Aruba ClearPass Reviews

We recently implemented ClearPass for a ministerial-level government agency with 2,500 users.

ClearPass prevents hackers from accessing the network. No one can get inside without authentication. It provides a lot of features we are missing. It's incredibly powerful and stable.

I have been using Aruba ClearPass for seven years.

Like most security products, ClearPass is difficult to deploy. You need to use the CLI to implement security products from any vendor, so configuring the authentication is complicated. Some have a GUI, but the CLI is more powerful. However, after you get the authentication protocols set up, you can forget about this device. It's stable.

I rate Aruba ClearPass 10 out of 10. I recommend ClearPass. You'll get a lot of benefits.

My clients primarily use the solution to control access to the network or their sites. If a computer is not recognized by ClearPass, it won't be able to gain access.

The solution is extremely stable.

We find that at the end of the projects we manage, all functionalities perform quite well. We've tested it a lot and find it to be overall a very good solution.

It's excellent in terms of securing local networks for our clients.

The solution needs to upgrade its user interface. Right now, it's not so user friendly, and it's an aspect that my clients' wish was improved upon.

The solution is quite large and complex in scope. If a person isn't familiar with the solution, they can quickly get overwhelmed with everything.

I've been installing the solution for one to two years now. The last project I worked on was around six months ago. 

We have never experienced any bugs, crashes, or glitches. In my opinion, everything is stable. It's excellent. I'd say it's quite reliable in that regard.

The solution is very scalable. A company will be able to expand the solution to meet their needs as necessary.

In the past, we have reached out to technical support. During the implementation process, all the way through the project, we only had just one or two specific instances where their assistance seemed to take a long time. However, overall, I would say we are completely satisfied with their level of support.

While the installation itself is not difficult per se, the process you need to go through before installing the solution is complex. There are a lot of configurations to do on the firewall network and it can take a while, depending on the company. 

While it's tedious before the installation, once you come to the actual installation itself, you'll realize it's not too bad.

We're working on a project right now that has ten deployments and that's taken us about four or five months. For this project, there have been five people involved in the deployment process.

We handle aspects of the implementation for our clients.

We've partnered with HPE and Aruba.

I work at a service company. I go and install solutions for customers. I just handle the install for my customers. I don't use the software myself every day or on a regular basis. My role is one of a project technician and director. I'm an architect.

Our organization handles all sizes of companies from small to large enterprises.

If there's a company out there considering the solution, I'd just caution them to be ready.  There is a lot of configuration to do on all of the infrastructure. Other than that, it's an excellent solution. It's great for securing a local network. Security, at the end of the day, shouldn't have a cost. It's imperative to protect your business and to not worry so much about price tags, because it's even more expensive when you are unprotected and things go wrong.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

The most valuable feature for us it the granular, logic-based nesting of objects which gives highly customizable control over AAA for TACACS+ and RADIUS.

Device profiling for basic/intermediate NAC is also highly useful.

Providing granular control over which devices are permitted to join our corporate wireless network, as well as in-depth AAA (accounting, in particular) for TACACS+ sessions, is huge. We can refer back to these logs at any time, which are especially useful when we undergo organization-wide audits.

Having a global business presence, CPPM helps us to ensure all sites are compliant with a unified set of standards passed down from our corporate headquarters.

• I'd like to see greater ability to customize backups – locations, transfer protocols (SCP/SFTP, etc).
• Small tweaks like scroll bar distances within large Enforcement Policies. More customization for SNMP traps (types), a well as published MIB files so that we can utilize our network monitoring environment more heavily with polling specific aspects of CPPM.
• Hardware requirements for VM templates we use (CP-VA-5K) are, quite frankly, absurd (very high disk storage requirements).

I've used it for just over three years.

I don't recall any issues with deployment.

I don't recall any issues with stability.

I don't recall any issues with scalability.

Technical support was not all that great, actually. They are responsive, but oftentimes are VERY reluctant to initiate a screen-sharing session or give in-depth answers. URL links to knowledge-base articles are very typical for initial answers, which (1) slows resolution, and (2) increases frustration.

It seems, in general, that technical support is more interested in closing new cases than they are in actually solving the root issues. 90% of the questions I’ve had I’ve had solved (for free, mind you, without any maintenance fees) using Aruba’s Airheads online user-based forums.

The solution was implemented before I gained ownership of it. I'm not sure of the history behind it.

A local vendor was used.

Do your due-diligence in understanding how the product works before you deploy. CPPM (and many like it – Cisco ISE and ACS) are very complex in the way they are configured and operate.

If you can design the solution before implementation, you have a much better chance of scaling well, easily, and with little down-time as you grow the product throughout its life cycle in your organization.

Our primary use case is providing services for this solution. We've done a big proof of concept for Clearpass in our company. And another recent case I prepared was a proposal for one of our biggest customers regarding a solution for network access control. Clearpass was practically the heart of that solution.

My position in the company is independent. The company sells end products and services from various vendors and Aruba is one of them. We do the implementation. 

One of the most valuable features of the solution is the maturity of the product and, of course, the functionality is also very good. 

Possibly some of the functions could be improved, but it's hard to say. Generally, Clearpass is considered the leader in its field and it's a very good product. 

I've been using this solution for about half a year. 

We have quite good support from local representatives and we have our own team in the company for maintenance. A lot is available online.

Initial setup of the solution is relatively straightforward. There are a lot of videos and documentation available on the internet.

We looked at Pulse Policy Secure as a possible option. In some areas it has more flexibility than Clearpass but Clearpass came out on top in the end. Policy Secure has some ability issues and lack of good support. 

I would rate this product a nine out of 10. 

The most valuable features are planning and analytics.

It is simple to deploy.

