Aruba ClearPass Reviews

We have Aruba ClearPass installed on a VM.

We are using Aruba ClearPass for our data needs, and authentication for local networks. We are adding some additional features to control clients using agents. We installed an agent for clients and it controls many things such as if the firewall is enabled or the antivirus is up-to-date.

The most valuable features of Aruba ClearPass are the GUI and its ease-to-do configuration. Additionally, we can troubleshoot many things in one window.

Aruba ClearPass could improve when it comes to troubleshooting, it can be difficult. Some advanced problems are difficult. 

The documentation could improve.

I have been using Aruba ClearPass for approximately five years.

The stability of Aruba ClearPass is good.

Aruba ClearPass is scalable. You can scale it in the same network, or you can scale the Aruba ClearPass server to another disaster recovery site.

We have over 10 customers using this solution. We have some large customers that have 300 companies and it's all linked. They have hundreds of users.

Aruba ClearPass has good support. The engineers are good, they solved every problem that we have.

The initial setup of Aruba ClearPass is simple. It is done through the CLI asking questions that need answers to be input. It takes approximately 20 minutes to complete.

Aruba ClearPass has permanent licenses. You purchase it one time and this license is yours. You don't need to refresh it for five years, et cetera. They have a couple of licenses for enabled features with not only one license.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Aruba ClearPass an eight out of ten.

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.

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.

We mainly use it for 802.1X authentication.

Our customers like its ability to authenticate using not just certificates but also MAC addresses is very helpful in mitigating unauthenticated access on networks and switches.

There is room for improvement in terms of scalability. 

I have experience with Aruba ClearPass for five to six years.

I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. Our customers are mostly medium-sized businesses.

I have some years of experience with FortiGate, Fortinet Firewalls, and Fortinet switches. Mostly with FortiSwitch models 6450, 548, and 124F.

I didn't set it up myself. I'm involved in operating the system.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.

I use this solution for securing company-wide logs.

I'm using the latest version. It's deployed on the public cloud. Microsoft Azure is the cloud provider.

Everyone in our organization uses this solution. It's about 300 people. There are four people who specifically operate the solution, do daily checks, check for errors, and help users who are having trouble with their login sessions.

I like that it's usable in both an on-premise and hybrid and cloud native environment. I like the integration options with a multitude of other vendors and Aruba applications.

The user interface could be more polished and modern. It would be useful to have more options for automation.

I would like to have more collaboration between different security platforms. For instance, the Fortinet portfolio, which we also use extensively.

I have used this solution for about one year.

It's very stable. We did have some issues with under provisioning the underlying resources, so that needs to be taken into account. If you do, then it is very stable.

The scalability is very high. You just need to add extra nodes. I would rate the scalability as eight out of ten.

Technical support is only approached by our third party network service provider.

Deployment took one day.

Implementation was done through a third party. We outsourced the deployment to our network vendor.

Maintenance is also outsourced. For the application itself, maintenance takes about four hours a month. For the actual usage of the applications on a day-to-day basis, we do that ourselves.

Compared to the functionality, the pricing is very favorable. It's affordable and provides good value for the money.

I would rate the pricing as three out of ten.

We evaluated other on-premises solutions, but they aren't very comparable to Aruba.

I would rate this solution as nine out of ten.

I would recommend Aruba ClearPass to others.

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. 

It's a reliable solution for our guest network access as well as mobile device registration.

The key functionality we're using is Active Directory in unison with device authentication, so every 45 days a user has to log in their password on their mobile phone so that you can use WiFi services in the office. We're going to be looking at ClearPass to do device authentication, which means the users will only have to register the device once and never have to re-enter the password again.

It was a complex solution to set up because of its newness. We needed a third-party implementor to help us.

It's a brand new installation for us, and we've only had it for a month.

So far, we haven't had any issues with deployment.

From what we've seen it's been pretty stable.

Right now, it's scaled. We're using it for guest internet services and it seems to be working pretty well. Our next phase with that would be to roll in for device registration as we roll out to our mobile device strategy.

10/10 for HP and 8/10 for the third-party.

We haven't really run into any support issues yet. On the integration side, there's obviously some expertise with the vendor, which is going to help us take care of some issues in the future, but it hasn't really been a difficult product to support.

We decommissioned other options. We had another, but we've since decoupled it and are now using ClearPass to do that.

Because of its newness it was complex, but the end result was pretty straightforward.

We did need a third party to come in and help us do the implementation. We had some initial help from an HP engineer on the Aruba side who spent some time with us, showing us an evaluation version of it, but when we went into production we had to get a third party to help us.

We're not really calculating ROI for the service. It's a necessary service delivered by IT to the corporation.

We're currently doing an entire refresh of our access point network, which is approximately 80 access points across the country. We've recently acquired all new hardware. We're refreshing the entire footprint.

Because Aruba was our primary vendor for our access points, it just made more sense for us to try to consolidate more services towards the new strategy.

It's only providing a very small service to us right now. It's not like we're looking at ClearPass on a very full-blown basis. My advice would be to just make sure to do a proper spectrum analysis, and each of your properties are areas that you intend to put WiFi, because it will be critical to where you put APs and how closely you put them together.

We are a system integrator, and we are a prized reseller and a partner of Aruba and Fortinet. Usually, our clients send a request for network access control type of issues. So, we are fulfilling these types of requirements with the help of Aruba ClearPass and Fortinet FortiNAC.

We are mainly using Aruba ClearPass for our clients for securing access to their on-premise assets. As per customer expectations, we are trying our best to track the complete user activity in the network. This is the main and the core feature we require.

The user interface of Aruba ClearPass should be user-friendly like Fortinet FortiNAC.

In the next version, I would like to see some enhancement or extension on the tracking side. For example, when any user enters the network, it should be more visible in the graphical form.

I have been using this solution for almost two years.

It is a very stable solution.

It is a completely scalable solution.

Aruba's technical support is much better than other vendors.

It is not easy, but it is also not complex. Anyone with some amount of implementation expertise can easily implement it.

The number of people required depends on the requirement. If the requirement is not big and the customer is an SMB, then one or two implementation engineers are enough for implementation. If the customer is an enterprise customer with a big network, you might need more than two or three implementation engineers.

The deployment duration depends on a client's assets. For a client with 400 or 500 assets, two to three weeks would be required. If the network is very big, it can take one month.

To all those who plan on using Aruba ClearPass, I would advise having clear expectations in terms of solution capability and functionality. They should include all the features that are available by default in Aruba ClearPass. These are very interesting features.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.