Aruba Networks Wireless WAN Reviews

Aruba Networks Wireless WAN is used for wireless network conductivity.

The most valuable feature of Aruba Networks Wireless WAN is that it is easy to configure. Additionally, with the same configuration with Cisco and Ruckus, we can receive  55 to 60 percent more out of Aruba Networks Wireless WAN.

If you're unwilling to purchase or spend money on a controller, you can opt for a virtual console base solution that offers up to 120 access points. This approach is highly cost-effective, as you won't have to raise your budget, and it's easy to set up.

When it comes to configuring rules for file security tests, any issues that arise can be referred to as "glitches". Despite the extensive configurations required, the process itself is not overly complicated.

I have been using Aruba Networks Wireless WAN for approximately three years.

When I open a support ticket with Aruba, it goes to their team in Bangalore, India. While I cannot say they are the worst, I am not perfectly happy with their support. Recently, I closed a ticket with them that took over seven days to resolve a simple issue of adding a MAC address to the control. This slow support process can be a problem, especially if the customer has a live network. However, I have noticed that their CCAs are now more professional than they were three years ago. Sometimes, Aruba avoids alerting by opening tickets after their official time, which goes to the European team. Similarly, we do the same for Cisco to reach their European team for faster and more knowledgeable support. Currently, Aruba's support is not as scalable as Cisco or Roper, although Roper's team is also in Bangalore. 

As an on-site engineer, I sometimes open support tickets when I suspect a configuration mistake, but it can be confusing when the supporting engineer has less knowledge than me. It is also challenging to escalate the ticket in front of the customer I am installing for, so we have to maneuver a little to reach another engineer. Overall, Aruba's support is not as frustrating as before, although sometimes I feel the need to change the engineer.

I have used many other network solutions, such as Cisco and Ruckus.

Ruckus stands out in its ability to provide connectivity to users through its access points even when the controller is unavailable or cannot be reached. In contrast, if the controller goes down with Aruba or Cisco, the entire infrastructure will be affected, unless you switch to Mobility-based or virtual-based software.

One disadvantage of Aruba is their access point bracket, which is not standardized across all their devices, such as Cisco's brackets. This makes it difficult to identify and mount access points in different locations, as they may require different types of brackets based on the mounting method and physical location. Additionally, Aruba's console cable is not standardized across all models, unlike Cisco's console cable which can be used for switches, access points, and RJ4 devices. Furthermore, Aruba's console cable is not included in the box, which can make it challenging to access and control an access point through the serial port without having to find and purchase the specific cable required. In contrast, Cisco has a standardized console cable that can be used for all their devices.

The initial setup of Aruba Networks Wireless WAN is simple.

To deploy Aruba Networks Wireless WAN, we use various tools for server setup and generating heat maps, typically employing models 505 and 515. The 505 model is cost-effective yet powerful, supporting fixed Wi-Fi and over 100 concurrent users as well as handling 100 voice clients. Once we generate the heat maps and present the external version, we include customer pricing and other details for approval. Upon approval, we proceed with the deployment.

I create heat maps, which are becoming increasingly in demand these days. I use multiple models of devices from Cisco, Ruckus, and Aruba depending on the physical location. For example, if it's a warehouse with high ceilings, I use the Aruba 515, while for office areas, I use the 505. For outdoor locations, I use the 565 or 575. However, I haven't utilized Nest connectivity with any Cisco, Aruba, or Ruckus routers yet.

The price of Aruba Networks Wireless WAN is less expensive than Ruckus and Cisco.

The maintenance of the solution is not difficult, I have been doing it for a long time.

Aruba's controller is an integrated system, whereas Cisco has separate devices and services that are not too integrated. Ruckus also has separate devices and services. When customers buy Cisco or Ruckus devices, they are buying all the devices together to get the best service. However, after the sale, nobody calls for support or assistance.

