Aruba Wireless Reviews

I have implemented Aruba for a few small customers. 

Price is one of the most important factors. We have a solution that's reasonably cost-effective when balanced against all the areas we need to cover. 

Aruba doesn't match some competitors in wireless signal strength. It isn't in the same class as Cisco Meraki, so I would use Cisco Meraki in situations where I need to cover a large open space. Meraki has more powerful signals going out.

Coverage and penetration have been the biggest disappointments. You should be able to connect to a visible Wifi access point. Often, people 20 meters away from an Aruba external access point need to move closer to get into the coverage radius. 

I have used Aruba for the past couple of years.

Aruba Wireless is stable. 

Aruba is scalable. I'm not doing dealing with the management or licensing, so I'm not aware of the costs compared to some other products.

I would be using it through a third party, so I wouldn't go to Aruba for support directly.

I rate Cisco Meraki higher than most others I've used in the same price range. Ruckus is stable, but it can be difficult to implement an external Wifi connection without some kind of problem with the cabling or something else.

Aruba is in roughly the same class as  Ubiquiti, which carries no licenses that I'm aware of. Ruckus is an excellent product to use for local government clients when I'm not planning to go back there. Plus, it has the advantage of being an HP-branded product. 

All wireless solutions are relatively pricey in my experience. The cost of a Wifi access point is only part of it. The implementation cost is bigger. I'm paying just over €200 for an additional internal access point. An external access point costs us €676 plus VAT, so that's about €840 for an external AP.

I rate Aruba Wireless about six out of 10. When planning for the cost of a project, you consider the price of different products, including operational and implementation costs, and make a judgment call. It's different if you have a portal. If you need to invest in a portal, it's difficult to transition away from that portal's brand. For example, if I have Ruckus access points in certain buildings and a Ruckus gateway handling all of those, I'm probably going to stick with Ruckus for any additional Wifi points. I'm not going to deviate from that.

We use this solution for wireless infrastructure. We completed the upgrade of our Wi-Fi this year.

It's a hybrid solution. Our controller is in the cloud, and there are devices installed in the offices. Our provider is a local telco.

Between 400 and 500 people are using this solution in our environment.

In terms of customer experience, the Wi-Fi signal in the office is a lot better right now compared to in the past.

Aruba Central is a valuable feature because I can monitor access points remotely, even if I'm not in the office.

We would like to declare a specific number of devices that an employee or a user can use to access their Wi-Fi. Right now, it's a free for all.

The other features that I would like to explore are alerting and auto reporting of users accessing the internet. I want proactive alerts on the usage of these applications because I have to go to Aruba Central every time to see what's going on.

I have been using this solution for one year.

 It's a matter of experiencing the benefit of the solution in our environment.

Since we have a lot of branches, the scalability is open. For now, the scope is really in the head office and I think the promise is that we can scale. We can incorporate this to our branches across the Philippines.

Part of our agreement is that we would receive technical support. I would rate them 4 out of 5.

Initial setup was complex. The vendors have to perform due diligence and heat mapping in the height of the pandemic. The project started last year in September and it was completed last February. Deployment took less than a year.

We had a software and hardware implementation plan. 

Aruba provided an implementation partner who helped us on the project. Fewer than 10 people were needed for deployment.

The return on investment is subjective because we're trying to improve the host experience. IT is not host centered in the company; we are just providing solutions. This is an initiative and the benefits aren't convertible into an amount of money. It's really an investment, and I think the promise is to improve the hosting experience, speed up the internet browsing, etc.

The price is low. There is an additional cost for maintenance. We had a local partner, so we signed a five year deal to support our Wi-Fi infrastructure, including the hardwares.

We evaluated Cisco Meraki and Ubiquiti. The price of Cisco is very high compared to Aruba and Ubiquiti.

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10.

For someone who is looking into implementing this product, they need to understand what the objective is of that project. It could be coming from the IT modernization strategy. You have to evaluate different vendors offering different solutions. Then perform that pitch to the management and the usual project management. If there is a winning vendor, of course implementation comes in. Make sure that the target date will be completed as planned in the project plan.

I administered Aruba Wireless systems at two organizations. The first was a private college with around 12,000 endpoints campus wide, which included over 500 Aruba access points of various models and generations configured through the Aruba 7220 Mobility Controller. The second was a private high school with around 5000 endpoints and 130 Aruba access points, models 125 and 134, and configured through an Aruba 3600 Mobility Controller.

I have been maintaining Aruba Wireless systems at these two different organization for around 4 years in total.

