Case Studies

Butera Residence, Full Network Refresh

The Challenge

An 8-person household running a flat consumer-grade network: two ZenWifi mesh nodes, no segmentation, two physical dead zones, and an asymmetric ISP capping upload at 38 Mbps. Sensitive remote-work traffic shared the same broadcast domain as kids' tablets and IoT cameras.

The Solution

OPNsense firewall on Protectli VP4630, MikroTik 2.5GbE managed core switch, two UniFi WiFi 7 access points with wired Cat-6A backhaul, five-VLAN segmentation, CrowdSec inbound enforcement + Maltrail outbound monitoring, Hawaiian Telcom 3 Gbps symmetric fiber WAN, full documentation portfolio.

Note: this build predates ButeraNet's current standard of Ubiquiti/UniFi fabric for all sites. Today's engagements deploy UniFi unless a client specifically requires another platform.

Before vs. After

Full case-study report (PDF) available on request.

A Multi-Campus Church, Network Stabilization & Recovery

The Challenge

A multi-campus church running its Sunday livestream and daily operations on a flat, undocumented network inherited from a previous vendor. Inventory records were wrong in several places, access points were unaccounted for, and a redundant cabling path had risked taking the whole network down during changes. No current documentation and no clean addressing scheme.

The Work

Physically verified and correctly named the entire fleet for the first time in the engagement, recovered access points that prior records had lost, and corrected multiple errors in the previous vendor's documentation. Imposed a clean, structured IP addressing scheme, repaired a damaged cable run and identified others for re-termination, and completed a full RF survey to stabilize the wireless environment. Consolidated the gateway and network controller onto a single modern appliance in one cutover, retiring aging hardware. Later phases added battery protection to the entire broadcast path (gateway, core switch, modem, and streaming encoder on a managed UPS with automated safe shutdown, proven with a live wall-pull test), root-caused an eleven-day access point outage to a single undocumented disconnection with zero hardware fault, and verified every device name against its physical MAC label. The estate now runs 21 of 21 devices online with alarm delivery proven end to end.

Performed at no charge under the ButeraNet Community Partnership Program. Organization anonymized to protect client privacy; a named reference may be available with the client's consent.

[Hypothetical] Pacific Construction Services LLC

The Challenge

Office network grown by accretion since the company was founded, residential mesh router, two unmanaged switches, aging NAS, no documented users or backups. Cyber-insurance renewal flagging questions about MFA, segmentation, and backup that the team couldn't answer.

The Solution

UniFi Dream Machine Pro gateway/firewall, UniFi managed core switch, 2× UniFi U7 Pro APs, 5-VLAN segmentation (Staff / Field / Guest / Cameras / Mgmt), Proxmox host with Windows Server VM, Synology NAS with daily backup, ButeraNet Client Portal, UniFi threat management.

Profile case study with hypothetical realistic numbers, illustrates a typical Tier 2 small-business engagement.