organization to integrate your wireless LAN seamlessly into your corporate network. Progent can help your company to configure and manage Cisco ISR routers, switches, and security appliances as well as Cisco Mobility products including wireless access points and Wi-Fi LAN controllers. Progent also can provide expertise with networking products from Juniper, Apple, Ubiquiti, and other top providers. To learn more about Progent's online and onsite consulting services for Cisco wireless solutions, refer to consulting and troubleshooting services for Cisco Wi-Fi products.

To assist you with company-wide cybersecurity issues, Progent can provide the support of network security consultants who have been awarded advanced credentials from CISM, CISSP-ISSAP, CRISC and other recognized data security organizations. Progent's security and compliance specialists can provide a broad range of online and onsite services that include vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, disaster recovery preparedness, and endpoint remote security monitoring and ransomware defense with SentinelOne technology.

Contact Progent for Ekahau Wi-Fi Technology Expertise
To find out more about Progent's consulting services for remote Ekahau wireless predictive design and onsite Wi-Fi surveys, call 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.