A reliable wireless connection is imperative in a modern school setting. Our organization is forced to resort to inefficient methods without wireless internet. Aruba provides an easy to manage solution for my team.

The most valuable features have been the following:

• Reliability: Stable platform from controller to AP.
• Responsive support: When support is needed, the Aruba engineers are normally quick to respond to problems.
• Ease of Deployment: APs are very easy to configure to the network once they contact the controller.

Aruba has been an excellent solution. However, I am aiding in transitioning my organization to a different wireless solution due to the cost. We need to expand our network and the cost of new APs and an upgraded controller have proved to be prohibitive compared to similar solutions on the market.

Aruba is an excellent option for campus wireless. It can be more labor intensive initially than other options, such as Cisco Meraki, however it provides a reliable wireless platform that can be easily maintained by a small network team.

We are a system integrator that specializes in providing complete network infrastructure for wireless solutions. This includes Aruba Wireless, Huawei Enterprise Solutions, and Extreme Networks. 

The customers are seeking cloud implementation. Currently, all our deployments are done through the cloud, which is a strong selling point for positioning Aruba Instant access points. As a result, companies with multiple branches often prefer deploying Aruba Instant access points via the cloud.

With Aruba Instant, we can use the access points independently, allowing us to position them in many places. This is a great feature as it helps us save costs on access controllers and licenses.

The Return Material Authorization procedure is time-consuming and needs improvement.

I have been using Aruba Wireless for six years.

The solution is stable and I would rate it an eight out of ten.

The solution is scalable, especially with cloud implementation, which has not presented any challenges for me thus far. I would rate the scalability at eight out of ten.

The technical support is excellent, but the Return Material Authorization procedure is time-consuming.

Neutral

I would rate the initial setup an eight out of ten. While the implementation may not be instant, it is relatively simple.

The deployment time depends upon the organization. So, even if it's a big organization with multiple branches, their network, availability, and other factors can differ. However, if it's a single-site implementation, it will not take much time. The only thing that we need to ensure is that the prerequisites are ready, which may take a few days. That's it. Two to three people, including a project manager and one or two engineers, are required for deployment.

We implement the solution for our customers.

I would rate the cost as an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive. Aruba Instant is more affordable compared to other solutions, and we also appreciate its features.

Some of the products from Aruba Networks are covered by a Limited Lifetime warranty. To ensure customer support, we maintain extra stock and include this in our integrator fees, which are separate from the product cost.

I give Aruba Wireless an eight out of ten.

We currently have six clients using the solution. My clients include small, medium, and enterprise-level organizations. 

Aruba Instant is highly recommended for organizations with multiple branches and office locations. Based on client feedback, it is easy to implement and configure, making it accessible anytime and anywhere. The solution is expensive for a single-entity organization.

At our company, we use the solution on a daily basis for our customers in the healthcare sector. 

Aruba Wireless has its own protocols in the controller that are managed by the firewall of our company.  

The vendor should include multiple additional protocols for basic applications and advanced tech that are absent in Aruba Wireless. Overall, the product needs further development by introducing new tech features. 

I have been using Aruba Wireless for five years. 

The solution offers satisfying stability. I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. 

Aruba Wireless has adapted to the scaling needs of the customers of our organization. As our company works with clients in the healthcare sector, we need to manage diverse management systems and supplies. At our company, we segregate all the systems based on Aruba Wireless's performance in integration with the firewall of the systems. I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. 

In the beginning phase after purchase, the vendor provided us with support, but later on, we didn't require much support for Aruba Wireless. For any issues that arise for the customers of our organization, we try to resolve them in-house and minimize the downtime. The Aruba Wireless vendor tries to rectify any issues or bugs that arise in our organization. I would rate the customer support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

During the product's initial setup process in our organization, we faced numerous obstacles at the configuration level because, in some cases, complete configuration was not possible only using the GUI. Some configurations need to be implemented using the command line.

Nowadays, for other solutions, all configurations can be implemented using GUI, and it makes the setup more user-friendly and manageable, removing the need to memorize commands. I would rate the setup of Aruba Wireless as four out of ten. 

The deployment of Aruba Wireless using GUI should ideally take one or two days, but in our organization, due to the configuration obstacles, it took five days. The deployment process took an entire team because the solution needed to be deployed separately for more than 500 access points to join the network loop. 

In our organization, Aruba Wireless is used for on-prem environments because the majority of our customers belong to the healthcare segment and thus have their own private medical data and records that cannot be shared in the cloud. Even for disaster recovery, our customers avail local resources, and any private data is not shared. 

