Case Study – Wireless Medical Laboratory Device Development

Executive Summary:
Medical laboratory device manufacture in Grants Pass, Oregon found themselves unable to setup their device for wireless networking properly for prospective clients. Their product development team reached out to Farmhouse Networking to create a proof-of-concept test environment that mimics several of their prospective clients’ wireless networks. Detailed research, extensive testing, and detailed documentation provided them with the following:

• Two distinct wireless test environments
• Ability to connect device to wireless using shared keys, certificates, and RADIUS LDAP logins
• Reproducible results to prove to clients that wireless connection was possible
• List of Unix settings changes needed for each scenario for device programmers
• Training of product development staff on use of environments

Challenges:
Client had requests from prospective clients for specific wireless network environments that included hardware from Cisco and Ubiquiti with security settings including shared keys, certificates, and RADIUS LDAP logins. The device ran on the Unix operating system and the clients’ programmers were unfamiliar with how to configure settings to connect the device to the various wireless security scenarios.

Solution:
Created wireless test lab environments in their secure facility based on both Cisco and Ubiquiti network hardware with a Synology NAS for certificate services and RADIUS LDAP logins. Through extensive testing and documentation, we reliably connected the device to wireless networks in all security scenarios. Farmhouse Networking then provided the programmers and product development staff the list of settings that need to be adjusted for each scenario and training on the use of both environments.

Results:
Client was able to finish the next stage of product development and prove to their prospective clients that the medical laboratory device would work properly in their environments.