It is transparent for the users to come in through ClearPass.

In the future, I would like to see plugins for AI and machine learning. If it did pattern analysis then it could help to determine our requirements automatically.

We have been using ClearPass for a couple of months. 

ClearPass has been very stable and there are no hiccups or any issues that we are experiencing.

It is modularly scalable and I don't see any issues with it.

I've got a lot of people connecting to my facility from outside of the organization, and they all connect through ClearPass. The combined external and internal user count is around 500.

The support that I have had from Aruba on this solution has been very nice. It's very easy to access support and the documentation is self-explanatory. You won't need much guidance from the Aruba team.

When it comes to the initial setup, as a customer, you need to prepare your own decision matrix. Once the matrices are in place, the rollout of ClearPass is seamless. It is easy. However, if you don't do your introspection and homework then it could be a challenge for an organization.

This is a solution that I would strongly recommend.

We are very happy with the support and the product overall. Although it meets our satisfaction and requirements 100%, you can never give a 100% mark. There is a little bit of room for improvement in all things.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use Aruba ClearPass for our authentication server and also integrate it with our active directory. We also use the endpoint function of the solution.

Aruba ClearPass has improved our organization because, through it, we have much better visibility in terms of who our users are in our network. We have more insight into the type of devices people are using and their roles. For guests, we can also gather some information from them, for example, their emails, so in most cases, Aruba ClearPass is pretty useful for us.

What I like most about Aruba ClearPass is its access tracker that serves as its monitoring feature. The access tracker is really helpful when you want to troubleshoot authentication failures.

What needs improvement in Aruba ClearPass is just the endpoint context server, in particular, the indication with the context server because sometimes the daily process isn't as smooth-sailing. Sometimes, the information isn't up-to-date. I'm not sure if that's a vendor limitation, but currently, it's the only tricky part of the current configuration.

What I'd like to see in the next release of Aruba ClearPass is a dashboard or a monitoring feature that would allow users to see the integration process with an external server because there's no visibility into that right now.

I've been using Aruba ClearPass for one and a half years.

Aruba ClearPass, in terms of stability, is good. We haven't experienced it shutting down in the last one and a half years of using it.

We've only used Aruba ClearPass for the last one and a half years, and we haven't had any need to scale it up, but it seems to be a scalable solution.

We haven't had any issues with Aruba ClearPass. It's been really quiet in the past year, so we haven't contacted their technical support team.

We used a different system before using Aruba ClearPass, but we heard that the licensing scheme for Aruba ClearPass is permanent. The solution offers a permanent license while our previous system had an annual license that we had to renew and repurchase yearly, so that was troublesome for us. With Aruba ClearPass, we don't have to repurchase or renew every year, so that's one of the main reasons we switched to it.

Installing Aruba ClearPass was quite easy. The deployment process for it was quite easy and quick. It took our partner less than two weeks to deploy the solution, so it was quite quick.

We used a third-party company for deploying Aruba ClearPass.

You can get ROI from Aruba ClearPass after two or three years.

I can't give the exact cost of Aruba ClearPass because that's handled by the purchasing team, but it's on the cheaper side, and on a scale of one to five, I'm rating the cost a four.

Initially, the pricing for the solution is expensive in terms of deployment, but in the long term, for example, after more than five to ten years, the operational cost incurred by the company is quite affordable because you don't have to renew the license. It's a one-time purchase.

My company only uses the standard license for Aruba ClearPass.

My company has eight hundred users of Aruba ClearPass in the IT security team, and about five or six people are required for the deployment and maintenance of the solution.

Currently, my company doesn't have any plans of increasing usage for Aruba ClearPass because it's been scaled up three times more than the current need when it was first purchased, so the solution is only being used at about 30% of its maximum capacity. It could take another four or five years before my company increases its usage.

Aruba ClearPass is a solution I would highly recommend to others looking into implementing it because, in my experience, it's really easy to manage. It has a low production cost, and even if the initial cost for the deployment is quite high, it becomes pretty cheap because you don't have to renew the license. If you need basic captive portal authentication, I would recommend Aruba ClearPass.

I'm rating Aruba ClearPass nine out of ten.

My company is a customer, not a partner of Aruba ClearPass.

We use ClearPass for access points. We are primarily working on hospitality projects, including some major hotels in Saudi Arabia. They only allow Aruba and Cisco, so we need this product.

I joined this company a few days ago, but they've been dealing with Aruba for a long time. They use it for specific projects with a local partner in Saudi Arabia that requires Aruba.

We haven't had any issues with stability so far .

Aruba is a highly scalable product. It just works. We have no issues with scalability.

The technical support has some room for improvement. It takes them a long time to respond sometimes. I rate Aruba support six out of 10. 

Aruba is a little more expensive than other products in the market here.

I rate Aruba eight out of 10. I would recommend it. Our company prefers Aruba because it has an attractive design that can decorate a hospitality area. 

All of the features work in concert to provide secure on-boarding for guests and bring-your-own-device users.

I implement this for other companies and they all greatly benefit. It's worked well in many sectors, such healthcare, financial, corporate, and transportation.

Helping streamline the setup and more in-depth tutorials would be helpful. The product is very complex and therefore the more info and tools that are available the better.

I've been using it for three years.

I feel the product is stable.

I feel the product is scalable.

Customer service is top notch.

Very technical. The techs always help until resolution and will escalate quickly when you ask.

It's the first AAA security product of its kind.

Whether the setup is straightforward or complex will depend on how you need to apply the product. It can be streamlined or be quite intricate.

I am the consultant who installs this for end-users.

Can come from the security or the ease of management it provides

It may be a little expensive or complex for very small clients.

It's very powerful, but the individual needs to have a lot of knowledge across several IT disciplines.