In the case of Aruba, if the controller goes down, the access points can be converted to a version of the software that allows them to work with a virtual controller. However, there are physical issues with Aruba, such as confusion with the access point bracket and console cable. Even if there are multiple console types, it would be fine as long as they are provided in the box.

I prefer Ruckus solutions, but it is expensive for customers.

I rate Aruba Networks Wireless WAN a seven out of ten.

Aruba Networks Wireless WAN is very stable and reliable. In the solution, the first part is obviously its security part because security is what is concerning in any Wi-Fi situation. In the aforementioned scenario, Aruba Wi-Fi solutions are very secure. They have some Triple DES or whatever security standards are there. So, corporate people are comfortable using Aruba Wi-Fi, especially in any enterprise or SMB segment.

The price for the license could be a bit improved since it is the only area with an issue.

I have experience using Aruba Networks Wireless WAN for years. I used to supply Aruba even before HP acquired Aruba. So, I used to supply it from eight to ten years ago.

Aruba is a very stable system.

Most of the enterprise customers, big names, buy it without giving any second thoughts.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

I'm not aware of its scalability, but I have seen that a big complex, maybe a 14 to 15-story or 20-story building, can be covered up. Many hotels are covering it up. Also, they have around 10,000 users. Aruba Wi-Fi is very good.

Though not all are my customers, I am aware that many of the big hotels, like Marriot, work using Aruba. Few of the five-star hotels in and around Bombay.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Though I am not aware of the customer support, I am assuming it will be as per HP standards, which is quite good.

The initial setup of the solution is simple, and the setup is as per industry standards. Hence, everybody has to follow the setup phase.

Regarding the time needed for deployment, the survey takes time, first of all. Then, you have to set up the Wi-Fi. Actually, if you talk about the installation part, installation takes time because different rooms and false ceilings are there, and so the installation of Wi-Fi takes time. Once the installation is done, the setting up of the Wi-Fi takes maybe a couple of hours. In short, the installation takes more time since it's more on the infrastructure side.

The solution is deployed on-premises.

Aruba has an annual subscription, and they have three years and five years costs. People generally take the three years' cost. It has to be taken because, basically, licenses are needed more from the security perspective, nothing else.

It is expensive, but it is also very competitive. So I wouldn't say it is very high on the price. It can compete with many, many local players as well as equivalent players.

I rate the pricing a seven or eight on a scale of one to ten, where ten is the highest and one is the cheapest.

Aruba has a very good reputation. Aruba products are very stable, and they give regular updates. Whatever Aruba has mentioned in their literature, regarding their bandwidth, etcetera, is correct. One can rely on what they write in their literature.

I would definitely recommend the solution to those planning to use it. In the Wi-Fi space, Aruba is an extremely good product.

For Aruba's software and hardware, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

We've built out a new office and we use Aruba as our wireless system. Regular workers at our company use it. 

We built the office for about 500 seats. In the end, it should be able to seat roughly 500 people. If each person has at least three devices, that's close to 1500 devices on the network. That's the capacity that we're planning to use.

I'm coming from a Meraki environment, which was also cloud-based. I feel that Aruba allows for more flexibility when it comes to configuration and deployment. Aruba gives you the same feeling as using a controller on-prem, whereas Meraki seems to be hiding a lot of the configuration behind the scenes and forces you to actually call them and ask them to enable certain features. So far, using Aruba Central is more like using an actual controller based on the amount of configuration you can do.

Meraki just came out with profiles, but as far as I know, they don't have profiles for how your device connects to the actual physical LAN. They might have that now, or maybe with some of their devices that have multiple interfaces, but with Aruba, I could actually set up different interfaces on the actual access points depending on how they're connected to my network. This is an example of the granularity of the configurations that they allow you to configure.

Because it gives me more ability as an engineer to design the network, I'm hoping that it's going to be a little bit more predictable based on the fact that I have more features that I can change or set.

It's hard to say to be honest. I just started working through all of the different features they have. It's just up and running right now; we haven't finished really fully-configuring it. So far, I like the way that it integrates with the ClearPass security system on-site. It's just an authentication engine. Also, the web GUI for the wireless controller of Aruba Central provides us with a lot of different options. We can do a lot more with it than we could with Meraki. 

