Wireless Consulting Expertise

Ekahau offers an integrated suite of software apps, portable RF scanning hardware, and collaboration services that allow businesses of all sizes to design, verify, tune, monitor, and troubleshoot Wi-Fi deployments. Progent's certified Ekahau consultants can help your company to use Ekahau technology to carry out any facet of Wi-Fi design and maintenance. Services available from by Progent's Wi-Fi consultants include:

• Define the RF profile of your target venue: (floor plan, construction materials, ceiling height, generators of RF interference, etc.)
• Determine your present and future requirements for Wi-Fi coverage, workloads, and performance
• Create a model deployment for Wi-Fi access point (AP) types, antenna options, locations, heights, and setup
• Design a secondary coverage plan for roaming and improved uptime
• Onsite signal strength measurement and verification of your actual Wi-Fi deployment
• On-premises identification of RF noise from devices independent of your Wi-Fi implementation
• Create a channel strategy that reduces co-channel contention and nearby channel disruption
• Centrally monitor and manage multiple Wi-Fi sites
• Provide management reports on network health analytics and problems
• Troubleshoot existing issues and anticipate looming ones before they impair productivity
• Improve your Wi-Fi network cost effectively over time to continue meeting your evolving needs

Progent also offers on-premises support for carrying out Wi-Fi network surveys using Ekahau's Sidekick spectrum analyzer to measure real performance and to find low-signal areas, RF interference, and other problems.

Ekahau's Product Family for Wi-Fi Network Design and Maintenance
Ekahau Connect is a suite of software, hardware, and services from Ekahau for designing and maintaining modern Wi-Fi networks. Used by the majority of Fortune 500 companies, Ekahau's Wi-Fi offerings are provided by subscription as an integrated suite. Some products included in Ekahau Connect are also available separately. Progent can use the Ekahau stack to design, verify and tune your Wi-Fi deployment or help your IT staff to use your own Ekahau tools.

Key components of the Ekahau Connect suite include:

Ekahau Pro
Ekahau Pro software enables you to design, verify and troubleshoot Wi-Fi networks. To build a predictive model, you draw a floor plan of your building. You then manually draw walls or import them to Ekahau Pro from a CAD file. You include doors, cable conduits, stairways, and elevators and list building materials. Next you select various Wi-Fi access point products from Ekahau Pro's built-in database, which includes coverage profiles and antenna patterns related to your APs. Ekahau Pro's 3-D planner lets you increase or take away access points to create a heat map of Wi-Fi coverage. You can modify AP model, location, height and antenna selection so the predictive model shows the coverage you require.

Ekahau Sidekick
Once your predictive plan is done and your access points are installed and set up, you can verify your network by carrying out an onsite survey using the Ekahau Sidekick, a compact RF scanner that works natively with Ekahau Pro. This permits you to measure actual Wi-Fi coverage so you can tweak your access point deployment as needed. Sidekick's integrated spectrum analyzer can detect locations subject to RF noise from transmitters unassociated with your Wi-Fi network and Ekahau Pro can display these trouble areas on your site map so you can correct the issues.

Ekahau Sidekick 2
The Ekahau Sidekick 2 mobile scanner includes the capability to validate the latest 6 GHz wireless networks (Wi-Fi 6E) as well as traditional 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz deployments. Speed is enhanced with four tri-band radios and a spectrum analyzer that scans at 50 sweeps/second. In comparison to the earlier Sidekick scanner, Sidekick 2 delivers nearly double the speed for dual-band surveys and is 33% quicker at surveying tri-band Wi-Fi networks. Nine integrated 3D antennas deliver omnidirectional measurement consistency and virtually do away with variances between Sidekick 2 scanners. A quick-charge battery lasts two working days on a typical site survey with a single charge.

Ekahau Analyzer
Ekahau Analyzer software communicates with the Sidekick signal scanner and displays the results of key health recordings of a Wi-Fi system. To help businesses to debug RF interference problems, the Analyzer app tests against your specific standards and uses pass/fail graphic alerts to highlight results. When an issue is detected, you can run the Sidekick's portable spectrum analysis hardware to pinpoint causes of RF interference or overcrowded channels. Features of Ekahau Analyzer software include Auto-Test, Signal Strength Analysis, Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) Analysis, Connectivity Analysis, and Spectrum Measurements. Results can be shown on a mobile Android or iOS device interfaced to your compact Sidekick scanner, facilitating the collection of RF measurements.

Ekahau Insights
Ekahau Insights software offers unified visibility into Wi-Fi site quality across multiple Wi-Fi deployments around the globe. Insight allows you to search and sort predictive design and Wi-Fi site survey projects, rank projects based on network health, manage a database of active access points based on location and age of technology, and track survey projects to ensure 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 displays graphic renditions for primary and secondary signal quality, channel congestion, SNR, and additional Wi-Fi network health data. Support for tags speeds up file and workflow organization by allowing you to store and peruse Wi-Fi projects by client name, site type, workflow state, and other contextual groupings.

