Aruba Wireless Reviews

Implementing wireless networks.

It seems a little bit more difficult to implement than Meraki.

Clear pass, it helps a lot with admin.

Analytics and big data.

• A solution to problems for end users with friendly and easy to use work environments.
• It helps the user to have a better vision of what is happening in their network.
  

We have begun implementing its infrastructure, and it has helped us have better control of our wireless network.

• Aruba Central
• The easy use of APs
• It has helped us have better control over what is happening in our network. 
• User management has helped us control their access and bandwidth on our network traffic.

• They should provide usage guides and solutions to frequent problems.
• A telephone line dedicated to technical support for not-so-skilled users.
  

I use Aruba Wireless to manage and monitor mobile users.

It has helped in making deployments easier despite the configuration's complexity.

I have found the Access Point (AP) group profile feature extremely useful. It makes deployments look easy.

• They should simplify the configuration flow. 
• Additional detailed reporting for client traffic would be a great addition.

The primary use is for distributing internet bandwidth. The performance is good.

The benefit is the constant delivery of internet bandwidth. Everybody is getting internet access properly. When 40 - 50 people are sitting in a small area it is capable of delivering internet to them constantly.

It delivers constantly, there is no break in the internet using these devices. It also automatically gets connected when the internet comes back. Failure is very low.

What I would like to have with these kinds of devices is the most enhanced security. For example, if I could apply security from wireless devices, that would be great.

I would also like more enhanced reports on user adoption, who is getting what bandwidth. That is the kind of report I should be getting.

It's completely stable.

Scalability is good. Suppose there are 20 people in a room and suddenly 10 more people come into the room. It automatically scales up and provides the internet.

A situation where we have had to contact technical support has never happened in the last year. It has been really constant in the distribution of the bandwidth.

I wanted experience using more products. We were already using another product but I thought, "Okay, let's try Aruba this time and see what the feedback is like." I thought Aruba would give me better performance, after looking at the performance of the existing devices.

When selecting a vendor, the most important factor is that support has to be there. I would look for constant support from any vendor. It can't be that the product is sold and after that there is no support. There has to be constant and quick support from the vendor.

The setup is straightforward, it's not complex. Things are quite easy with Aruba.

We were looking at different products for our new premises. Aruba was known to me so I compared Aruba with Ruckus.

I would definitely recommend Aruba devices.

I rate Aruba Wireless at nine out of 10 because of the performance and stability of the product. It's not a 10 because it needs enhanced security and a more granular level of reporting. If these kinds of things were provided it could be a 10.

For campus wireless coverage, and it is performing very well.

The performance and the application monitor. You can select the applications you want to use and block your network. Most importantly, it has a lot of bandwidth and good connections.

I would like to be able to customize Captive Portals.

Stability is good.

The scalability is very good. You can use it from SME through to enterprise companies. It provides full coverage.

We provide technical support ourselves.

I have been involved in setups for our customers. It's not too complex. Of course, you need to know the solution very well.

I would recommend it for the performance and support.

For me, the most important criteria when selecting a vendor are

• performance
• reliability
• support.

I rate Aruba at eight out of 10 because every software has problems at times. It also doesn't fit all our customers' requests.

I have a small office with about five APs. It has a good central management system to help manage my wireless devices, just to ensure that everything is working correctly.

It makes things easier because it's SD-WAN. With the central management system, I'm able to access each device. I can configure one device and then it provisions all the other devices with the same configuration, rather than my having to configure them one by one.

The central management system. It's called Aruba Central, which allows you to manage the APs, the switch, and the controllers, etc.

The management system would be better if it were more polished, if it had a better interface like, for example, Meraki.

Scalability is pretty good. I believe they recommend having up to 50 APs per cluster, but it can scale even more than that. I don't really need that in particular, although it's an enterprise-standard product. The throughput is pretty good.

I haven't used technical support as of yet.

I used to use Meraki but with Meraki, if you stop paying for the licenses, you basically don't own the device. Once you stop paying for the licensing, the device is pretty much dead.

The initial setup was pretty much straightforward to be honest. You only configure one AP and when you plug the other ones into the network, it recognizes that that AP is the master and gets the configuration off that.

I did look at Ubiquiti because the price point was cheap. But after looking further into it, the main reason I chose Aruba was because they have a lifetime warranty on their APs.

My advice would depend on the needs. It depends on what size of business you have and what you are looking to accomplish. In general, I'd recommend Aruba Wireless. 

