ExtremeCloud IQ Reviews

We use Aerohive as our campus wireless solution. The cloud-based management interface allows us to fully manage all our wireless radios, ensuring consistency and ease of access.

Wireless is no longer a ‘nice to have’ feature. It has become an essential component to a comprehensive network plan. Wireless is the default for BYOD users and mobile staff. The choice of a wireless vendor was incredibly important given the increasing reliance on mobility. Installing a campus-wide WLAN has given us more flexibility in meeting and classroom spaces, and it provides a value-added service for guests.

The lack of a controller on-site gives us one less point of failure for this critical system. The cloud management gives us the tools and reports that we need to monitor and troubleshoot the network.

We have had some mediocre to poor experiences with tech support: Conflicting information, condescending attitudes, and reluctance to work to resolve an issue. Although, these were isolated, and most of our interactions have been fruitful, they still leave a lasting bad taste.

Since we started to work with this product, we have been able to save a lot of time, money, and support costs for our customers. Hence, we are able to deliver secure and fast unified network solutions across complete distributed locations for our customers.

With Aerohive it is not just about "which features". It is a complete system which is able to serve all types of customers starting with one Access Point with ability to scale to thousands of Access Points. 

If I need to point out some features, this would definitely be a true controller-less approach, where each AP is 100% independent from the management system. 

Integrated firewall in every AP (with DPI inspection) is a killer feature and it is included already in the price of licence (with others, this feature is an add-on licence). 

The feature that everyone should try at least once is PPSK - Private PSK for every user (configured in under three minutes). 

The feature that I like to most is unified management in a multitenant environment, where we can manage all our customers with thousands of devices (routers, switches, VPNs, and APs). 

Features that also are adding great value to the product are: Auto-Provisioning, advanced troubleshooting tools, real-time reporting, WIPS, integrated radius system. 

From our perspective, we would love to see Aerohive provide faster feature enhancement in their Virtual Appliance to match the features with the cloud solution more quickly.

Yes, there have been stability issues with the Virtual Appliance. It crashed once while doing an upgrade. The good thing here is, even if the management system fails, all our networks and features still remain 100% stable and working.

No issues with scalability. We can scale with as many devices as we want, without replacing any infrastructure or adding large bundles of licences.

Eight out of 10.

We were using Ruckus and UBNT. We changed because neither of these solutions was able to provide us with unified management within one central management system. Also, neither of these past solution got even close in features and capabilities to Aerohive. We noticed that Ruckus is, perhaps, 10% better in performances than Aerohive, which is a very small percentage when comparing the complete set of functionalities and network capabilities of these two vendors.

Straightforward. You can set up Aerohive in just six clicks, and the system even guides you throughout the setup. Implementing 802.1x auth is also very simple and is doable in just five minutes.

I would advise that you be sure to compare apples with apples. Many customers just look at the price per AP and licences, and compare that against other solutions. But, they do not look at the complete picture such as:

• TCO - how much the equipment will cost you over, say, seven years?
• Will the customer need to change complete infrastructure when they want to buy the newest hardware?
• Does support include a lifetime warranty and RMA? 

For example, if you compare Aruba vs Aerohive, you need to check which licences from Aruba you need to match the functionality of Aerohive (usually you need at least three types of licences and a controller with redundancy). The same goes with Cisco, where you need buy additional licences for central management, firewall, spectral analysis, WIPS, PPSK, etc. Aerohive has a very simple model - one licence for all the functionalities - and you can believe that there are many. One licence makes it easy to maintain, scale, renew and you can plan your costs 10 years in advance.

Start small and grow big. You can choose the basic Aerohive Connect free subscription solution and, later, if needed (in terms of functionality) you can upgrade to Aerohive Select.

We have BR200-LTE-VZ branch routers at each of our retail locations providing primary and backup connectivity to the stores. 

The ease of management is great. We can have a single push of a policy to configure a unit, then bring up in the VPN in minutes. It is great!

The HiveManager integration with the VPN Gateway is awesome. Our transaction polling is now way more secure. 

The user interface and disparity of feature releases versus golden firmware. 

Certain features only exist or work in certain versions. 

The support.

The support team at Aerohive is out of this world! Whenever I have a concern, question, or just need a refresher the helpful staff at AeroHive is there to help me. By far, the best relationship I have ever had with a vendor.

A mobile app would be awesome.

Two years.

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

10 out of 10.

10 out of 10.

Cisco. We swapped to Aerohive because of many reasons.

