I also agree that SANS in-person is the better format. Not only do you have awesome instructors, but you have classmates that you can bounce ideas off of, etc. I took 503 online and found myself wishing I would have done another live event. I did 502 at SANS Rocky Mountain in '08 and got much...
IMO, walk away from this project. I'm not doubting your abilities, but it sounds like you will be in over your head very quickly. Below are my reasons.
- Marble and granite - Have fun with that.
- 1 pull to each room and unsure of the presence of conduit. If you knew the current Cat5 wasn't...
This.
Although it feels like it may be past it's peak of interest from a few years back. I remember going on work trips, firing up netstumbler and being wowed by the number of APs out there, people's silly SSIDs, etc.
I know you decided on the Netgear, but I just wanted to toss out another switch.
TRENDnet TEG-S80DG - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156281
Fanless, and has an internal PSU, so no external power supply that takes up room on a power strip, or that you have to find a...
Untangle will definitely allow for everything you want to do...as long as you have the hardware to run it.
I push 100's of people through UT every day without a hiccup on a 20/20Mbps connection.
If this shop is as small as it sounds (no money for a "real" solution, no managed network gear, etc.), and they are not using wireless, why not just unplug the patch cords on the network gear from the network jacks that are being abused?
Essentially a hardware disable on all unused network...