Not too long ago, Aruba was purchased by Hewlett-Packard. They must be still going through the integration because their websites are not really integrated together well, so it makes it hard to find documentation. I'm assuming it's going to get better, but right now, the integration between the support that you are getting from Hewlett-Packard, which is the parent company, and Aruba, they're not meshing together. That's one problem that I found. 

Aruba Central, because it's cloud-based (you're going to have this all the time with cloud-based solutions), there's going to be some sort of a lag between what you're seeing on the screen and what you're experiencing on-site.

With Aruba, you have more ability to see what's going on, but because you have more ability to see what's going on, it exacerbates the physical distance and the time-distance between what you're seeing in the cloud, and what you're seeing on-site. For example, they have a lot of tools for dynamic channel and power-out allocation. When you're dealing with something on-site, what you're seeing is more real-time. Maybe as I get used to working with Aruba, I'll be able to get in sync with what's happening in real-time, and with what I'm actually seeing on the product and the cloud.

This is a new deployment so I've only been using it for roughly six to eight weeks.

The stability and the scalability are both good.

The customer support is pretty good. 

The initial setup is as straightforward as you want it to be. To get it mostly set up didn't take that long, but to get it the way that you want it to be can take a little longer. For me, because I'm new to this service (not wireless infrastructure, but Aruba in general), the initial setup is pretty quick, but to get it fine-tuned, it takes a long time.

We have done most of the implementation, in-house. We have a sales rep that we call upon, but we're just using general support, that's about it.

As we're still currently in the process of deployment, I can't say exactly how long it takes. As this whole office is brand new, we hired people to run the cables and actually mount them. We didn't actually do the physical install of all these APs.

Two employees (including myself) handle all maintenance-related issues with this solution.

Overall, I think Aruba Central will produce a good return on our investment.

I don't know much about the licensing, but you license the APs to be able to use or to be configured in Aruba Central. I don't know how much it costs but I believe it's on a yearly- basis.

We evaluated Cisco Meraki again, and we also looked at Ruckus — in reality, we just read some of their documentation. We settled with Aruba because it seemed like it had more security features.

I only have experience with the controller-less environment, which is Aruba Central. When I do searches on Google, most of the information regarding that is for a controller-based or controller-less. I think Aruba Central is a newer way of deploying this solution, so because of that, there seems to be less information for it.

I would probably recommend talking to your representatives in order to get as much information about Aruba Central as you can before investing in it. If you can use a controller, it could be better or easier to find out information and learn how to configure it. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Aruba Central a rating of eight. If they improved their documentation and the other issues I mentioned, then I would give it a rating of ten.

In terms of performance, I don't have any issue with Aruba Networks Wireless WAN.

My company wants to use Aruba's SASE solution since we want to move everything into the cloud, and we believe that ArubaOS 10 could also be a part of the process. In general, it is about the roadmap the company wants to follow and not what I want personally.

Sometimes, the configuration part of Aruba Networks Wireless WAN can be complex, and if you fail to understand the product at once, you may not even know about some features that you can apply to your network, and they may go unused. The guidance part of the solution is not clear.

I believe that Aruba has released a new OS called ArubaOS 10. The guidance part of the product regarding what makes it different from others and what its benefits are for users are areas that are not really clear.

I have been using Aruba Networks Wireless WAN for three years. My company has a partnership with Aruba.

It is a stable solution.

There are no issues with the performance or the connection offered by the product. Sometimes, when in our company, we want to trade it with the new access points and use Aruba's RMA process, we have seen the process could be completed in just a day, but there have been occasions where it could take, like, three or four days, meaning there are inconsistencies like that in Aruba's RMA process.

Considering no issues, I believe the product's stability is a nine out of ten.

I don't really have an issue regarding the product's scalability. I rate the product's scalability a seven or eight out of ten.