I would rate the pricing a five out of ten. 

There are many options in the market, and in our company, we evaluated them based on budget. In the past, when our organization was starting out and there were quite a limited number of employees and clients, we didn't need any solutions from Aruba, but when the company expanded, a reliable and budget-friendly solution like Aruba Wireless was required rather than small solutions with limited users.

Our company had the option to choose a similar solution from Cisco, but Aruba Wireless was finalized due to its cost-effectiveness, user-friendly interface, and easy integrations. 

I would rate the performance and reliability features of the solution an eight out of ten. At our company, we have achieved certain cost savings by using Aruba Wireless because the competitor tools from vendors like Cisco are more expensive. At our company, from the core to the ERS network we are using backbone switches from Cisco. 

I would definitely recommend Aruba Wireless to others. I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

We run a number of guest wireless networks with captive portals with layer 3 networks. We run .1x for corporate SSIDs or wireless networks for additional certificate-based and/or WPA2 security.

Aruba has a lot of features that work particularly well. One of the things that Aruba is trying to do in most of its product ranges to make sure that all of their products now have a fully functioning northbound set of APIs. That basically means that you can plug it into any kind of system that you have for some operational pieces. For example, if you want to have Tufin, but more in line with things like change management. We're a ServiceNow shop, so we use that for change management and orchestration.

The ability to use the APIs that are available in the Aruba Wi-Fi controller means that you can get information from the system very easily by using APIs, or you can push changes to it. So, if you want to lock administrators there and restrict the type of functions that people can do, you don't have to give them access to the systems anymore. 

This functionality has been useful for us because we have recently outsourced a lot of our lower operational tasks to an outside vendor. With that, obviously, other people need to access systems, but we don't always want to give them direct access to the system. So, we can provide them with APIs to be able to perform basic tasks without giving them access to our dashboard services.

Aruba is an industry leader. The hardware is on par, and its performance is also on par with anybody else. The Aruba brand really only focuses on wireless, so they're not competing their R&D for switching data center products and cloud security. They're really focused on that and their underlying key pieces. 

They provide a role-based authentication that is native to the controller. A lot of other systems don't do that. They won't provide you the ability to basically have everybody join the network, regardless of whether or not they share the same network space, the SSID, or the wireless LAN. You can segment it down to a specific user role based on any kind of attributes that you like. That's their differentiator. If you need per user, per device, or per port segmentation, you can get that with Aruba. There isn't another vendor who does it.

Currently, the stability of the code is the basic underlying problem for us. They had an 8.6 release that came out two weeks ago, but we had to migrate twice because the code wasn't stable. We can't get things to work the same way. Version 8 was a big change for them. They made a change so that it is forced to be a managed hierarchical system. It means that you make changes at the top, and it pushes them downstream. There are a lot of problems with the 8.6 version code. I ran into four bugs in one week and was informed that we should just move onto the next one because all of those fixes have taken place. The feedback loop for fixes is not always really relayed back to you.

I don't have a lot of strong things to say about version 8.6. When we had version 6, the controller was pretty much rock solid. We had no problems. We made a heavy investment to migrate a lot of stuff to take advantage of things like WPA3, Wi-Fi 6, and all that kind of stuff, and we haven't been able to turn those features on because we are not confident that they are going to work just yet. So, right now, we're still very much stumbling through the version 8.6 code and just trying to make sure that it is safe before we turn on some of those features. 

In terms of the marketplace, they are one of the top three leaders. In some respects, one of the things that they focus on is wireless. Therefore, there are some things that should be beyond reproach, as far as I'm concerned. In terms of the stability of the code, there are always going to be bugs, but the core stability of the code needs to be there. When it is not stable, that's a real problem for me because you lose a lot of confidence in the products.

I have been working with Aruba Wireless for about four years now.

It is pretty good. There are a lot fewer people in the office, obviously, because of COVID. Under normal situations, we were probably about 2,000 users a day. Between 40% to 50% of that would be corporate users with mobile devices, such as iPhones, as well as laptop users accessing corporate resources and the corporate LAN. We also have guest users.

They are really moving towards making it cloud-based and less attractive for you to use on-premises. There are still a number of limitations with the cloud. One of the reasons we don't use cloud controllers is that they're not able to support more than 250 access points per tenant instance. For example, you have two sites. One has 200 APs, and one has 300 APs. You could put one site in the cloud so that you wouldn't need to have on-premises wireless controllers. You could manage it all from the cloud instance, and you would have zero hardware and all that kind of stuff. 

