Guest Wi-Fi access is something users demand and expect these days when they visit retail, healthcare, offices and other locations. Deploying an enterprise grade secure guest Wi-Fi solution can be complicated, time consuming, resource intensive and costly.
Below is a very high level guest traffic setup using some of the traditional methods.
- All sites will have access points that will advertise SSIDs.
- Depending on the vendor you may or may not have a device at each location that will build a tunnel back to the controllers in the data center.
- You will need to figure out the IP scheme to handle all the guest devices.
- Two controllers in the data center for termination and handling of guest traffic.
- Possibly a separate set of firewalls in the DMZ, content filtering, IPS, IDS etc.
- Responsible for procuring all the hardware, licensing, configuration, policies, preventing guests from doing something they should not be doing. Legal responsiblity.
Niles Differentiation and Operational Efficiency for Guest Wi-Fi:
Nile has taken an interesting approach providing a native/built-in Guest Wi-Fi solution with simplicity, security and enterprise in mind. First time I learned about Nile Guest Wi-Fi solution was during their first #NFD32 presentation.
I finally got to see it and I was surprised how simple it was to get it online.
- No hardware to procure
- No policies and architecture configuration
- No having to carve out IP Space
- I just had to bring up the Nile Service Block and that was it
Let’s see how long it take to configure Nile Guest Wi-Fi. My Nile Service Block is up already and I have Nile Guest Service enabled now.
Connecting to Guest vs Nile Guest Service:
This short connectivity clip shows IP/Network information when connecting to Guest that is just local vs Nile Guest Service that is terminating at Nile Pop. After connecting to each SSID Wi-Fi Signal and traceroute show the IP information as well as the route traffic is taking.
Final Thoughts:
I have done a whole bunch of deployments where guest Wi-Fi was needed, making it work in an enterprise and providing security and compliance, on going monitoring etc was an ongoing effort. There was configuration and at least some what complexity involved when provisioning new sites. Can’t forget about offloading the legal responsibility on Nile. Ability to do it in less than one min, with a click and accomplish all the above is certainly impressive, huge cost savings, simple and provides greater operational efficiency.
Feel free to share your thoughts and feedback. Thank you.