Aruba Wireless Reviews

We're upgrading from version 9 to version 10, but I'm satisfied with the new proposed upgrade.

The solution is deployed on-premises.

Aruba Wireless is reliable, and the signal strength is pretty good. The controller has good features.

I want to have a virtual controller, so I would like to see integration with other vendors of the LAN network. We need security features to recognize the traffic source and to apply Zero Trust security.

I have used this solution for nine years.

The stability is excellent. I would rate it as nine out of ten.

I would rate the scalability as eight out of ten.

We have multiple canvases and sites, so it's easy to scale up and across the same controller within the same enterprise network. When we add new access points, there is a limitation in the virtual appliance, but it's not that bad.

Technical support in Aruba is very good. It's better than other solutions' support.

I would rate technical support as eight out of ten.

Deployment was done through a third party.

The price is reasonable. I would rate the cost as 8 out of 10.

I would rate the solution as nine out of ten. 

We made an evaluation between Aruba and other vendors, and we've seen the Gartner Magic Quadrant report for Aruba. Aruba has employed a lot of experience and vision in their product, which is why it's better than others.

My advice is to have a professional survey with the best used tools for the survey and an excellent design. I think that's the most important. The sizing and dimensioning have to be done well from the beginning.

We deployed Aruba Wireless in our corporate head office, where we have a lot of business users. We use the product both as corporate WiFi and guest platform.

What I like best about Aruba Wireless is that it doesn't need a controller.

The product also has a GUI that's easy to navigate.

I also like that Aruba Wireless shows statistics that give you a lot of insight.

Aruba Wireless is a good product, but it still has some issues, especially at the beginning, where there's inconsistent syncing between the cloud and the APs. Sometimes, there's also a little lag when accessing the query.

I started using Aruba Wireless two years ago.

Aruba Wireless is a stable product.

I find Aruba Wireless scalable.

We've contacted Aruba Wireless support many times, but there weren't proper resolutions. Cases remain open for a few days, and then they'll automatically resolve. Then, sometimes, those cases will reappear.

Aruba support would be a four on a scale of one to five.

My company has a particular office on Cisco APs, then replaced completely with Aruba Wireless, one of the most extensive Aruba deployments in the company.

My company is still planning to switch from Cisco Wireless to Aruba Wireless in other offices. However, concerning Cisco Wireless, the product is pretty stable and solid. It has been running for years, but eighty percent of the environment is on Cisco Wireless, which Aruba Wireless will eventually replace.

Deploying Aruba Wireless is pretty straightforward.

It took several days to complete the deployment because the office was enormous and the number of APs deployed was quite significant.

It took one to two months to pre-stage, install, and make Aruba Wireless stable.

My company pre-staged the equipment and the APs, and then initially, the deployment team had a few issues during the Aruba Wireless installation.

A third-party team deployed the product for my company.

As Aruba Wireless doesn't require a controller, my company saved some money, so there's ROI from the product.

I don't know the exact costs associated with Aruba Wireless, but I have a rough idea, and it's not too cheap, though it's less costly than Cisco Wireless. Pricing for Aruba Wireless is moderate. It's a three out of five.

I have experience with both Cisco Wireless and Aruba Wireless.

My company uses Aruba Wireless IAP-245.

It's a centrally-managed cloud product.

Daily, the number of Aruba Wireless users varies. If there's a meeting, then many high-profile users will come. At least two or three times a week, there will be many product users, for example, IT engineers, designers, finance people, and people from other teams.

My advice for anyone looking into implementing Aruba Wireless is that it depends on the use cases. You get all the features available in Cisco Wireless at a lesser price, but in terms of support and stability, Cisco is ahead of Aruba. However, Aruba Wireless is a good option when considering the price and if you're a mid-sized organization.

Aruba Wireless gets a seven out of ten from me.

Our primary use case of the solution is hospitality.

The most valuable feature is that it can be tuned much more than other vendors, giving you more options to execute. 