Around 400 to 500 people in my company use the solution.

Sometimes, the management of the escalation process by the solution's technical support team is too slow. With the highest level of engineering of the product, sometimes, the purpose of the solution is not really relevant to our networks, making it a solution that we can apply to our network at the end of the day. Sometimes, there is some issue that doesn't really get resolved by the technical team, and my company just tolerates it.

I rate the technical support a six out of ten.

Neutral

My company has past experience with Cisco. My company switched from Cisco to Aruba because, at times, if you try to upgrade it using Wi-Fi 6, you would realize that Cisco doesn't support Wi-Fi 6.

The initial setup of Aruba Networks Wireless WAN can be done quickly, and everything functions smoothly.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

The product's deployment phase was completed in about three to four weeks.

I rate the product's price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is the lowest ,and ten is the highest.

Cisco, Huawei, and Ruckus were the solutions my company considered during the evaluation phase, but we chose Aruba since it was more cost-friendly than the others.

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten.

We provide this solution for small and medium-sized businesses.

The product gives good stability and concurrency.

The product sometimes hangs during rush hour. For example, if concurrency is 500, it might hang once every 100 times. Similarly, the product is not stackable each time. There's no special box for clustering, while other vendors have that. Clustering can virtually utilize all the switches as one switch, giving customers more scalability.

Finally, it would be better for customers if Aruba provided more license options, like 5-year licenses, for example, and at a lower price. Customers don't like to pay from time to time for service for the product.

I've been providing this product for three years.

Aruba's stability is very good. I rate it a nine out of ten.

I rate Aruba's scalability an eight out of ten.

The warranty is important for us and the replacement time is good.

Because of its GUI, the setup is straightforward. When deploying the product, we must choose the models and do some small design work. For example, if the customer needs 50 to 100 users on the network, I would tell them what Aruba can do. I would also tell them next year what changes might be there, so I give them a few extra products to see if one might be better and recommend one.

Around three to five staff members are enough to maintain the solution. I remotely maintain the product for many of my customers.

The product's price is within range since it has a lower price. It's good for small businesses. Some of our products come with a three-year license.

We usually need some sessions for HPE products. When designing it for the customer, I could guarantee their system would not be down 99% of the time. I could also give them some advantages about why I use HP instead of Cisco, Fortinet, or Juniper, and some comparisons to clarify that. But if I give the customer some time for testing, it gives them confidence that I can test and ensure that this product is good.

I rate the product an eight out of ten since the product is from HPE, and they've used telecom before, so it is competitive. Anyone can use the solution without any problems. Likewise, the price and the service are very good.

Warehousing and manufacturing are the primary ones that I've been in, but we also do campuses, schools, and healthcare.

I believe their Adaptive Radio Management (ARM) in its current form provides the best automated management of transmit power and channel. It does a really good job of managing proper design and wireless environment.

It is a little bit cumbersome to configure. If you're designing a WLAN and you want to do and cover certain types of clients, you really have to know different settings and how they interact with one another. If they could automate that so that if you are designing for one type of equipment, you could, in essence, run a wizard. That would certainly save on a lot of calls to tech support.

I have been working with this solution for 10 years.

Its stability is good. I've not seen major failures.

It is absolutely scalable.

It is pretty straightforward. Setting up the environment is fairly straightforward, adding access points to the environment is fairly straightforward, and the upgrade process is relatively straightforward. It comes down to when you're doing something specific in the design for the client that you're trying to deal with. That's where it becomes a little bit more complex. You need to know where to go and look, but the standard setup is very straightforward.

That's really subject to the type of environment you're deploying. If you're doing a full controller model with 200 APs, the initial deployment could be 150 grand. Maintaining that or maintaining support for that per year could be something like 10 to 15 grand per year.

In the cloud sense, the cloud is by the number of APs. So, everything is readily available.

I would not hesitate to implement it. It is a good product. I would rate it a nine out of ten.

We use it for wireless access in our sales offices. It is a wireless access network.

