Network Infrastructure Consulting for Small & Mid-Size Businesses
An outdated or poorly segmented network is a productivity problem, a security liability, and an operational risk — all at once. Tinaht designs, deploys, and documents network infrastructure built to support your headcount today and your growth over the next five years.
Pain Points
Signs You Need a Network Infrastructure Upgrade
Employees complain about slow Wi-Fi in specific parts of the building — and the problem has been "on the list" for more than six months.
Your guest Wi-Fi, corporate devices, and IoT equipment (cameras, printers, HVAC sensors) all share the same flat network — no segmentation, no isolation.
You've added switches, access points, and devices organically over the years — your network topology exists only in someone's head, not in documentation.
Your IT team spends significant time on network-related help desk tickets — connectivity drops, VPN issues, printer problems — that should resolve themselves.
You're planning a move, a renovation, or a significant headcount increase and have no structured plan for how the network scales with it.
Our Process
How a Network Consulting Engagement Works
Assessment & Discovery
We audit your existing infrastructure: topology, switch configs, wireless coverage, firewall rules, and cable plant. We document what's there — including what's undocumented — and identify gaps, risks, and quick wins.
Design & Planning
We produce a network design document covering VLAN segmentation, switch and AP placement, cabling runs, firewall policy, and uplink architecture. You review and approve the design before any hardware is ordered or touched.
Implementation
We deploy on a scheduled window — evenings or weekends for critical cutover steps — with a tested rollback plan. Changes are applied incrementally with verification at each step, not all at once.
Documentation & Handoff
We deliver a complete as-built network diagram, device inventory, VLAN table, and runbook. Your team gets a network they can understand, troubleshoot, and hand off to a future engineer without tribal knowledge.
Services Covered
What's in Scope
VLAN Segmentation
Separate staff, guest, IoT, VoIP, and management traffic into isolated VLANs with enforced inter-VLAN routing policies and firewall rules at the boundary.
Wireless Deployment
Site surveys, AP placement for full coverage with no dead zones, WPA3 enterprise authentication, and SSID-to-VLAN mapping. Aruba Central or Ubiquiti UniFi management.
Structured Cabling
Cat6/Cat6A runs, patch panel terminations, cable testing and certification, MDF/IDF design, and labeling. We work with your electrician or handle the full installation.
Firewall & Security Policy
pfSense, OPNsense, or Fortinet firewall configuration. Inbound/outbound rules, IDS/IPS enablement, geo-blocking, and VPN setup (IPsec or WireGuard).
SD-WAN & Uplink Design
Dual-ISP failover, load balancing across circuits, and policy-based routing to ensure critical applications stay online when one provider has an outage.
Network Documentation
Logical and physical topology diagrams, device inventories with firmware versions, VLAN tables, IP address plans, and runbooks — all delivered in an editable format.
Case Study
Campus Network Redesign — 500-Person Company
A 500-person professional services firm had a flat, undocumented network spanning three floors — guest laptops, employee workstations, IP cameras, and VoIP phones all on the same /16 subnet. Help desk tickets related to network issues were running at 40+ per month. We performed a full site survey, redesigned the topology with 6 VLANs (staff, guest, VoIP, IoT, management, and server), replaced aging unmanaged switches with Aruba managed hardware, deployed WPA3 enterprise wireless via Aruba Central, and configured an OPNsense firewall with IDS. After cutover, network-related help desk tickets dropped by 78% in the first 90 days, and the firm maintained 99.99% uptime on their internal systems for the full year following the redesign.
"We'd been managing a network nobody fully understood for years. Tinaht gave us a network we can actually see, document, and hand off to someone new without a knowledge transfer session that takes three weeks."
Vendor Expertise
Hardware & Software We Work With
Hands-On Aruba Experience
We have direct experience managing Aruba Central deployments across multi-building campus environments — configuring SSIDs and VLAN assignments, managing switch port profiles, applying traffic shaping policies, and using Aruba's built-in network analytics to diagnose wireless performance issues before they reach the help desk. If you're running Aruba hardware or evaluating it, we know the platform at the configuration level, not just the marketing material level.
Education
Why VLAN Segmentation Matters for Your Business
Think of your network like a building with one open floor plan — no walls, no doors. Everyone can move freely, including people who shouldn't be in certain areas. VLAN segmentation adds the walls: your employee workstations live in one segment, your guest Wi-Fi in another, your IP cameras and printers in a third. Traffic between segments only passes through controlled checkpoints you define.
For a 50–300 person company, this matters operationally as much as it does for security. A misconfigured printer won't be able to broadcast noise across the same segment as your file servers. A compromised IoT device — a smart TV, a visitor's laptop, a HVAC controller — can't reach your internal systems. And when something goes wrong, you can isolate the problem to one segment instead of chasing it across a flat /24.
Most SMBs we work with didn't skip segmentation intentionally — it just never got implemented as the network grew. The good news: retrofitting VLAN segmentation onto existing managed-switch infrastructure is usually straightforward. We've done it without replacing hardware in most cases.
- Staff VLAN — employee workstations, corporate-managed laptops
- Guest VLAN — visitor Wi-Fi, internet-only with no internal access
- IoT VLAN — cameras, printers, smart devices, building systems
- Management VLAN — switches, APs, firewalls — accessible only by IT
FAQ
Common Questions
Yes. We assess what you have before recommending any replacements. In most cases we can segment and secure existing managed-switch infrastructure without requiring a full hardware refresh.
Yes. Core infrastructure changes — switch replacements, VLAN reconfiguration, firewall cutover — are scheduled for evenings or weekends with a tested rollback plan in place before we start. We don't take down a network during business hours.
A 1–2 hour on-site or remote review of your current topology, switch configuration, wireless coverage, and security posture. You receive a written summary with our findings and prioritized recommendations. No obligation to proceed.
Yes. We offer managed network support retainers that include monitoring, firmware updates, configuration changes, and a guaranteed response time for critical network issues. Most clients continue on a monthly retainer after the initial project.