The solution can be improved by simplifying the configuration. I would like to see a more user-friendly GUI that is not so easily confused when configuring clusters or even a single node when people are not paying attention to what layer they are configuring, whether it be at the mobility master level or at the node level. I would like to see more analytics that can help us pinpoint the cause of reduced performance related to the airtime and number of SSIDs being used.

I have been using the solution for two years.

I consider the solution to be stable.

I believe the solution is scalable.

The support team for the solution is good and always eager to help.

Positive

The initial setup is more complex than other solutions. You need to understand the technology, the way it's configured, and the way you have to set it up. The solution requires more knowledge and more commitment than others.

We implemented it in-house.

The pricing has increased and it was always more costly than some of the other solutions available.

I evaluated Ruckus and Meraki Wireless before choosing the solution.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

Although there are other solutions available and some with a lower initial cost, they don't offer the same level of integration with IoT as this solution without having to add additional hardware, which ends up costing more.

I recommend that you gather all the requirements and define the API groups before the deployment of this solution.

I work for an international service integrating company and we provide resources that are distributed internationally. We use Wireless for our branch and remote locations, and it's mainly for the internet. We are service integrators and deploy this solution as well as provide support to multiple customers. I am the director of technology and we are currently customers of Aruba. 

Reasonably priced and great for small to medium size organizations. One positive is that they're not constantly providing upgrades and that reduces exposure to complications.

I haven't yet seen a cloud-based wireless controller in Aruba and I'm waiting for that as well as a heat map analysis which is also lacking. I'd like to see application visibility in the next release on the inbound and outbound traffic flow. 

The solution is working well and we haven't had any issues with stability. Traffic flow is starting to increase now that workers are returning to the office, and we're likely to move to Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 7 in the near future.

Getting a response from technical support is really tough and is a pain point for us. It doesn't flow like in Cisco Tech.

Neutral

The initial setup is pretty easy, certainly not as complicated as Cisco. There aren't many upgrades or major bugs so it's more stable than Cisco. Deployment time depends on the size of the project. A small site will take about two weeks, a larger project might take three or four weeks. We have nine engineers supporting Aruba.

I'm unaware of the cost but I know it's cheaper than Cisco and that is why Aruba generally wins when a contract goes to tender or in the procurement phase.

A key factor is to ensure the solution suits your requirements. If a smaller organization is looking for an on-prem solution, then Aruba would fit in. For larger deployments, it would be better to go with Cisco. If you're an organization with 400 different sites, Cisco is the way to go. Aruba has proven itself for smaller to midsize deployments.

The solution does what it's meant to and I'm happy with it. I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

Our primary use case for this solution is extending the LAN capabilities via wireless capabilities so people can roam around in the office with wireless connectivity. Additionally, its management has a lot of insight into which access point you're connected to and a lot of information about the devices. Some of the information is related to bringing your device, whether it's a device which is owned by the company or not and reporting what sites are being browsed and accessed.

We find its stability very valuable. It's been running for the past three years with no default configuration.

The solution could be more user-friendly.

We have been using the solution for a couple of years and are currently using the latest one.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable. We have approximately 300 users utilizing the solution.

We have had a relatively good experience with customer service and support. I rate them an eight out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup is a bit complex and requires some basic networking and wireless networking concepts.

We implemented via a vendor, and implementation took approximately one week.

We did not evaluate other options because we wanted one integrated solution which incorporated both wired and wireless, and with Aruba Wireless, we got the full package.

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. I advise users to research and decide based on their organization's needs.

We use Aruba 7010 controllers to deploy our wireless system infrastructure. We're planning to use Aruba for our wired network, including the core switches. We're waiting for the upgrades of existing wired infrastructure to be delivered.

One advantage is the built-in Zigbee-based IoT functionality. You don't need an additional dongle to enable that option. 

Aruba is missing some features that are available in other solutions, such as the email notifications. It's a bit complex to configure the notification part. Mainly I'm talking about the rogue WiFi detection. 