1. One reason is the installation. The install of the AP250s is much easier on the drop ceiling compared to their Meraki MR42 counterpart.
2. Another reason is the price to performance. We found that the AP250s perform better than the MR42s at almost half the cost. With the money we saved, we were able to up our concentration of APs.

Yes. As easy as 123!

In-house.

Nope.

I am taking over the Director of Technology position in a few days and I am thrilled to say that I have no worries at all about our wireless network. The few times we have needed help, Aerohive has been there for us and I am confident that If I need them they will be there again.

Aerohive was able to replace a few APs quickly and without any issues. I was able to get them into our network easily and with almost no downtime. I also love the hive manager for finding a device that a student has misplaced. I can easily see which APs it has hit and start to identify its location.

Bring the cost down.

3 years.

After an OS update on the APs, we lost connectivity and had to roll back to a previous OS.

Some.

No.

Very satisfied!

Great.

A mix. Mostly Cisco.

I wasn't on board for the setup.

• Controller-less APs
• Auto-Provisioning
• App and firewall security at the AP
• Reliability

I never worry about the WiFi being down. An AP might have issues, but the others automatically increase power to fill in the gap. Usually, an issue is resolved with a configuration push and a restart.

Their firewall configuration gets funky and it can be difficult to understand.

We have been using this solution for over five years.

I did not encounter any issues with deployment.

I did not encounter any issues with stability.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

Customer Service is excellent! I have had no reason to give them less than a 10 on a post ticket survey.

Tech support is great. Sometimes the Level-1 person can't help, but they engage engineers quickly to assist if needed.

We used Symbol Controller based WiFi. It was terrible, it went down all the time, and it was difficult to upgrade or add APs to.

The setup was straightforward. You build a policy in HiveManager Online, set the sub-net, and then plug in an AP on that sub-net. This will automatically push the configuration down, once it calls home from your network.

A vendor assisted with our first roll-out. After that initial one, we have done all other implementations ourselves without any issues.

It is difficult to say with WiFi. I never have to deal with it and people don't complain about it. If everyone who needs to connect, and can do so without issues, then productivity is increased for sure.

Buy near the end of Q4 in order to get a deal.

We looked at several other options, including Cisco and Aruba.

You will not regret buying this solution.

We chose Aerohive because it was controllerless and the config tool is available as SaaS. Nothing more to do then pulling cables and plugging AP's into network.

Before we installed the Aerohive solution we had a few cheap individual access points without roaming or central management. Installing the Aerohive solution brought us a lot of management comfort and a good WiFi coverage for our patients with seamless roaming.

The only area of improvement we made ourselves so far is the temporary visitor solution in HiveManager NG which is quasi non-existent. We use an external LDAP server for this now, so no big issue for us.

3 years.

The deployment was without any issues. Once HiveManager recognized all our devices it was just a matter of pushing the config to them. Done.

We use nearly 30 devices for 3 years now. So far we had no downtime at all. During firmware updates we do every second AP at a time so we keep WiFi working all the time.

We only expand the network once until now, but it was as simple as the initial deployment. Add devices to HiveManager and push config.

They send us some demo devices upfront our decision taking. It came with extensive pre-sales technical email support. What more do you need?

We only needed pre-sales technical support with the demo devices they send us. We had email access up to a developer when needed. They had great experience.

We only had some single individual access points. That of course means individual config (no central management), no roaming, no full coverage ...

The initial setup was very easy. Plug the AP's into the network, wait for HiveManager to detect them and push he prepared config. Done.

We implemented the solution on our own, without any previous training or external consulting. That shows the ease of use. It would maybe have been different if we had chosen to put the HiveManager on premise. But with the cloud host solution it was really easy going for us.

We are a hospital and offer WiFi free to our patients and visitors. So there is no real ROI except customer satisfaction which is difficult to measure for us.

When using a smaller network we found it more interesting to use the cloud hosted HiveManager solution. We found it cheaper and easier to start. No internal resources needed.

We evaluated HP but they had no controllerless solution at that time (before Aruba acquisition). The controller price (you need redundancy, right ?) broke their neck in terms of budget.

If you start a new network immediately switch to HiveManager NG. Don't waste your time setting up your system in the old management solution as you will have to move anyway somewhen.

Aerohive's cloud management through HiveManager NG is their most valuable feature. I can manage and configure changes to my 300+ APs from anywhere. It allows me to see APs and clients that are having issues, allowing for faster support response and less downtime.

