1. I've run similar devices to the Soekris with PFSense and M0n0wall. I can push quite a bit of traffic through them with fairly low specs. (On the order of 100Mbps)
2. Wireless controllers gain you two big things. The first is centralized management. You can manage all your APs from one single interface. Need to add an SSID? Easy. Add it to the controller and it gets pushed to the APs. The second thing is centralized ACL enforcement. Typically (though not always) Wireless controllers tunnel the traffic back to itself and have a single egress point into the corporate network. This allows you to apply things like security zones at a single location instead of every place your AP is plugged in. It also allows you to have a single subnet for wireless clients across a larger network.
3. Because of the size of your network I would recommend you look into Ubquiti Networks. They offer you the same gains of having a controller based network but without a controller and at a much lower price point. I've used them successfully in various single building deployments. If you're dead set on using one of your two options here you've selected the correct ones for your size.
4. As far as specs these look almost identical from a brief scan of the tech specs. Perhaps one is to be ceiling mounted the other is a desktop version?
5. The main thing you gain is being able to create different egress points from different VLANs. You can use the router to set up different sub interfaces per VLAN. So for your guest wireless network you could put them on VLAN 50 while the rest of your internal clients are on VLAN 10. You could then apply security policies about what traffic is allowed between the two VLANs.
6. Nope.

Edit: From a wireless perspective if you have all 200 devices trying to access resources at the same time you might find yourself in a bit of a jam if you've only got a handful of APs handling the traffic. I would recommend you keep a close eye on your usage when you finish your deployment and see if you need to add more density to your wireless infrastructure. Now only having 18 employees and mobile devices it would be hard to have them all push enough traffic to matter, but as you grow I would keep an eye on it so you don't run into any problems. Only one client can talk at a time on a wireless network. So ensuring you've got enough available bandwidth is of the utmost importance.

1. I've run similar devices to the Soekris with PFSense and M0n0wall. I can push quite a bit of traffic through them with fairly low specs. (On the order of 100Mbps)
2. Wireless controllers gain you two big things. The first is centralized management. You can manage all your APs from one single interface. Need to add an SSID? Easy. Add it to the controller and it gets pushed to the APs. The second thing is centralized ACL enforcement. Typically (though not always) Wireless controllers tunnel the traffic back to itself and have a single egress point into the corporate network. This allows you to apply things like security zones at a single location instead of every place your AP is plugged in. It also allows you to have a single subnet for wireless clients across a larger network.
3. Because of the size of your network I would recommend you look into Ubquiti Networks. They offer you the same gains of having a controller based network but without a controller and at a much lower price point. I've used them successfully in various single building deployments. If you're dead set on using one of your two options here you've selected the correct ones for your size.
4. As far as specs these look almost identical from a brief scan of the tech specs. Perhaps one is to be ceiling mounted the other is a desktop version?
5. The main thing you gain is being able to create different egress points from different VLANs. You can use the router to set up different sub interfaces per VLAN. So for your guest wireless network you could put them on VLAN 50 while the rest of your internal clients are on VLAN 10. You could then apply security policies about what traffic is allowed between the two VLANs.
6. Nope.

Edit: From a wireless perspective if you have all 200 devices trying to access resources at the same time you might find yourself in a bit of a jam if you've only got a handful of APs handling the traffic. I would recommend you keep a close eye on your usage when you finish your deployment and see if you need to add more density to your wireless infrastructure. Now only having 18 employees and mobile devices it would be hard to have them all push enough traffic to matter, but as you grow I would keep an eye on it so you don't run into any problems. Only one client can talk at a time on a wireless network (per AP/Frequency). So ensuring you've got enough available bandwidth is of the utmost importance.

1. I've run similar devices to the Soekris with PFSense and M0n0wall. I can push quite a bit of traffic through them with fairly low specs. (On the order of 100Mbps)
2. Wireless controllers gain you two big things. The first is centralized management. You can manage all your APs from one single interface. Need to add an SSID? Easy. Add it to the controller and it gets pushed to the APs. The second thing is centralized ACL enforcement. Typically (though not always) Wireless controllers tunnel the traffic back to itself and have a single egress point into the corporate network. This allows you to apply things like security zones at a single location instead of every place your AP is plugged in. It also allows you to have a single subnet for wireless clients across a larger network.
3. Because of the size of your network I would recommend you look into Ubquiti Networks. They offer you the same gains of having a controller based network but without a controller and at a much lower price point. I've used them successfully in various single building deployments. If your dead set on using one of your two options here you've selected the correct ones for your size.
4. As far as specs these look almost identical from a brief scan of the tech specs. Perhaps one is to be ceiling mounted the other is a desktop version?
5. The main thing you gain is being able to create different egress points from different VLANs. You can use the router to set up different sub interfaces per VLAN. So for your guest wireless network you could put them on VLAN 50 while the rest of your internal clients are on VLAN 10. You could then apply security policies about what traffic is allowed between the two VLANs.
6. Nope.

1. I've run similar devices to the Soekris with PFSense and M0n0wall. I can push quite a bit of traffic through them with fairly low specs. (On the order of 100Mbps)
2. Wireless controllers gain you two big things. The first is centralized management. You can manage all your APs from one single interface. Need to add an SSID? Easy. Add it to the controller and it gets pushed to the APs. The second thing is centralized ACL enforcement. Typically (though not always) Wireless controllers tunnel the traffic back to itself and have a single egress point into the corporate network. This allows you to apply things like security zones at a single location instead of every place your AP is plugged in. It also allows you to have a single subnet for wireless clients across a larger network.
3. Because of the size of your network I would recommend you look into Ubquiti Networks. They offer you the same gains of having a controller based network but without a controller and at a much lower price point. I've used them successfully in various single building deployments. If you're dead set on using one of your two options here you've selected the correct ones for your size.
4. As far as specs these look almost identical from a brief scan of the tech specs. Perhaps one is to be ceiling mounted the other is a desktop version?
5. The main thing you gain is being able to create different egress points from different VLANs. You can use the router to set up different sub interfaces per VLAN. So for your guest wireless network you could put them on VLAN 50 while the rest of your internal clients are on VLAN 10. You could then apply security policies about what traffic is allowed between the two VLANs.
6. Nope.

Edit: From a wireless perspective if you have all 200 devices trying to access resources at the same time you might find yourself in a bit of a jam if you've only got a handful of APs handling the traffic. I would recommend you keep a close eye on your usage when you finish your deployment and see if you need to add more density to your wireless infrastructure. Now only having 18 employees and mobile devices it would be hard to have them all push enough traffic to matter, but as you grow I would keep an eye on it so you don't run into any problems. Only one client can talk at a time on a wireless network. So ensuring you've got enough available bandwidth is of the utmost importance.