AeroHive NooB Primer?

[Chris22]

Hi. We're a Hospitality Tech company. Increasingly, many of our PoS installs...involve hand-held, wireless iPads. As such...we're searching for a "Enterprise" solution, we can offer those clients.

I'm a wired-network "medium"; wireless is pretty new to me. I work with a contractor, who is strong at wired; but still feeling-out wireless. He's worked with Meraki, and while he said he finds it pretty easy to set-up...I'm looking for an alternative; because my opinion, is while it might be quite good...it's also a bit expensive (because it's Cisco, right).

He and I, were able to start a project together...and we tried Ubiquiti. While I liked the APs; he was in charge, of setting-up the router...and we found it, not to be the easiest thing in the world. We never got to finish that project; so I can't really say, for sure...how Ubiquiti would or would not have fared. But we have a new project...and this time around, I want to give AeroHive a whirl.

It's a restaurant/bar...and we'll need to account for (6) walk-around, wireless iPads; that will be running a cloud-based PoS (in addition, to (3) hard-wired Pads). So...I kinda need to know, what's the "starter kit" for AH? Start with router; and what I need, to manage it remotely. Etc.

TIA

[Chris22]

I tried talking to the "Sales" team. They pointed me here, lol.

[samantha_lynn]

We're having some issues today with Sales Force, a few of our guides aren't coming up at the moment. We have a priority 1 ticket open with Sales Force to fix these issues, my apologies for the disruption. We have a few other router models besides the XR200P, and our sales team can give much better advise on hardware needs, but my opinion is that you'd do well to go with the XR200P if it's in your budget.

[Chris22]

Thanks Sam. Obviously, there's a TON of info...to kind of help the "self-starter" (which I like!); and I appreciate all the pointed links you left (though the router set-up guide, for example...seems to come up dead).

So...first things first: this "medium-sized" restaurant/bar we're doing. Probably (3) indoor APs to start; and...they definitely want to add, an outdoor AP at some point in the near future.

Am I looking at, an XR200P??

[bruce_stahlin]

Welcome and good luck! Reach out to the community if you run into any problems.

[samantha_lynn]

Welcome to Aerohive Chris! We can get you up and running without much wireless experience needed, our guides should be able to walk you through everything you need. You'll want to manage your devices with a HiveManager, so the first thing to do is to register for one. I would recommend our newer HiveManager platform as the older platform isn't going to have new features added to it, and will be end of life eventually. To register for the newer platform you'll want to go to cloud.aerohive.com and register.

There is a free version of this HiveManager called Connect, which is free to use for life so the only cost you'll absorb is the initial hardware. However, this isn't a full featured platform and doesn't have many of the more advanced enterprise networking level features. I'd recommend using our 30 day free trial of the full featured version, HiveManager Select. After the trial is up, you would need to purchase entitlement keys for our sales teams to continue using HiveManager Select. You'll be able to choose between Connect and Select at the end of the registration process, after you've received the welcome email and set your HiveManager password.

Once you have a HiveManager, our guides can take you from there. For instance, below are some guides you might find helpful to start out.

This guide is a walk through of the HiveManager Select GUI, reviewing the most commonly used features and functions, so you know where to manage your devices and where to build the configuration for your wireless network- https://thehivecommunity.aerohive.com/s/article/HiveManager-Select-GUI-Overview

This guide will show you how to add devices to the HiveManager once you purchase them (you can also create simulated devices if you want to try things out in the GUI before buying the hardware)- https://thehivecommunity.aerohive.com/s/article/Adding-and-Removing-Devices-in-HiveManager

Since you're starting with a Router, here is our basic Router setup guide- https://thehivecommunity.aerohive.com/s/article/Branch-Routers-in-NG

Then we have some guides on how to build certain SSIDs, depending on what security level you need.

For an SSID where everyone shares the same password, you'd want our PSK guide- https://thehivecommunity.aerohive.com/s/article/PSK-SSID-How-To-NG

For an SSID where everyone has their own password and unique user ID, you'll want our PPSK guide- https://thehivecommunity.aerohive.com/s/article/PPSK-SSID-in-NG

For an SSID where everyone has their own username and password, plus a few extra layers of security on the APs side, you'd want a Radius set up- https://thehivecommunity.aerohive.com/s/article/Radius-SSID-in-NG

We also have troubleshooting guides, so if you run in to problems along the way we can help you with that as well. For example, a CAPWAP troubleshooting guide, if your devices won't connect to the HiveManager automatically, or a Radio Frequency Interference guide to help mitigate any interference that could be harming the wireless signal.

CAPWAP-https://thehivecommunity.aerohive.com/s/article/CAPWAP-Guide-for-HiveManager-NG

RF Interference- https://thehivecommunity.aerohive.com/s/article/Radio-Frequency-Interference-NG

If you can think of any other topics you'd find helpful, please let me know and I'll do my best to provide those. If you have questions along the way you can always post them here for assistance, or you can email me directly at communityhelp@aerohive.com and we can assist you. If you choose to purchase support with Aerohive as well, you would have the ability to open a case with our Aerohive technical support engineers, or call them directly for support 24/7/365.