Aruba Switches Reviews

We use Aruba switches as part of our network infrastructure.

The most valuable feature is the security that these switches provide.

We would like to see centralized, cloud-based management.

If the price were lower then it would be more competitive with other products by vendors such as Cisco and Ruckus.

I have been working with Aruba switches for more than ten years.

In our experience, this is a stable product. Once they are configured, you rarely get any problems.

We have rarely had problems with our switches. When there is an issue with the hardware, it is replaced on the spot because we bought the lifetime limited warranty for them.

The price of these switches is high.

The most popular vendors for this type of product in the UAE are Cisco, HPE, and Ruckus.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use four Aruba Switches, in one stack, for 802.1X.

We use Aruba Switches mainly as access points.

The most valuable feature is the Aruba Smart Rate Port.

The templates to automate our switches need improvement.

We apply a template using Bison or ANSI C to automate our tasks daily.

We are using Bison and ANSI C programming language to automate our work for shutting down ports, and if the support has locked our shutdown with port security.

Cisco has Nexus Switches for the Data Center solutions. These switches are very powerful. In my research, I haven't found anything that is comparable.

In the next release or the near future, I would like similar Data Cente switches included.

Aruba Switches are very stable when you are using the full solution. 

Aruba Switches are still in the testing phase.

We haven't tested the scalability for this solution yet, but there is another building that we are expanding to and we expect it to scale there.

We have approximately one thousand users.

We have not had any issues with this solution so we have not opened any tickets with technical support.

We were using other switches by Aruba prior to these. We stayed with Aruba to maintain compatibility.

The initial setup of this solution is very simple.

When we implemented the solution, we called a vendor to support us.

We have an in house assistant who configured the solution, but we had a vendor here to support us if we needed it.

We configured all of our switches to gain the experience.

I have also used Cisco switches and they are harder to set up.

I received training on this solution from HP, here in Egypt.

I strongly recommend Aruba Switches with Aruba products for compatibility. If you use Cisco or other solutions, it may cause some issues with the stability of the environment.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We are using Aruba Switches for clusters.

I have been using Aruba Switches for one and a half years.

Aruba Switches is stable.

The scalability of Aruba Switches is good.

We are using the solution in an educational institute with over 100 to 500 people.

I have not contacted support from Aruba Switches. We have local support.

We had an integration team do the setup of the solution.

I rate Aruba Switches a six out of ten.

As a company many of our deployments are focused at the medical industry, we install Aruba network switches to facilitate interconnectivity and network connectivity. This is our primary use case. 
We have also installed and deployed into the banking and pharmaceutical sectors. 

One of the features I like most is the intuitive GUI dashboards the Aruba product provides. Having worked with various switches from different vendors, most of the focus is around the command line interface (CLI). Aruba also has a CLI, but their GUI is better than other manufacturers. You can easily log on to the GUI, you can see a nice visual dashboard presented, where you can check the status of switches, fans and power levels. At a glance you get a good overall view of what is happening.

There are no areas for improvement I can think of, the product supports all the latest features, security is quite good and doesn't bring forward any requirements. Aruba has a single management AirWave and the Aruba Central. It also integrates nicely with ClearPass and Palo Alto firewalls. 
From my perspective there is not much missing with what is offered. 

I have been working with Aruba switches for approximately 9 years

With the amount of switches we have out in the field and what we manage, the number of call backs are very few. The product is very stable. 

The product is very easy to scale. When you have a modular chassis, it's just a matter of installing an extra module and then the setup is quite quick. 
Stacking between switches is also very easily done. 

The maintenance service support offered is pretty good. You usually have to buy additional support if you would like extended warranties and that kind of offering, in general the support is very good.
The turnaround times for returns of faulty hardware is very quick, and you can either phone in or process this online to get your replacements done.  

The technical support from Aruba is very interactive also. 

The initial setup out of the box is very straightforward. It prompts you right away to get the initial setup going and from there it's smooth sailing. It has the usual familiar HP interfaces and it's very quick and easy. 
After racking and stacking the network switch, it's usually about 5-10 minutes of setup. 

