I am redoing one of our storage facility offices, and I need to redo the network system to accommodate a modern POE and wireless mesh network set of cameras. I need to get a rack, patch panels, a switch, and anything else network related. I have not done this in the past. Any help or suggestions for a newbie would be appreciated.

Where are you located?

Jacksonville Tx

Dayum... way out there in East Texas.

Are you running all the cable and terminating it yourself, or are you looking for someone to do it for you? I don't have any contacts in East Texas, so no one I could recommend. Too far from Houston for me to put together any pricing that would be competitive.

I would recommend finding a good vender in the area to knock this out for you. You should be able to find someone who is licensed in the state of Texas to install security and also does cabling/networking.

EastTexAg09 said:

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I am redoing one of our storage facility offices, and I need to redo the network system to accommodate a modern POE and wireless mesh network set of cameras. I need to get a rack, patch panels, a switch, and anything else network related. I have not done this in the past. Any help or suggestions for a newbie would be appreciated.

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If I were quoting this, I would most likely go the Ubiquiti commercial route. Granted, with network equipment, different companies have different biases. We only really deal in Meraki and bring in Ubiquiti for small businesses on a budget. I would have the following questions for you:

• Do you have a sitemap/floorplan of the office warehouse?
• Do you already have the surveillance system? You said "wifi mesh". That makes me assume you are using wireless cameras that need a wireless network. With anything network related, running a cable is always the best practice unless you are limited by budget or access.
• For the network, I will always quote a firewall/router unless you already have one. Bare bones, I would do a Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro. That is your your main gateway/firewall, and manages your wired and wireless networks
• For the switch, I would need to know how many devices we need to support. I usually get this quantity from looking at a sitemap. How many PC, IP phones, cameras, wireless access points, servers, printers, or any other device on the network. If your cameras are going to be wired, then they require POE. I usually default to a POE+ switch to avoid any future issues with power allotment. I would quote the Ubiquiti Enterprise model. Whether 24-Port or 48-Port depends on the answer to my above question.
• For wireless access points, again I would require the sitemap/floorplan. Again, I would quote the Enterprise model of the U6. Sure, there are cheaper Ubiquiti options, but the U6 Enterprise is not that expensive, and performance is what I care about. The Enterprise is WiFi 6E, so supports the 6Ghz band.
• Rack and patch panels are all usually part of a cabling bid. Any cabling bid should include all materials and labor to run all cables to locations, terminate on both ends, tone, test, and label. I also always include the patch cable for panel to switch patching when I quote a cabling project. Usually, whoever installs your network will handle the actual patch over.
• Make sure you also get a UPS for your network. You do not need the UPS to power your network for hours, just enough to handle power surges and keep your network up for 15 minutes or so, in the event of a power outage.

Aside from that, I would need a site map before I would have any other questions. If you are looking for the vendor to also quote the surveillance system, then that adds even more questions.

DallasTeleAg,

Not to derail this thread, but do you sell Ubiquiti products? If so, do you have an email address where I can ask you a side question?

I have several Unifi products in my home and am looking to upgrade (with a specific purpose). Additionally, I want to make sure that I'm buying the correct equipment for my needs.

Thanks!

merlin403 said:

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DallasTeleAg,

Not to derail this thread, but do you sell Ubiquiti products? If so, do you have an email address where I can ask you a side question?

I have several Unifi products in my home and am looking to upgrade (with a specific purpose). Additionally, I want to make sure that I'm buying the correct equipment for my needs.

Thanks!

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I only really deal in the commercial space, not residential/consumer.

Honestly, profit margins are so low on Ubiquiti, you can buy that off Amazon or CDW for what I would charge for anything on the Enterprise side. The only Ubiquiti stuff I can get through our disty is the Professional or Enterprise stuff. I only really sell it when a customer scoffs at Meraki pricing and has other projects going on like cabling, a UCaaS solution, or other IT services to make the time investment worth it. Granted, that's also the case for Meraki. Getting over a 20% profit margin on network equipment these days will prevent you from being competitive.

As for technical questions, I can only really speak to putting a solution together. If your questions go deep into routing and networking, that is past me. I have my data guys who answer those questions, but I'm happy to take them here and see what they say. I'm sure they could be helpful for EastTexAg09, and not truly derail the thread.

Good information to have. To answer some of your questions:

• Do you have a sitemap/floorplan of the office warehouse?
Pretty simple layout with a 20'x15' retail/office area, two other offices in the back that are roughly that when combined are the same size as the front area. I am planning on having cables run to 5 destinations throughout the offices.

• Do you already have the surveillance system? You said "wifi mesh". That makes me assume you are using wireless cameras that need a wireless network. With anything network related, running a cable is always the best practice unless you are limited by budget or access.
We used to have a system that was coax based. It was old/antiquated and didn't work well. We will be starting new. The new system will be a combination of wired and and wireless access points.