We have over 100 offices across the state. Remote management has saved us thousands of dollars in travel and time. We are able to support our users' wireless needs anytime and anyplace. We can also proactively monitor all APs to correct errors before the users even know they may have a problem.

Price is a little high. I would like to see a remote phone application for monitoring APs when on the road. I would also like to see the second network pass-through port on the AP provide POE.

I purchased a few APs about 5 years ago. When the opportunity arose last year for a statewide deployment, management decided on Aerohive and we currently have over 300 APs deployed.

The AP deployment has been the simplest and smoothest part of our statewide network upgrade. We haven't seen any significant issues.

Our APs are so stable that I forget we have them. I almost never get service calls related to hardware problems with our wireless.

We were able to quickly configure and deploy statewide. We installed on average six new units each week for the last year. I recently installed 40 units in one week to a new campus without any difficulty.

Customer service has always been superb. Sales and technical support are always friendly, efficient and have answers to all of my questions or issues.

Tech support is extremely knowledgeable not just about their product, but about all Wi-Fi in general. I've never had a problem for which they were not able to quickly provide a solution.

We previously used a variety of vendors across the state. Aerohive was chosen to standardize our system to make maintenance and support easier.

Setup and deployment is very simple. Built-in wizards help with most tasks, making it easy for new users to get a quick start.

We used an in-house team with support from Dell and Aerohive technicians. They have made sales and technical staff available to work with us on any installation issues.

We don't have numbers for our ROI, but this is an expansion of our wireless system into 100+ offices, so we expect it will greatly increase the productivity of our employees and customers.

Although the pricing is a bit high, I consider Aerohive to be well worth the money. They have a very defined licensing scheme that is easy to understand.

We tested APs from several vendors including Cisco, Aruba and Ruckus before deciding on Aerohive. Their product quality and feature set are above average and their cloud management solution is beyond anything else on the market.

We have been extremely pleased with the quality, ease of setup and cloud management of the Aerohive APs. I would not hesitate to purchase this product again.

Aerohive has been the perfect fit for us as a small organization. It's ease of use is a valuable aspect.

It's great to have just one interface to configure and go to as we manage our network. If troubleshooting is needed, having the single dashboard helps immensely.

Continue the updates as technology and the wifi world changes.

I have used it for four years.

We have not encountered any deployment issues, once familiarity of the hardware and dashboard was gained.

We have not encountered any stability issues; greater stability than before.

We have not encountered any scalability issues.

Customer service is helpful.

Technical support is excellent.

We did not previously use a different solution.

It was an in-house setup.

Be aware of the total cost for equipment and licensing.

With multiple tasks, Aerohive has been a huge time saver and streamlined our IT tasks. It has improved the readability of our wireless network.

The ability to connect unconfigured Branch Routers to the internet and they find there way back to our system so we can set them up. The way Access points work together to hand users off when moving around building so they never lose connection

With the Branch Router able to be factory reset and still able to be connected to internet and it finds its way to our system allows us to get sites back online with out having to configure a new device and ship it to them for longer down times.

The web UI could be designed for more organization for the administrators and maybe a more customization for the views.

I have been working with Aerohive for over 5 years while the company I work for has had it for longer.

Was not here when deployed for the first time. When we deployed at other sites we recently acquired we had no issues.

We have run into some stability with older firmware on Access Points but that is very rare usually there is a update that fixes it or we roll back if it an update issue.

So far no issues have come up with scalability. we have installed these in around 40 nursing homes and they are working great.

3 out of 5, depending on the technician you get some want to troubleshoot over email other will actually call or ask you to call them.

3 out of 5, majority of the issues we report they want us to factory reset which was already done and o the basic troubleshooting which I have already done.

I came onboard with company using this system so we have not even looked at any other systems or even had another system at the time

Setup seems to be pretty straightforward, I was not here for initial setup that was handle by other techs. Setups I have done have been very simple and straight forward.

I was not here when this was implemented for the first time. have not worked with a vendor team or in house team. When troubleshooting issues been working with Aerohive directly.

That I am not sure about our ROI, but these devices have held up very well and with how old some of these devices are (4 or more years old) they're still working.

I don't handle pricing or licensing. Some of the devices seem pricey but quality seems to be top notch because we don't have devices coming back to be returned all the time.

Was not apart of team that was choosing wireless options at the time. Have not even heard or seen any other wireless system that was before this.

This system has been very decent system and has held up through the 5 years I have been here. I believe we will continue to use Aerohive when we go to upgrade.