This email notification is crucial for us, but it isn't possible to configure with the built-in software. You need something else, like an external system log collector or another Aruba software. These notifications are essential in hospitality for PCI compliance. My colleagues in famous luxury hotel chains need that report.

One of the requirements for PCI compliance is rogue WiFi detection. When a rogue AP is discovered, they need a notification sent to a certain email. If there is no built-in feature, you need either to purchase an additional software to make sure that you are notified through that software. This feature is built into Ruckus.

We've been using Aruba Wireless for a year now.

We haven't conducted any upgrades to the latest version, but Aruba support suggested we upgrade. We need to schedule the time because it will cause downtime, but it is stable. 

Some access points have frozen a few times. We restart them, and that resolves the issue, but we've never had significant issues with the APs, controller, or the software itself. No one has complained about the system and the infrastructure in general.

It's scalable depending on the number of licenses you buy. We two people in the IT department managing the controller and access points. In a hotel, the usage depends on the occupancy. It can be up to 1,000 people, but let's say about 500 people.

Aruba support is knowledgeable. We never had an issue contacting support, but I I've had the chance to troubleshoot the same system in a little different environment. They're responsive, and you never feel like you're on your own with them.

We were using an older generation of the AP, and it was outdated by the time we upgraded. I also had some experience with Ruckus. It wasn't extensive, but my colleagues say that Ruckus is more reliable in a hospitality setting, and the coverage is better. 

Aruba lacks functions like the rogue Wi-Fi notification, but it's a good product. It just requires fine-tuning to get what you need and a good experience. Ruckus can do everything out of the box. You have an initial input, and it does everything for you. You can get the same from the Aruba.

The Aruba partner deployed the solution. I was partially involved, though. It wasn't that difficult, but it took a while because we have complex corporate standards. It was maybe three weeks plus testing in the lab. 

Aruba is cheaper than their competitors in our market since we don't have a full Ruckus presence of the Ruckus here. There are no licensed modules, so it's a one-time purchase. 

We have a five-year care plan, and the access points have a lifetime warranty. We had one or two access points malfunctioning. It looks like a factory issue, but local support replaced them pretty quickly, considering the problems with logistics worldwide.

Once you factor in the lifetime warranty, it's cheaper and not bad feature-wise. At some point, some of their products were not available, like WiFi 6, but that was last year. 

I rate Aruba Wireless eight out of 10. It has good support and solid options for the access points. However, if the Ruckus solution were the same price, I would go for Ruckus. We have some budget limitations, so we ended up going with Aruba and fine-tuning it.

In general, we have no issues with coverage. It works fine, and it's WiFi 6. At that point, there was no WiFi 6 hospitality version of the access points from Ruckus available in our market. That was one of the biggest advantages in addition to the price. We also got an IoT-enabled solution by default. If you don't need these notifications, you can go with Aruba product. Otherwise, you need to consider that in advance.

We use this solution for wireless infrastructure. We completed the upgrade of our Wi-Fi this year.

It's a hybrid solution. Our controller is in the cloud, and there are devices installed in the offices. Our provider is a local telco.

Between 400 and 500 people are using this solution in our environment.

In terms of customer experience, the Wi-Fi signal in the office is a lot better right now compared to in the past.

Aruba Central is a valuable feature because I can monitor access points remotely, even if I'm not in the office.

We would like to declare a specific number of devices that an employee or a user can use to access their Wi-Fi. Right now, it's a free for all.

The other features that I would like to explore are alerting and auto reporting of users accessing the internet. I want proactive alerts on the usage of these applications because I have to go to Aruba Central every time to see what's going on.

I have been using this solution for one year.

 It's a matter of experiencing the benefit of the solution in our environment.

Since we have a lot of branches, the scalability is open. For now, the scope is really in the head office and I think the promise is that we can scale. We can incorporate this to our branches across the Philippines.

Part of our agreement is that we would receive technical support. I would rate them 4 out of 5.