The only other thing I would let you know is that, if you want a centralized management system that is able to manage all your networking devices such as the wireless, the switch, the routers, and the firewall, then Aruba may not be the one, because Aruba doesn't do firewalls. For example, with Meraki, you can have a full Meraki network with the switches, routers, firewall, APs, all managed on one central network. With Aruba, if you have a firewall, you'd have to use a separate management system to manage that.

The most important criteria when selecting a vendor would be

• support
• durability of the device
• brand reputation
• ease of use.

I would rate Aruba Wireless at about eight out of 10. I haven't had any issues with it to date, and it's a pretty robust product. The reason I won't give it higher than that is because of the GUI. They need to make it more polished like Meraki's. But other than that, I've been pretty happy with it and I like all the additional features there.

Wi-Fi. The performance is okay.

Scalability.

I would like to see more security features. Also, it should have more than one, maybe five, access points. Wherever we go, we should get the same speed continuously, without disconnecting.

I am satisfied with the stability.

I am satisfied with the scalability.

Their services are okay, satisfactory.

It is straightforward.

It's a good product, you can go ahead with it.

When selecting a vendor, the most important criteria are a stable product, the cost, and security features.

I rate Aruba Wireless at nine out of 10 because it is reliable, and all the features are okay.

We're primarily using it for wireless users. It's actually to monitor use; we're using stand-alone wireless controllers in all our sites.

Before we used Aruba Wireless we had individual access points connected to our switches. We didn't actually have a centralized switch that could control all of our access points. Now, bringing the Aruba Wireless Controller into production, it's really giving us good visibility. All our access points are connected to one controller. Through that controller, we can actually handle each access point; we can disconnect or connect that access point, and then we can tell, or see, or allow how many users are, or should be, connected through that access point. These are the developments, or the functionalities, that wireless controllers provide for us.

The most important feature is all about the two wavelengths, the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz, and the access points which are connected to this wireless controller.

The perfect thing is that if we really want to know where a specific user is connected, it gives us the ability to see that and how that user is actually receiving. We can know the speed and their IP, their MAC address and, most of the time, how much bandwidth they're using per day. The wireless controller actually gives that functionality as well.

The other good thing is the dashboard. It tells us who is using most of the bandwidth, and how many APs are not in good range, or that do not actually have good security. It shows us which users are trying to hack or how many users are trying to use BitTorrent. So it gives us very good visibility into the user, so we know who we have or who we are providing internet or bandwidth for.

The speed could be better. I heard that Aruba is trying to shape the speed inside the wireless controller, but that has not been adopted yet. If they put some kind of mechanism inside the wireless controller for the speed such that, "Okay, this many users will have 20 by 20, 20 in the upload, 20 in the download. Just this many users. And this many users will have this type of speed or that type of speed." I think it would be very good if they actually bring that functionality inside the wireless controller.

I would also like to see stable firmware.

Every month Aruba has new firmware. I don't know if it's good or bad but it's not good in terms of production. We can't upgrade our firmware every month, especially an enterprise company, because if we upgrade our firmware based on the latest firmware that Aruba has, that firmware is not stable. They're not 100 percent sure about it.

My suggestion is, take your time, or invest in your knowledge. Bring on more engineers. Don't produce or broadcast firmware every month. Just have two or three firmware updates each year, and make them stable. Perfect. The way that Cisco does.

The amount of work that the controllers are handling is perfect. It's very good.

Tech support is pretty easy to work with, pretty fast. But when it comes to sending your logs to the Aruba guys, then it takes time. I had some crash logs the other day. I sent them and it took about three weeks for them to analyze the logs and then, in the end, they told me they really didn't know what was going on.

So the help desk, the first level of support is very good. But when it's going to the engineers to analyze logs, then it takes time.

The setup was a little bit complicated. It really depends on the person. If you really don't know and it's your first time that you are touching an Aruba device, then it takes a lot of time. You're not going to get it, if you have never actually touched an Aruba Wireless Controller. You have to have an experienced engineer with you to show you what to do: how to add an AP, how to proceed with all the other configurations. Once you have had your hands on it a couple of times, then it becomes easier.

It's not expensive. That is the reason we switched to Aruba.

Take the training at first and then implement it. Be sure to have full knowledge of your network, know how your network has been set up. And have a senior engineer or have one of the Aruba engineers so they can help you with the project that you have. Ask them how to actually implement Aruba into your network and they can advise you.

I give this solution a 10 out of 10. It's a new product, Aruba is somewhat new to the market but I think they are doing an excellent job. For a newbie type of product, it's not very easy to compete with the market, especially with the Cisco controller manager. But I think Aruba is on top, nowadays, in the market.