We deploy and implement IT services ourselves for clients, including Aruba network switches. 

The advice I would provide others is if you are a customer running Aruba for your switching infrastructure, consider taking the basic switching training offered. They cover everything from out of the box setup, everything you need including GUI's and CLI interfaces. 

The product pricing is competitive and approximately 10% cheaper than the likes of Nexus. Professional services and training can also be provided by the vendor. 

The performance of the product is very good, no problem there. You can either purchase a gigabyte or 10 gigabyte switch. 

We are using the 6000 and 2005 series.

I'm not sure if they have the core switch series as well.

I have been using this solution for two years.

It's stable.

The scalability is reasonable. 

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10.

We primarily use the solution for our company, in the office. We use it for its monitoring capabilities.

The solution's most valuable aspect is its monitoring capabilities. It works great for our organization.

Overall, it's a very good product. There isn't really a feature that needs to be simplified or improved.

The element of security always can be improved. If the solution continues to improve its security functionality, it will continue to be a great product.

I've been using the solution for around five years.

The solution is stable. We haven't had any issues with the reliability at all. It doesn't crash. There aren't bugs and glitches that affect the way it works.

The solution is scalable. If an organization needs to expand it out, they should be able to do so easily. The saying is quite good.

Although we've heard of Cisco, we never use it. We wouldn't recommend the solution above Aruba.

The initial setup was not complex at all. It was fairly straightforward.

We're only an Aruba customer. We don't have any special relationship with Aruba.

I recommend the product. It's very good. I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. If the security was just a little bit better, I would give it full marks. As it is right now, the security could always be improved upon.

We have the switches on-premises but we also use the private cloud. 

I've got two different remote offices and after deploying Aruba I can manage the network without any problems because it's publicly available. I can be anywhere and still see the network traffic. I can see the network boards and I can do configuration changes to the switches as long as I have a secured account with Aruba Network.

The cloud configuration is the most valuable feature of this solution. Watching in the cloud, propagating the actual devices themselves and the management of devices that are remote is valuable.

In the next release, I would like to see network access control on the switches themselves. I would like to see security functionalities when it comes to monitoring the bit of the wireless section of the switches.

It is very stable compared to what I was previously using.

Scalability is one of the reasons why I went for Aruba. It seems to be one of the top vendors in providing cloud solutions and quite stable when it comes to upscaling and improving the existing environment. 

We have around 250 users. We require two to three staff members for the maintenance. 

We turn to our integrator for support. 

We switched from our previous solution because we wanted to have a robust level grade of equipment.

The level of complexity of the setup is relative to your environment. Deployment took about a month and a half. If we had to include the design stage and other things then it was probably about two to four months in total.

We used a local integrator for the deployment. We had a positive experience with them.

Licensing costs are on a yearly basis.

We also evaluated Cisco Meraki. I did not choose Meraki because of the licensing model. If for some reason you don't renew the subscription, you lose the network and the configuration. With Aruba it's a different story. If you stop your support, you still own your own network so that was one of the major differences.

My advice to someone considering this solution is to play it out before and choose whoever has the better solution.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

Not a ten out of ten because there were some major issues like configuration conflicts and by the time we got to solve them, it was a bit of a nightmare until we got it up and running. But there will always be some teething problems. There were problems while implementing until we sorted things out and until it started stabilizing itself. It was either a question of the switch temporarily disconnecting from the internet so it couldn't connect to Aruba Central for the configuration. You can do a configuration but it is accepted as a configuration and it doesn't tell you, for example, what a particular error or something like that is.

Replacement could be automated.

It is providing better stability to the users.

The solution can scale up with your needs. 

If your company grows, you can add a number of hardware or switches to support your network.

Aruba support is much better than Netgear's.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward and quick.

The solution is 20-30% costlier than Netgear.

Aruba is more stable than Netgear.

Aruba has helped to improve network efficiency in some ways.

I recommend the solution.

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