However, you wouldn't be able to deploy the second site in the cloud because you can't put more than 250 APs. So, now you have got to go back to doing it the old-fashioned way, which is to have on-premises controllers or two management suites. You don't want to do that because the way this new code works is that it is hierarchical, meaning that you build your configuration centrally, and then you push it down to your access points or your local controllers. So, if you've got one management session in the cloud and one management session on-premises, you would have to manage them at two places.

I do understand that you can configure that local hardware. So, for the site that has 300 APs and a local controller, you could plug that controller into the cloud, but it is still for two different models. So, the companies that just want to have a very simplified setup or want to make it less complicated, they can just say that we're going to go cloud or just stay on-premises, but now you have to have a combination of both, or you just stay with on-premises. There are still some basic limitations preventing us from doing wireless deployments where controllers are based in the cloud.

I use them a lot. Sometimes, I use them every day. They are pretty good. There is a problem in getting hold of people. That may be just because of COVID, but it is very much dependent on when you call and the type of issue that you have.

If it is a fairly standard issue, if you need assistance with a programming or configuration change, or if you need to know how to do something, you can normally get a very quick resolution. The meantime for resolution is pretty quick. It is within that call, half an hour, or one hour. You can generally speak to somebody. If it is some of the things that I have experienced or a bug, it can be very problematic. It could take days or weeks to get resolutions.

The basic stuff is really good. Anything past that, you probably need to have a dedicated support engineer on your camp if you're big enough, or you need to have resources that really know how to do the legwork beforehand.

I worked for a company that had Cisco for many years. Actually, towards the end of that, I switched them from Cisco to Ruckus. I did a POC and a pilot between Ruckus and Aruba, and Ruckus came out on top because of its simplified approach to wireless networking. I have also used Meraki, which is Cisco's cloud-only based AP solution. 

Cisco is like the other de facto. A lot of shops are all Cisco. Their hardware is probably on par with Aruba in terms of processing and handling capabilities. Features are also probably the same. It is more like a Ford-GM question. If you were brought up in a Ford household, you are probably going to buy a Ford sort of thing. I don't think there is much to them, to be honest.

The differentiator for me is that Cisco has a product, which is its network access control system, called ISE or identity services engine. That's a terrible product. It really is an awful product. It is very cumbersome, and it makes adding network access control to your wireless and wired networks very problematic. Aruba's product is called ClearPass, and it is a very flexible tool and easy tool. It is a much more reliable tool. While it doesn't have all the features that you can use with Cisco, it is a standard network application system, which means it will work with any vendor for any system. So, you can do 90% to 95% of the stuff you want, and it is a much more stable and capable system. This difference and the price are differentiators for me. 

From a purely wireless perspective, I think that Aruba is number one. Cisco is a very close number two, and then Ruckus is actually a distant third. Ruckus doesn't have all of the advanced capabilities, but what it does, it does very well. If you want a very basic entry-level wireless that is cheap for K-12 schools or a lot of environments like that, you can use Ruckus. If you need some of the advanced stuff, then you're going to have to pick one of the other solutions.

I would say it is straightforward. It is just that it is a backward way of doing it. They had a fundamental shift in the way you deploy configurations in version 6 to version 8. So, basically, you would do one way in version 6, and then they completely reversed it in version 8. When you come into the product for the first time, it is easy and fairly straightforward. It is an easy adoption process. If you have got lots of experience with the previous version of code, such as version 6, and then you move to version 8, it is very confusing.

Aruba is probably cheaper than Cisco, and yet you get all the things that you want.

I would recommend Aruba Wireless, but it depends on the size and the scope. If you are a large-scale enterprise, you are going to need to deploy something large. If you are a big university or something, you are going to have to pick one of the big three, which, in this case, is going to be Cisco, Aruba, or Juniper. Juniper's Mist is a recent addition that is hugely popular right now because of a lot of the stuff it does in the cloud. They are all cloud-based controllers, and they integrate machine learning into all of your analytics to give you data. 

I think that Aruba Wireless is a good product overall. They have some code issues with this change as most vendors do when they go through a major change. The product hardware is really good, and they have additional capabilities that Cisco doesn't have, like being able to do per-port tunneling so that you can keep isolation on. They are building features, and you could only make use of these if you extend out and use all the Aruba products like Aruba switches, Aruba ClearPass, etc. 

