Wireless Consulting Services

Ekahau offers an integrated suite of advanced software tools, portable scanning hardware, and collaboration services to allow businesses of any size to design, verify, tune, monitor, and debug Wi-Fi networks. Progent's certified Ekahau experts can assist you to utilize Ekahau technology to carry out any stage of Wi-Fi planning and maintenance. Services offered by Progent's Wi-Fi experts include:

• Define the RF characteristics of your physical environment: (floor plan, construction materials, ceiling height, sources of radio frequency interference, etc.)
• Estimate your current and future requirements for Wi-Fi coverage, capacity, and throughput
• Generate a model deployment for Wi-Fi access point models, antenna alternatives, placement, heights, and configuration
• Design a secondary coverage plan to enhance roaming and improved uptime
• Onsite RF measurement and verification of your physical Wi-Fi deployment
• On-premises identification of RF noise from devices independent of your Wi-Fi network
• Develop a channel plan that reduces shared-channel competition and adjacent channel interference
• Centrally manage single or multiple Wi-Fi sites
• Provide actionable reports on network performance analytics and issues
• Debug current problems and anticipate looming ones before they impair productivity
• Adapt your Wi-Fi network efficiently over time to continue meeting your evolving requirements

Progent also provides on-premises assistance for carrying out Wi-Fi site surveys using Ekahau's Sidekick spectrum analysis hardware to verify actual performance and to find dead areas, RF interference, and other issues.

Ekahau's Product Suite for Wi-Fi Network Planning and Support
Ekahau Connect is a family of applications, hardware, and services from Ekahau for planning and maintaining advanced Wi-Fi solutions. Used by the majority of Fortune 500 businesses, Ekahau's Wi-Fi products are available by subscription as a comprehensive bundle. Some components of Ekahau Connect are also available individually. Progent can use the Ekahau stack to plan, validate and tune your Wi-Fi network or assist you to use your own Ekahau products.

Key pieces of the Ekahau Connect product family include:

Ekahau Pro
Ekahau Pro software allows you to plan, validate and troubleshoot Wi-Fi deployments. To build a predictive model, you draw a floor plan of your venue. You then draw walls or import them to Ekahau Pro from a CAD program. You include doors, cabling, stairways, and elevator shafts and list building materials. Next you pick various Wi-Fi access point products from Ekahau Pro's database, which includes coverage profiles and antenna patterns associated with your access points. Ekahau Pro's 3-D planner permits you to add or remove APs to build a heat map of Wi-Fi coverage. You can instantly change access pints model, location, height and antenna selection so the predictive model shows the coverage you need.

Ekahau Sidekick
After your predictive model is completed and your APs are installed and configured, you can verify your deployment by performing an on-premises survey with the Ekahau Sidekick, a portable RF scanner that integrates with Ekahau Pro. This permits you to measure actual Wi-Fi coverage so you can tweak your access point deployment as necessary. Sidekick's built-in spectrum analyzer can detect areas experiencing interference from sources unassociated with your wireless network and Ekahau Pro can plot these trouble areas on your screen map so you can fix the issues.

Ekahau Sidekick 2
The Ekahau Sidekick 2 mobile scanner introduces the ability to validate the latest 6 GHz wireless networks (Wi-Fi 6E) in addition to traditional 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz deployments. accuracy is boosted with four tri-band radios and a spectrum analyzer capable of scanning at 50 sweeps/second. In comparison to the previous Sidekick scanner, Sidekick 2 delivers nearly double the speed for dual-band surveys and is 33% faster at measuring tri-band Wi-Fi environments. Nine integrated 3D antennas deliver omnidirectional measurement repeatability and virtually do away with discrepancies between Sidekick 2 devices. A fast-charge battery lasts two working days on a typical site survey with just one charge.

Ekahau Analyzer
Ekahau Analyzer software integrates with the Sidekick scanner and displays the results of critical health measurements of a Wi-Fi network. To assist businesses to debug RF interference problems, the Analyzer app tests against specified requirements and displays prominent pass/fail graphic alerts to highlight results. Whenever a problem is flagged, you can run the Sidekick's spectrum analyzer to pinpoint sources of RF interference or overcrowded channels. Features of Analyzer software include Auto-Test, Signal Strength Analysis, SNR Analysis, Connectivity Analysis, and Spectrum Measurements. Collected data can be shown on a mobile Android or iOS phone or tablet connected to your portable Sidekick scanner, facilitating the collection of diagnostic measurements.

Ekahau Insights
Ekahau Insights software offers unified monitoring of Wi-Fi network health across multiple Wi-Fi venues worldwide. Insight allows you to search and organize predictive planning and Wi-Fi network survey projects, rank projects according to site health, maintain a database of operating APs organized by location and age of technology, and track survey projects to ensure you verify your Wi-Fi sites regularly. Automated analysis shows how your Wi-Fi networks operate in comparison to your goals by site, floor, and area within a specific floor. A heatmap viewer provides visualizations for primary and secondary signal strength, channel congestion, SNR, and other Wi-Fi site health issues. The ability to use tags simplifies file and workflow organization by permitting you to store and search projects by client name, site type, workflow state, and other contextual categories.