Initial setup was complex. The vendors have to perform due diligence and heat mapping in the height of the pandemic. The project started last year in September and it was completed last February. Deployment took less than a year.

We had a software and hardware implementation plan. 

Aruba provided an implementation partner who helped us on the project. Fewer than 10 people were needed for deployment.

The return on investment is subjective because we're trying to improve the host experience. IT is not host centered in the company; we are just providing solutions. This is an initiative and the benefits aren't convertible into an amount of money. It's really an investment, and I think the promise is to improve the hosting experience, speed up the internet browsing, etc.

The price is low. There is an additional cost for maintenance. We had a local partner, so we signed a five year deal to support our Wi-Fi infrastructure, including the hardwares.

We evaluated Cisco Meraki and Ubiquiti. The price of Cisco is very high compared to Aruba and Ubiquiti.

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10.

For someone who is looking into implementing this product, they need to understand what the objective is of that project. It could be coming from the IT modernization strategy. You have to evaluate different vendors offering different solutions. Then perform that pitch to the management and the usual project management. If there is a winning vendor, of course implementation comes in. Make sure that the target date will be completed as planned in the project plan.

The primary use case for Aruba Wireless is for wireless network solutions. Clients use Aruba Wireless for various networking needs.

The solution supports both on-premises and cloud environments, catering to many customers who use either of the deployment methods.

Support for both on-premises and cloud environments has proven effective for network management. It contributes to stability, as many customers do not face network downtimes or issues.

The pricing could be better, especially with potential discounts for partners.

We have been using Aruba Wireless for over ten years.

The solution is very stable. Many customers do not complain about the product or network downtimes.

I would rate the scalability of this solution as a ten. It scales impressively well.

The customer service and technical support are excellent. I would rate it as high quality.

Positive

The initial setup of Aruba Wireless is straightforward.

The pricing of Aruba Wireless is competitive, especially compared to solutions like Cisco. The overall cost is considered reasonable.

I recommend Aruba Wireless because of its competitive pricing, user-friendly technology, and strong after-sales support.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

We use the solution for corporate users and guest users who come to the company. We use it for IoT devices, like factory devices and cameras.

We have a multi-site design with Aruba. For small locations, we use Aruba Remote Access Point. We can open a VPN tunnel to the controllers, and the users can connect their servers securely. For example, we used a captive portal solution from Aruba. The guest users could log in using web portals without any tools.

We manage all wireless devices from Aruba Central. Aruba AirWave is an on-premise solution. If we have our own servers, we can use AirWave and troubleshoot wireless networks. It's a good management system. It enables easy troubleshoots and management. The solution is secure. It has all the security options.

The support should be faster.

I have been using the solution for four or five years.

The tool is stable.

The tool is scalable. We have about 3000 users.

The support was better before. Now it is not good. It should be improved.

The setup is complex for new users. Cloud deployment is easier than on-premise deployment. The deployment can be done in one to two days.

The deployment can be done in-house. We can deploy devices from the cloud for remote locations. We need not go there. Aruba has a solution for zero-touch provisioning.

The product is expensive. We need to renew the license to use the tool.

I will recommend the solution to others. Overall, I rate the product a seven out of ten.

I have found the most valuable features are the new Wi-Fi six technology and it also integrates with triple-A solutions. It has good bandwidth and virtual control.

I would like to see the management improve.

I have been using Aruba Wireless for the past two to three years.

The stability is excellent and ranks a nine on a scale of one to ten.

The scalability is very high with Aruba Wireless.

Technical support is very helpful and response time is good.

Positive

I have used all three solutions Aruba Wireless, Cisco, and Ruckus.

The initial setup is straightforward and easy to set up. Simply plug and play and it will automatically block calls. You can change it every Friday or by favorites.

The setup is generally in-house and we support it.

When you look at the price it is a higher price than Cisco.

I have used all three and Cisco is more complicated than Aruba Wireless.

I would rate Aruba Wireless an eight on a scale of one to ten.