It works well. It is reliable. 

We just upgraded it to 6G. The main reason why we chose Aruba is that we are an Aruba partner and we get significant discounts on Aruba.

The initial setup is straightforward and simple. 

It is scalable. 

It's providing us with the coverage that we need. The speed is good. Basically, you set it up and forget it, which is good.

We're not very sophisticated with it. We just use the wireless and it just does what we need it to.

It works. We don't look at it any deeper than that and don't find any features ar missing. 

We had one problem with one of our remote sites. We opened up a ticket and it turned out there was a problem with one of the end users' desktop. It needed to be patched and support was very good about it. They told us about it and we did it and it worked. It was nothing to do with the product itself, really. 

We've used the solution for ten years or so. 

The stability, in general, is good. We have problems from time to time; however, for those cases, most of the time, it's related to users. They might have patches that need to be installed or things like that.

It's generally reliable and there are no bugs or glitches. 

It meets our needs. We find it to be scalable. 

We have maybe 20 to 30 people using the solution at this time. 

We do not have plans to increase usage as we don't have any other locations for anything.

Tech support is efficient. If we have a problem, we open up a ticket and they help.

The solution is easy to set up. It is straightforward and simple. It's not overly complex. 

We have one person on staff that can deploy and maintain the product. They are a network admin. 

I wasn't involved in the process of looking into ROI, if that was even considered.

The pricing is good for us. As a partner, we get discounts. 

I don't have any information in regards to the exact costs we pay. 

We are resellers of Aruba. We don't do a lot with the wireless. We consume it. We don't sell it.

The solution works well and it does what we need it to do. 

It's a good product. Cloud management works very well. I would recommend cloud management to others any day.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. 

Aruba Networks Wireless WAN is deployed for communication, and we have about 13 sites controlled in a centralized location. We have next-step security authentication, and it supports end-user secure connectivity. The combination and mechanism of multiple servers are used to authenticate the user to connect to the network securely.

Our whole company uses this network, providing wireless connectivity on all sides. So this solution impacts our day-to-day tasks.

The most valuable feature is security, which is important to the company and end user. In addition, the solution's strong security mechanism and user-friendly web console are great. The software and hardware are excellent, and we can efficiently deploy and manage these devices.

Regarding additional features, the solution currently has a Windows update problem. As a result, the solution requires daily Windows updates and installations as well as launches of new patches. It also requires updates to the iOS firmware to support the day-to-day patches submitted by Windows.

Because we work out of Pakistan, we sometimes have to deploy this solution in areas with a lot of dust. So, it would be great if Aruba improves the environmental hardware materials to mitigate troubleshooting and decrease the amount of dust it accumulates.

We have been using this solution for seven years and recently deployed the latest version. It is deployed on a local network.

It is a stable solution.

The solution is scalable. We have a lot of users, most of whom are IT specialists. For example, we have four people required for maintenance in the IT department and two junior network engineers continuously controlling the solution.

The technical support for this product regarding the vendor is great. Our principal or local vendor is available to facilitate any issues that arise.

Before using Aruba Networks Wireless WAN, we had been working on Cisco and Awale, which are somewhat competitors of this solution. We also deployed Awale, which works fine, but Aruba Networks Wireless WAN is widely used in our company.

The initial setup was straightforward, and it took about two days to deploy. We used a third party to deploy the network and performed day-to-day tasks easily. There was no issue with installation, and deployment on a large scale was painless.

Regarding licensing costs, our procurement and finance departments are directly involved, and we evaluate the functionality of this product. Based on the market comparison, Aruba Networks Wireless WAN is cheaper than Cisco, and the web experience is great. As a result, its functionality and performance are practical.

If we were not using Aruba Networks Wireless WAN, we would use Cisco. Cisco and Aruba have the same solution and provide a controller-based network and ISE. The functionality of both devices is the same, and the key difference is the vendor and branding. The dependability and scalability of both products are good too.

I rate this solution an eight out of ten.