• For the network, I will always quote a firewall/router unless you already have one. Bare bones, I would do a Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro. That is your your main gateway/firewall, and manages your wired and wireless networks.
The equipment we have on site needs to be upgraded, so good info to have
• For the switch, I would need to know how many devices we need to support. I usually get this quantity from looking at a sitemap. How many PC, IP phones, cameras, wireless access points, servers, printers, or any other device on the network. If your cameras are going to be wired, then they require POE. I usually default to a POE+ switch to avoid any future issues with power allotment. I would quote the Ubiquiti Enterprise model. Whether 24-Port or 48-Port depends on the answer to my above question.
Two computers in the front, eventually one in the back with the network rack for the camera, one VOIP phone, number of cameras is unknown, printer is wireless, 1 access node for our gate/door access control, I'll probably start with a 24 port switch
• For wireless access points, again I would require the sitemap/floorplan. Again, I would quote the Enterprise model of the U6. Sure, there are cheaper Ubiquiti options, but the U6 Enterprise is not that expensive, and performance is what I care about. The Enterprise is WiFi 6E, so supports the 6Ghz band.
Wireless access in the building is needed, but its not a big area. I want to use a mesh network to add cameras to different parts of the property with multiple buildings
• Rack and patch panels are all usually part of a cabling bid. Any cabling bid should include all materials and labor to run all cables to locations, terminate on both ends, tone, test, and label. I also always include the patch cable for panel to switch patching when I quote a cabling project. Usually, whoever installs your network will handle the actual patch over.
I may or may not end up terminating the wires myself.
• Make sure you also get a UPS for your network. You do not need the UPS to power your network for hours, just enough to handle power surges and keep your network up for 15 minutes or so, in the event of a power outage.
We have one for our current setup, but will probably need an upgrade as well

I would always avoid using a wifi mesh solution. Now, you may be saying "mesh" when talking about a standard wireless network, but a "wifi mesh" is specifically when you use the wireless signal of one wireless access point to provide the network connection to another wireless access point, in lieu of a dedicated cable run to the second AP.

When you use a "mesh" solution, each wireless access point in the chain has its bandwidth cut by about half.

It is always best practice not to do this, especially if you are running video streams across your wifi. You will want to hardwire all wireless access points back to your switch and configure a single SSID for your wifi.

If you need to get wifi to other buildings, Ubiquiti has a wireless bridge that works very well. I would use that in lieu of aerial cable or trenching for fiber, due to costs.

Again, you may think your layout is simple, but you need a sitemap/floorplan. Understanding the environment is the most important thing for understanding the necessary solution, along with a site survey.

My home details are described below:

12u server rack:
ISP router connects directly into:
Unifi Dream Machine Pro SE --> US-16-XG --> Standard 24 PoE (located in the master bedroom closet)

US-16-XG
- Dell r720
- Synology NAS
- U6 Pro

Standard 24 PoE
- U6 Long-Range
- Every other device in the house

I would like to upgrade my home networking to 10Gb (CAT-6A or fiber). What would you recommend as a replacement for the Standard 24 PoE switch (also, ethernet vs. SFP+)?

Additionally, I want to swap both AP's for (U7 Pro / U6 Enterprise) (any recommendations here ... what about a 2.5GbE PoE switch to power them)?

Finally, thoughts on a switch for future project (doorbell and security cameras).

Damn... that's quite a project. What is the driving force for a project like that? Are you experiencing bottlenecks somewhere on your network?

I've been in the industry for nearly 11 years, and have not yet had a request for a 10GbE network, outside of an aggregation switch in a datacenter build. A buddy of mine works for a large manufacturer, and he told me of one customer who was actually looking for 10GbE connections for his endpoints. Endpoints just don't usually require more than 1GbE for the vast majority of applications, not to mention a lack of 10GbE NICs outside of servers and such, which would usually connect through SFP+.

Ubiquiti has a 24-port 10GbE switch, but i've never sold it: https://store.ui.com/us/en/collections/unifi-switching-enterprise-10-gbps-ethernet. But honestly, you're getting into some intense data at that level, and I would never quote Ubiquiti for a solution like that. If you're doing that much data transferring, then your network and routing configurations are just as, if not more important than the throughput of your connections.

If you are doing a project like this, I see no reason you would need to run fiber in a home. The only times a company i've worked with needed fiber to devices is when there are flame cutting machines, and other devices like them, that create a high amount of RF and electrical interference. Aside from that situation, cat6A should be just fine and less of a pain.

Honestly, I don't see why the Enterprise model with 2.5GbE per port wouldn't be enough for your needs: https://store.ui.com/us/en/collections/unifi-switching-enterprise-power-over-ethernet/products/usw-enterprise-24-poe. Those would at least help your U7 APs get that 2.5GbE back to the network. You would still run the cat6A to all your drop locations, and could invest in a 10GbE switch in 10 years when there may actually be a need for it (maybe).

As for the U7, I haven't actually sold a single WiFi 7 AP at this point. I'm still selling WiFi 6 because the market hasn't really needed WiFi7. I would consider it "bleeding edge" right now, and probably won't be entering that world at least until the end of the year. According to specs, it can theoretically hit speeds up to 40Gbps on the 6Ghz band, but I would like to see that first. Even so, you still need a device that supports WiFi 7. And even if it does, i'm sure the hardware connected to the wifi will throttle that total speed down.

I just don't see what you could be streaming off your NAS or Dell r720 that requires more than 2.5Gbps. Where a 10GbE uplink comes into play is when you have a server that 20 or more employees are constantly reading and writing data from.

If you are streaming 4K video from your NAS, you would never really exceed 80Mbps per stream. Honestly, the bottleneck there would be the performance of the NAS itself.

Curious what you're doing that would even exceed 2.5gbs? Video editing off of a NAS?

Don't take it as judgement, I'm just curious what I'm missing out on. I've been gradually upgrading stuff in my house, and I haven't even needed to enable link aggregation on my Synology for backups or Plex streaming.

I have a UDMP and a terribly named Pro Max 24 port PoE that I got mostly because I wanted to future proof a few years up to 2.5, but I don't have a single device that benefits from it in my house yet.

Still holding out for someone to create something cool that needs PoE++ too.