Wireless Consulting Support

Ekahau has developed an integrated family of software tools, portable RF scanning hardware, and cloud collaboration services to enable businesses of any size to design, verify, optimize, manage, and debug Wi-Fi deployments. Progent's certified Ekahau experts can assist your company to use Ekahau technology to carry out any stage of Wi-Fi design and management. Services offered by Progent's Wi-Fi consultants include:

• Define the RF characteristics of your target environment: (floor plan, materials, ceiling height, sources of radio frequency interference, etc.)
• Determine your current and future requirements for Wi-Fi coverage, capacity, and throughput
• Generate a model deployment for Wi-Fi AP types, antenna options, locations, heights, and setup
• Design a secondary coverage design for roaming and resilience
• Onsite RF measurement and validation of your physical Wi-Fi implementation
• On-premises identification of RF interference from sources that are not part of your Wi-Fi network
• Develop a channel plan that minimizes shared-channel contention and adjacent channel disruption
• Centrally monitor multiple Wi-Fi sites
• Create actionable reports on network performance analytics and problems
• Troubleshoot existing issues and take care of looming ones before they impair productivity
• Improve your Wi-Fi solution intelligently over time to continue meeting your evolving needs

Progent also provides on-premises assistance for performing Wi-Fi network surveys using Ekahau's Sidekick RF analysis hardware to verify actual performance and to find dead spots, RF interference, and other issues.

Ekahau's Product Family for Wi-Fi Network Planning and Support
Ekahau Connect is a family of applications, hardware, and services from Ekahau for designing and maintaining modern Wi-Fi networks. Used by most Fortune 500 companies, Ekahau's Wi-Fi products are available on a subscription basis as a comprehensive suite. Some components of Ekahau Connect are also available separately. Progent can utilize the Ekahau stack to plan, validate and maintain your Wi-Fi deployment or assist your IT staff to use your own Ekahau products.

Key components of the Ekahau Connect suite include:

Ekahau Pro
Ekahau Pro software allows you to plan, validate and debug Wi-Fi networks. To build a predictive model, you draw a floor plan of your building. You then manually draw walls or read them into Ekahau Pro from a CAD program. You include doors, cable conduits, stairways, and elevator shafts and specify construction materials. You then pick specific Wi-Fi AP models from Ekahau Pro's built-in database, which includes coverage profiles and antenna patterns related to your APs. Ekahau Pro's 3-D modeling permits you to add or remove APs to build a heat map depicting Wi-Fi coverage. You can change AP model, placement, height and antenna options so the predictive model displays the coverage you need.

Ekahau Sidekick
After your predictive plan is finished and your APs are in place and set up, you can verify your deployment by carrying out an onsite survey using the Ekahau Sidekick, a portable RF scanner that works natively with Ekahau Pro software. This lets you measure actual Wi-Fi coverage so you can adjust your access point solution as needed. Sidekick's integrated spectrum analyzer can identify areas experiencing RF noise from sources not part of your wireless network and Ekahau Pro software can display these problem spots on your site map so you can correct the conflicts.

Ekahau Sidekick 2
The Ekahau Sidekick 2 portable scanning device 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 environments. Speed and accuracy are enhanced with four tri-band radios plus a spectrum analyzer that scans at 50 sweeps/second. In comparison to the previous Sidekick scanner, Sidekick 2 offers almost double the performance for dual-band Wi-Fi surveys and is 33% quicker at measuring tri-band Wi-Fi networks. Nine integrated 3D antennas deliver omnidirectional measurement repeatability and help do away with discrepancies between Sidekick 2 scanners. A fast-charge battery lasts two working days on an average W-Fi site survey with a single charge.

Ekahau Analyzer
Ekahau Analyzer software integrates with the Sidekick signal scanner and shows the results of key health measurements of a Wi-Fi system. To help you to troubleshoot RF interference problems, the Analyzer app tests against specified requirements and uses prominent pass/fail indicators to highlight results. Whenever a problem is detected, you can run the Sidekick's spectrum analyzer to hone in on sources of RF interference or congested channels. Features of Ekahau Analyzer software include Auto-Test, Signal Strength Analysis, Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) Analysis, Connectivity Analysis, and Spectrum Measurements. Collected data can be shown on a mobile Android or iOS device interfaced to your portable Sidekick scanner, facilitating the collection of diagnostic data.

Ekahau Insights
Ekahau Insights software provides centralized monitoring of Wi-Fi site health throughput multiple Wi-Fi venues around the globe. Insight enables businesses to search and sort predictive planning and Wi-Fi network survey projects, rank projects based on site health, manage a database of active access points based on locality and age of technology, and track survey operations to make sure you validate your Wi-Fi venues regularly. Automated analysis shows how your Wi-Fi deployments operate in comparison to your goals by site, floor, and area within a specific floor. A heatmap viewer provides graphic renditions for primary and secondary signal strength, channel congestion, Signal-to-Noise Ratio, and additional Wi-Fi site health measurements. Support for tags streamlines file and workflow management by permitting you to classify and search Wi-Fi projects by client name, site type, workflow status, and other meaningful groupings.