Ekahau Capture
Ekahau Capture software works with the Ekahau Sidekick scanner to collect Wi-Fi packets to assist experts to fix complex network issues. Capturing Wi-Fi packets may be necessary to solve problems involving connectivity, roaming between APs, poor audio, dropped phone calls, uneven channel utilization, outdated or faulty Wi-Fi software drivers, broken hardware, incorrectly configured APs, outdated devices, or security threats like unencrypted Wi-Fi traffic or denial of Service (DoS) attacks. You can also use Ekahau Capture software to calculate Wi-Fi performance statistics such as retry rates, average data rate, and frame class distribution. Ekahau Capture stores packet collections in the de facto standard PCAP format so they can be analyzed with third-party packet analyzers. Ekahau Capture can collect and save 802.11/a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi frames and perform captures on one channel or on multiple channels.

Progent's Predictive Wi-Fi Design Services
Progent's predictive Wi-Fi planning services can be carried out offsite and utilize Ekahau's advanced RF simulation and analysis tools to design a cost-effective Wi-Fi network. With predictive planning, you send Progent's Wi-Fi professionals your facility's floor plans and a description of your environment including walls, doors, cable access, elevator shafts, and fabrication materials. You also specify your coverage, density, and throughput targets as well as any constraints. Also, you estimate the types of devices your clients will operate, the software they will use, and the maximum traffic volume they will produce. Progent will utilize your input to build a mathematical simulation of your facility and develop a plan that details the most appropriate vendors for your APs, the recommended number of access points, their optimal placement and antenna type, their proper settings and their predicted performance.

Progent's On-premises Wi-Fi Site Survey
Progent's onsite Wi-Fi survey utilizes Ekahau's specialized Wi-Fi signal measurement device and associated software tools to help you to validate, optimize, and debug your current wireless infrastructure. This is typically undertaken immediately after a fresh deployment or used as a tool to expand, optimize, or debug an older Wi-Fi LAN. Offered across the U.S., Progent's onsite wireless site survey services feature walkthrough testing for radio frequency coverage and interference, checking for access point overpopulation, RF propagation mapping, security auditing, and selection of the best placement for client-specified Wi-Fi Access Points.

Progent's consultants can deliver remote and onsite expertise for a broad selection of Wi-Fi access points and offer services that include Cisco Aironet wireless access point set up, Meraki Wi-Fi AP management, Cisco Small Business 100/300/500 wireless AP configuration, Catalyst wireless access point deployment planning, Ubiquiti UniFi wireless AP configuration, and Apple AirPort Wi-Fi access point setup. Progent's onsite survey features consultation with your network management to determine target functionality for the WLAN. Progent's RCCD and Ekahau certified Wi-Fi site survey experts can recommend cost-effective Wi-Fi network improvements that utilize the latest Wi-Fi products and deliver maximum ROI.

Progent can provide help for creating a modern BYOD Wi-Fi network by providing services such as iPhone and iPad integration, and Android phone and tablet consulting. Apple iPhones and tablets, Androids, Windows Phones, and other mobile devices can present client density issues and can also cause transmission power imbalances that require careful configuration of access points. Progent's Wi-Fi site survey provides the information necessary to understand these challenges and design an efficient and effective BYOD network.

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

• Radio Spectrum Analysis including detection of RF issues related to your environment's layout, physical structure, and other potential sources of RF interference so you can foresee and resolve problems during the Wi-Fi network planning process.
• RF Coverage Maps that show color RF contour images (heat maps) for the spots that need coverage to assist you to select the optimal quantity and location of Wi-Fi APs and identify potential RF leakage zones and coverage gaps
• Capacity Plan for specifying and delivering the bandwidth required to accommodate all apps and users
• Cable Paths indicated as line diagrams you can provide to cabling installers
• Device Installation advice on where and how to deploy Wi-Fi devices plus description of additional hardware that may be needed (NEMA enclosures, radio antennas, etc.)
• Infrastructure Requirements to specify all facility and networking equipment needed to support the wireless environment such as available switch ports, POE, electrical power, and rack capacity

World-Class Network Infrastructure Consulting
Progent maintains one of the largest teams of certified Cisco CCIE network infrastructure experts of any independent IT services company in the U.S. and can help you to integrate your WLAN seamlessly into your corporate network. Progent can help you to install and maintain Cisco routers, switches, and security devices as well as Cisco Mobility products including wireless access points and Wi-Fi LAN controllers. Progent also offers expertise with networking technologys from Juniper, Apple, WatchGuard, and other top vendors. To find out more about Progent's online and onsite consulting services for Cisco Wi-Fi solutions, refer to consulting and troubleshooting services for Cisco Wi-Fi technology.

To assist you with enterprise-wide cybersecurity issues, Progent can provide the services of IT security engineers who have earned advanced credentials from CISA, CISSP-ISSAP, CRISC and other recognized data security authorities. Progent's cybersecurity experts offer a wide range of remote and on-premises services that include vulnerability audits, stealth penetration testing, disaster recovery planning, and endpoint active security monitoring and ransomware defense with SentinelOne technology.

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