Large Three-Storied Supermarket Satisfies 5,000+ Daily Customers and Staff With Faster Wi-Fi 6

Background

As a large three-storied supermarket that has more than 5,000 daily customers, the supermarket was challenged by the growing network video and audio applications and intensive self-checkout services. The low-speed legacy network failed to provide a smooth Wi-Fi experience to customers and got heavy lag spikes on Wi-Fi and also resulted in a congested office network. There was an urgent need to optimize Wi-Fi to retain customers with minimal hassle and enhance wired network to guarantee the daily business operation.

Challenge

• Customers are moving constantly indoor, and the number of concurrent users using wireless Internet in the peak moment may reach 1500, leading to burst traffic which caused network congestion and resulted in low work efficiency in the office.

• The weak authentication mechanism for wireless access was not able to effectively intercept illegal devices and malicious network attacks.

• More cash registers, surveillance cameras and other wired equipment were needed to maintain the well functioning of the supermarket.

• It was hard to manage so many devices sit at varied locations in the supermarket without an IT staff.

Solution

Two S5860-20SQ switches were stacked at the core layer, offering high-speed traffic forwarding and simplifying network configuration. Equipped with 20 10G SFP, four 25G uplinks and two 40G uplinks, the core devices can meet the supermarket's network expansion needs for the next 3-5 years.

Two SG-5110 security gateways were used for network egress. With the smart routing feature, SG-5110 solves the problem of coping with traffic distribution in multiple services and applications, ensuring mission-critical audio and video traffic in supermarket to run at a priority level.

APs are built with user access authentication methods such as MAC authentication and Web authentication. A wireless LAN controller realized low-cost deployment, and monitoring and management of APs on each floor in a centralized manner.

PoE access switches were placed on each floor to provide PoE+ and PoE++ high power (up to 90W) to terminal devices, like Wi-Fi 6 APs, digital signage, video displayers, etc.

S3910 switches were deployed for office network to ensure every wired devices can access lag-free Gigabit speed.

Customer Benefits

• Optimized wireless network experience: By upgrading the network with Wi-Fi 6 wireless products, the supermarket was fully covered with a fast Wi-Fi 6 network, allowing access to more devices and enabling seamless roaming when consumers are wandering in different shopping areas, meeting the diverse needs of consumers and supermarket employees. Smart routing improved network traffic distribution efficiency and ensures critical businesses' priority.

• Minimized risk potential of network security: Deployment of the security gateway helped minimizing cyber threats, which effectively protects cyber security and stability of the supermarket network and prevents guests' information from hackers' attacks. Multiple user access authenticaitions achieve flexibility for users and security for business.

• Improved availability and scalability: The powerful performance of the core switches coupled with stacked networking ensured high network availability, greatly enhancing the uptime of wired devices such as PC, cash registers, printer, surveilliance camera etc., and providing the possibility of future expansion.

• Streamlined management: The wireless LAN controller's unified configuration and centralized management of wireless APs made the management of the previous inefficient network simple and efficient, and equipment maintenance costs were greatly reduced.