I've had a couple of conversations with them about the next release, which is actually pending. I don't think it is happening this year. It will happen next year. Version 10 is their next step of code, and it is geared more towards automating a lot of the setup. There are still a lot of manual tasks that you have to do. The automation piece has been something that has really garnered a lot of interest from the wireless community in terms of being able to set networks up. You can just buy access points and just throw them up, and once they're powered on, they communicate with zero-touch provisioning and all that kind of stuff. A lot of the automated processes are coming along, such as the ability to tie in cloud-based analytics to look at your reports, training, or data, like Juniper Mist is doing.

There will also be a change in the user interface. They have now brought in things like COVID tracking. It is not like they are adding features that the market wants. They will add the ability for you to be able to write things that you want to see so that you can basically do your own SDK, if you like, and more easily be able to tie that into what you're doing. I'm not sure whether they'll offer that within the version 10 code.

I would rate Aruba Wireless a seven out of ten. The negatives are the instability with the specific versions of code. These could be specific versions of code, but the newer features, such as WPA, WiFi 6, require some of the newer code. The newer code isn't really very stable yet. The high point would be that it is still an industry leader with on par hardware and performance like anybody else.

We deployed Aruba Wireless in our corporate head office, where we have a lot of business users. We use the product both as corporate WiFi and guest platform.

What I like best about Aruba Wireless is that it doesn't need a controller.

The product also has a GUI that's easy to navigate.

I also like that Aruba Wireless shows statistics that give you a lot of insight.

Aruba Wireless is a good product, but it still has some issues, especially at the beginning, where there's inconsistent syncing between the cloud and the APs. Sometimes, there's also a little lag when accessing the query.

I started using Aruba Wireless two years ago.

Aruba Wireless is a stable product.

I find Aruba Wireless scalable.

We've contacted Aruba Wireless support many times, but there weren't proper resolutions. Cases remain open for a few days, and then they'll automatically resolve. Then, sometimes, those cases will reappear.

Aruba support would be a four on a scale of one to five.

My company has a particular office on Cisco APs, then replaced completely with Aruba Wireless, one of the most extensive Aruba deployments in the company.

My company is still planning to switch from Cisco Wireless to Aruba Wireless in other offices. However, concerning Cisco Wireless, the product is pretty stable and solid. It has been running for years, but eighty percent of the environment is on Cisco Wireless, which Aruba Wireless will eventually replace.

Deploying Aruba Wireless is pretty straightforward.

It took several days to complete the deployment because the office was enormous and the number of APs deployed was quite significant.

It took one to two months to pre-stage, install, and make Aruba Wireless stable.

My company pre-staged the equipment and the APs, and then initially, the deployment team had a few issues during the Aruba Wireless installation.

A third-party team deployed the product for my company.

As Aruba Wireless doesn't require a controller, my company saved some money, so there's ROI from the product.

I don't know the exact costs associated with Aruba Wireless, but I have a rough idea, and it's not too cheap, though it's less costly than Cisco Wireless. Pricing for Aruba Wireless is moderate. It's a three out of five.

I have experience with both Cisco Wireless and Aruba Wireless.

My company uses Aruba Wireless IAP-245.

It's a centrally-managed cloud product.

Daily, the number of Aruba Wireless users varies. If there's a meeting, then many high-profile users will come. At least two or three times a week, there will be many product users, for example, IT engineers, designers, finance people, and people from other teams.

My advice for anyone looking into implementing Aruba Wireless is that it depends on the use cases. You get all the features available in Cisco Wireless at a lesser price, but in terms of support and stability, Cisco is ahead of Aruba. However, Aruba Wireless is a good option when considering the price and if you're a mid-sized organization.

Aruba Wireless gets a seven out of ten from me.

The tool's most valuable feature is Aruba Central, which offers centralized management. You can manage its switches, APs, and data access. It is easy to manage the entire switches and APs. The solution is the best in terms of security and manageability. 

Our customers ask for a security portfolio, which the tool doesn't have. 

I have been working with the product for three years. 

I rate Aruba Wireless' stability a nine out of ten. It comes with a limited lifetime warranty. 

The solution is scalable. My territory has at least 70-80 customers. 

The tool's deployment is easy. Its deployment depends on the network type and scope of work. Simple scenarios can be completed in a week. Complex networks take two to three months to complete. 

Our customers who use Aruba Wireless are very much happy. We have a pre-sales team that helps us with solution design, POCs, installation, and implementation. Our customers appreciate this kind of support. I rate it a nine out of ten.