Ekahau Capture
Ekahau Capture software works together with the Ekahau Sidekick signal scanner to collect Wi-Fi packets in order to help experts to solve complex network issues. Capturing Wi-Fi packets may be required to troubleshoot problems involving connectivity, roaming between APs, unintelligible audio, dropped phone calls, uneven channel utilization, faulty Wi-Fi drivers, hardware failure, misconfigured access points, outdated devices, or security threats such as unencrypted Wi-Fi traffic or denial of Service attacks. You can also use Ekahau Capture to calculate Wi-Fi performance stats including retry rates, average data rate, and frame class distribution. Ekahau Capture saves packet captures in the PCAP format so you can analyze them using familiar packet analyzers. Ekahau Capture can collect and save 802.11/a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi frames and perform captures on a single channel or on multiple Wi-Fi channels.

Progent's Predictive Wi-Fi Planning Services
Progent's predictive Wi-Fi planning services can be performed offsite and utilize Ekahau's cutting-edge RF simulation and analysis tools to plan an efficient Wi-Fi network. With predictive design, you provide Progent's wireless professionals your building's floor plans and a description of your environment including walls, doors, cabling, elevator shafts, and building materials. You also define your coverage, density, and performance targets plus your constraints. In addition, you project the kinds of endpoints your clients will operate, the software they will run, and the maximum traffic volume they will generate. Progent will utilize your input to create a digital simulation of your environment and devise a design that includes the most appropriate manufacturers for your APs and controllers, the required number of access points, their optimal placement and antenna selection, their most effective configuration and power settings and their anticipated throughput.

Progent's On-premises Wi-Fi Site Survey
Progent's onsite wireless survey utilizes Ekahau's purpose-built RF signal collection device and related software to allow you to validate, tune, and debug your current wireless deployment. This is commonly undertaken immediately after a recent installation or used as a tool to scale, tune, or debug an older wireless network. Available across the United States, Progent's on-premises wireless survey services feature walkthrough measuring for radio frequency coverage and interference, checking for AP overpopulation, RF propagation tracking, data protection assessment, and selection of optimum placement for client-specified Wi-Fi APs.

Progent's consultants can deliver remote and onsite expertise for a wide range of wireless APs and can provide support such as Aironet Wi-Fi AP integration, Meraki wireless access point cloud management, Cisco Small Business 100/300/500 Wi-Fi access point consulting, Catalyst wireless AP solution design, Ubiquiti UniFi wireless AP configuration, and Apple AirPort Wi-Fi AP installation. Progent's on-premises survey includes consultation with your network management staff to determine performance parameters for the WLAN. Progent's RCCD and Ekahau certified wireless survey professionals can recommend cost-effective WLAN improvements that utilize the latest wireless technology and provide top business value.

Progent can provide help for creating a state-of-the-art Bring Your Own Device Wi-Fi environment by providing services like iPhone and iPad integration, and Android phone and tablet consulting. Apple iPhones and iPads, Androids, Windows Phones, and other handheld endpoints can present user density issues and can also cause transmit power mismatches that require special configuration of APs. Progent's wireless site survey services provide the insight necessary to address these challenges and design an affordable and productive BYOD network.

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

• Radio Wi-Fi Spectrum Analysis including detection of RF issues related to your facility's arrangement, physical structure, and other possible sources of interference so you can foresee and mitigate problems during the WLAN design phase.
• Coverage Maps in the form of color RF contour images (heat maps) for the areas that need coverage to assist you to select the most efficient number and position of Wi-Fi APs and indicate likely signal leakage areas and holes in coverage
• Capacity Plan for specifying and delivering the bandwidth required to support all apps and clients
• Cable Paths depicted as red line diagrams you can supply to cabling contractors
• Device Installation guidance on where and how to deploy wireless devices plus description of additional equipment that may be required (NEMA enclosures, radio antennas, etc.)
• Infrastructure Requirements to describe all facility and networking resources necessary to support the Wi-Fi installation such as available switch interfaces, Power over Ethernet (POE), electrical power, and rack capacity

Advanced Network Infrastructure Expertise
Progent maintains one of the largest rosters of certified Cisco CCIE IT infrastructure engineers of any independent IT support company in the U.S. and can assist you to integrate your Wi-Fi 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 APs and Wi-Fi LAN controllers. Progent also can provide expertise with networking technologys from Juniper Networks, Apple, WatchGuard, and other top vendors. To learn more about Progent's online and on-premises consulting expertise for Cisco Wi-Fi technology, refer to consulting and troubleshooting services for Cisco Wi-Fi technology.

To assist you with enterprise-wide security and compliance issues, Progent offers the support of cybersecurity engineers who have earned advanced certifications from CISM, CISSP-ISSAP, GIAC and other prominent data security authorities. Progent's security and compliance experts can provide a broad range of remote and on-premises services that include security assessments, penetration testing, disaster recovery preparedness, and endpoint active security monitoring and ransomware defense with SentinelOne technology.

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