Site To Site VPN

[Markverhyden]

but practically yes ?

Yeah, maintenance these days can be a pain trying to run any service on DHCP even with a great DDNS provider. That's why I stopped doing this with customers. Personally I don't have any issues but that's the way I have my services setup.

 

[G8racingfool]

No neither can I. And in this town what they call it and what they deliver are not the same thing. Have you actually installed a bridge over that distance with buildings in between? What kind of performance can I expect? I expect a narrow beam wifi would have trouble. Shutting down the adsl in the second office is what I had in mind assuming we can get similar performance over the wifi bridge... Maybe collaboration software....

I think I'm going into brain lock...

You won't 100% know for sure what you'll be able to get unless you actually do it. A sight survey would be highly recommended to check out possible interference before committing but even it will only tell you so much. I've successfully used a pair of these (just their entry level units) and have gone over a mile and a half with trees, hills, power lines and a boatload of corn in the way (ie: it wasn't pure LoS). Buildings in the way will change things, but how much depends on a bunch of factors:

A) what are they made out of? (wood is easier to penetrate than brick. steel will absolutely shut down your signal.)
B) how dense are they? (a few large buildings are easier to deal with than many small ones.)
C) how tall are they? (can you get up and over them?)
D) how is power run to them? (will there be power lines cutting across your wireless path?)
E) Are any of them vacant? (less likelihood of having a separate wireless network that could interfere with your link)
F) Would the tenants of any of them have devices which would cause interference when used/run? (ie: trying to shoot through a manufacturing plant isn't going to work)

Wireless is great when it works but there's a lot of dependencies that can cause degradation of performance and/or connectivity. After all, at the end of the day it's just radio waves, no different than CBs, cell phones, or walkie talkies. Accurately knowing the lay of the land is hugely important if/when considering it as an option.

EDIT: Also, another thing to think about is what band you'd be using as well. 2.4Ghz will shoot further and will also penetrate better, but is going to be more prone to interference. 5Ghz doesn't have the distance or penetration that 2.4Ghz does, but it might be less apt to be interfered with by other networks/devices.

 

[glennd]

Haven't heard of Engenious before. I reckon I was thinking of Nanobeam when I used the term wifi beam. https://www.ubnt.com/airmax/nanobeam-ac/

I visited the two sites briefly on Friday. The shop next door to the second office has a mast I reckon we might be able to make use of. There's nothing on or near the first office but the one mast might be enough to achieve something close to line of sight. I priced the Nanobeams and that's looking attractive.

So I think I'll present the two options of wifi bridge or collaboration software (Datto or Office 365?). The first is a bigger initial outlay but lower ongoing maintenance and drop the second adsl connection, the second is low initial outlay but ongoing monthly fees

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

You really want line of site for point to point wireless. If you have a lot of trees, you can try lower frequency 900 MHz nanos...it'll punch through light interference like tress. But it depends on the trees, density, etc. Some trees don't impact performance much (thin leaved deciduous), others kill it more...like conifer/ceders, even thin leaved deciduous cut it more after a rain because the leaves are filled with water.
I wouldn't try punching through a building.

Wireless or VPN should have a recurring charge of monitoring....so I'd factor that in. For the wireless hops or VPN tunnels we have with clients, there's a line item on our MSP plan for monitoring, to take action when needed.

Cloud hosted file storage is cheap. O365 would be in their subscription, depending on the plan. Or Datto..free for first year, 10 bucks a month after that for the basic plan.

 

[fencepost]

As for Engenius, we've used some of their APs in various places including in the building we're in. Many of those we've replaced or are in the process of replacing with Mikrotik APs. The Mikrotiks have been rock-solid AFAICT every place we've put them, and there is some level of centralized control (CAPsMan), but it's not nearly as pretty or convenient to set up as my impression of the Ubiquiti kit.