Ekahau Capture
Ekahau Capture software operates together with the Ekahau Sidekick signal scanner to capture Wi-Fi packets in order to assist experts to fix challenging network issues. Packet capture may be necessary to debug problems involving connectivity, roaming between APs, garbled audio, dropped phone calls, uneven channel utilization, faulty Wi-Fi software drivers, broken hardware, incorrectly configured APs, device limitations, or cybersecurity risks such as unencrypted traffic or denial of Service (DoS) attacks. You can also utilize Ekahau Capture to calculate Wi-Fi performance stats such as retry frequency, average throughput, and frame class distribution. Ekahau Capture stores packet collections in the PCAP format so they can be analyzed with familiar packet analyzers. Ekahau Capture can collect and store 802.11/a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi frames and execute captures on one channel or on multiple Wi-Fi channels.

Progent's Predictive Wi-Fi Modeling Services
Progent's predictive wireless planning services can be carried out remotely and utilize Ekahau's cutting-edge RF modeling and analysis products to plan an efficient Wi-Fi network. With predictive design, you provide Progent's Wi-Fi experts your facility's floor plans and a description of your physical environment including walls, doors, cabling, elevator shafts, and fabrication materials. You also specify your coverage, capacity, and throughput requirements plus your constraints. In addition, you estimate the kinds of devices your clients will operate, the applications they will use, and the maximum traffic volume they will generate. Progent will utilize your input to create a mathematical simulation of your facility and devise a plan that details the preferred manufacturers for your APs, the required number of APs, their ideal placement and antenna type, their most effective configuration and their predicted performance.

Progent's On-premises Wi-Fi Site Survey
Progent's onsite wireless survey uses Ekahau's purpose-built RF signal measurement device and related software tools to help you to confirm, optimize, and troubleshoot an existing Wi-Fi infrastructure. These services are typically undertaken immediately after a recent deployment or used as a diagnostic tool to expand, optimize, or debug a mature Wi-Fi LAN. Available throughout the United States, Progent's onsite Wi-Fi survey services include walkthrough measuring for radio frequency coverage and contention, detection of AP overpopulation, RF propagation tracking, security auditing, and selection of the best placement for customer-specified Wireless Access Points.

Progent's consultants can deliver remote and onsite expertise for a wide array of Wi-Fi APs and offer support such as Cisco Aironet wireless access point set up, Meraki wireless access point cloud management, Cisco Small Business 100/300/500 wireless access point configuration, Cisco Catalyst wireless access point deployment planning, Ubiquity UniFi Wi-Fi access point configuration, and Apple AirPort Wi-Fi AP installation. Progent's on-premises wireless survey features interviews with your IT management to determine target functionality for the Wi-Fi network. Progent's RCCD and Ekahau certified Wi-Fi survey engineers can propose cost-effective WLAN improvements that utilize modern wireless technology and deliver maximum ROI.

Progent can provide help for building a modern BYOD Wi-Fi environment by delivering services like iPhone and iPad integration, and Android phone and tablet consulting. iPhones and tablets, Androids, Windows Phones, and other handheld endpoints can pose client density challenges and may also create transmission power mismatches that call for careful setup for access points. Progent's Wi-Fi site survey provides the information you need to understand these challenges and design an affordable and effective BYOD network.

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

• RF Wi-Fi Spectrum Analysis including detection of RF issues associated with your facility's arrangement, physical structure, and other potential causes of RF interference so you can anticipate and mitigate issues during the WLAN planning process.
• Coverage Maps in the form of color RF contour images for the areas requiring coverage to help you to select the optimal number and location of Wi-Fi APs and indicate likely signal leakage areas and holes in coverage
• Capacity Plan for defining and delivering the bandwidth needed to support all applications and users
• Cable Paths depicted as red line diagrams you can supply to cabling installers
• Device Installation guidance on where and how to install Wi-Fi devices plus description of special equipment that may be needed (NEMA enclosures, antennas, etc.)
• Infrastructure Requirements to describe all facility and networking equipment necessary to service the wireless deployment like available switch ports, POE, electrical power, and rack capacity

World-Class Network Infrastructure Consulting
Progent has one of the largest teams of certified Cisco CCIE IT infrastructure consultants of any independent IT support firm in the U.S. and can assist you to integrate your WLAN seamlessly into your corporate network. Progent can assist your company to deploy and maintain Cisco routers, switches, and security devices as well as Cisco Mobility products including Wi-Fi APs and wireless LAN controllers. Progent also offers expertise with networking products from Juniper Networks, Apple, WatchGuard, and other top vendors. To learn more about Progent's remote and onsite consulting services for Cisco wireless technology, refer to consulting and debugging support for Cisco wireless products.

To help you with company-wide security and compliance issues, Progent offers the services of network security experts who have been awarded advanced certifications from CISA, CISSP-ISSAP, CRISC and other major data security organizations. Progent's security and compliance experts can provide a broad range of online and onsite services such as security assessments, penetration testing, disaster recovery planning, and endpoint active security monitoring and ransomware protection with SentinelOne technology.

Contact Progent for Ekahau Wi-Fi Technology Consulting
To learn more about Progent's consulting services for online Ekahau Wi-Fi predictive design and on-premises wireless surveys, call 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.