Shopping Malls and Supermarkets

Service Requirements

The shopping mall and supermarket scenario has the following characteristics:

• High user density
• High customer mobility
• Complex access user types
• High security requirements

Generally, shopping malls and supermarkets have the following service requirements on the network:

• Access requirements
  • The network provides wired and wireless access.
  • Office PCs, mobile phones, cash registers, POS machines, and dumb terminals such as surveillance cameras can access the network.
• Wireless roaming requirements
  • Wireless terminals can roam between different floors and different areas.
  • Services are not interrupted during rapid network switchover.
  • Simplified authentication is required when users re-access the wireless network.
• Authentication requirements
  • To ensure data security in the management zone, all devices must be authenticated before accessing network resources. Employees and customers have different requirements on network resource access and security.
  • The authentication mode for customers must be convenient and easy to use. The authentication mode for employees must ensure high security. In addition, dumb terminals such as printers and surveillance cameras must be authenticated.
• Agile requirements

  Authorization is performed based on user identities to control the network resources that users can access. When a user moves to another chain store, the network access policy remains unchanged.

• Reliability requirements

  If a device or link on the network fails, services are not interrupted.

• Management and O&M requirements
  • Wired and wireless networks coexist and are uniformly managed to simplify O&M.
  • Information such as user access records and traffic is displayed in reports.
  • Network faults can be visually viewed and quickly diagnosed and located.

  Table 2-4 lists the selection of examples from each chapter for different deployment examples for shopping malls and supermarkets.