Aruba Wireless Reviews

We use Aruba 7010 controllers to deploy our wireless system infrastructure. We're planning to use Aruba for our wired network, including the core switches. We're waiting for the upgrades of existing wired infrastructure to be delivered.

One advantage is the built-in Zigbee-based IoT functionality. You don't need an additional dongle to enable that option. 

Aruba is missing some features that are available in other solutions, such as the email notifications. It's a bit complex to configure the notification part. Mainly I'm talking about the rogue WiFi detection. 

This email notification is crucial for us, but it isn't possible to configure with the built-in software. You need something else, like an external system log collector or another Aruba software. These notifications are essential in hospitality for PCI compliance. My colleagues in famous luxury hotel chains need that report.

One of the requirements for PCI compliance is rogue WiFi detection. When a rogue AP is discovered, they need a notification sent to a certain email. If there is no built-in feature, you need either to purchase an additional software to make sure that you are notified through that software. This feature is built into Ruckus.

We've been using Aruba Wireless for a year now.

We haven't conducted any upgrades to the latest version, but Aruba support suggested we upgrade. We need to schedule the time because it will cause downtime, but it is stable. 

Some access points have frozen a few times. We restart them, and that resolves the issue, but we've never had significant issues with the APs, controller, or the software itself. No one has complained about the system and the infrastructure in general.

It's scalable depending on the number of licenses you buy. We two people in the IT department managing the controller and access points. In a hotel, the usage depends on the occupancy. It can be up to 1,000 people, but let's say about 500 people.

Aruba support is knowledgeable. We never had an issue contacting support, but I I've had the chance to troubleshoot the same system in a little different environment. They're responsive, and you never feel like you're on your own with them.

We were using an older generation of the AP, and it was outdated by the time we upgraded. I also had some experience with Ruckus. It wasn't extensive, but my colleagues say that Ruckus is more reliable in a hospitality setting, and the coverage is better. 

Aruba lacks functions like the rogue Wi-Fi notification, but it's a good product. It just requires fine-tuning to get what you need and a good experience. Ruckus can do everything out of the box. You have an initial input, and it does everything for you. You can get the same from the Aruba.

The Aruba partner deployed the solution. I was partially involved, though. It wasn't that difficult, but it took a while because we have complex corporate standards. It was maybe three weeks plus testing in the lab. 

Aruba is cheaper than their competitors in our market since we don't have a full Ruckus presence of the Ruckus here. There are no licensed modules, so it's a one-time purchase. 

We have a five-year care plan, and the access points have a lifetime warranty. We had one or two access points malfunctioning. It looks like a factory issue, but local support replaced them pretty quickly, considering the problems with logistics worldwide.

Once you factor in the lifetime warranty, it's cheaper and not bad feature-wise. At some point, some of their products were not available, like WiFi 6, but that was last year. 

I rate Aruba Wireless eight out of 10. It has good support and solid options for the access points. However, if the Ruckus solution were the same price, I would go for Ruckus. We have some budget limitations, so we ended up going with Aruba and fine-tuning it.

In general, we have no issues with coverage. It works fine, and it's WiFi 6. At that point, there was no WiFi 6 hospitality version of the access points from Ruckus available in our market. That was one of the biggest advantages in addition to the price. We also got an IoT-enabled solution by default. If you don't need these notifications, you can go with Aruba product. Otherwise, you need to consider that in advance.

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.

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 use the solution for corporate users and guest users who come to the company. We use it for IoT devices, like factory devices and cameras.

We have a multi-site design with Aruba. For small locations, we use Aruba Remote Access Point. We can open a VPN tunnel to the controllers, and the users can connect their servers securely. For example, we used a captive portal solution from Aruba. The guest users could log in using web portals without any tools.

We manage all wireless devices from Aruba Central. Aruba AirWave is an on-premise solution. If we have our own servers, we can use AirWave and troubleshoot wireless networks. It's a good management system. It enables easy troubleshoots and management. The solution is secure. It has all the security options.

The support should be faster.

I have been using the solution for four or five years.

The tool is stable.

The tool is scalable. We have about 3000 users.

The support was better before. Now it is not good. It should be improved.

The setup is complex for new users. Cloud deployment is easier than on-premise deployment. The deployment can be done in one to two days.

The deployment can be done in-house. We can deploy devices from the cloud for remote locations. We need not go there. Aruba has a solution for zero-touch provisioning.

The product is expensive. We need to renew the license to use the tool.

I will recommend the solution to others. Overall, I rate the product a seven out of ten.

Our primary use case of the solution is hospitality.

The most valuable feature is that it can be tuned much more than other vendors, giving you more options to execute. 

The solution can be improved by simplifying the configuration. I would like to see a more user-friendly GUI that is not so easily confused when configuring clusters or even a single node when people are not paying attention to what layer they are configuring, whether it be at the mobility master level or at the node level. I would like to see more analytics that can help us pinpoint the cause of reduced performance related to the airtime and number of SSIDs being used.

I have been using the solution for two years.

I consider the solution to be stable.

I believe the solution is scalable.

The support team for the solution is good and always eager to help.

Positive

The initial setup is more complex than other solutions. You need to understand the technology, the way it's configured, and the way you have to set it up. The solution requires more knowledge and more commitment than others.

We implemented it in-house.

The pricing has increased and it was always more costly than some of the other solutions available.

I evaluated Ruckus and Meraki Wireless before choosing the solution.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

Although there are other solutions available and some with a lower initial cost, they don't offer the same level of integration with IoT as this solution without having to add additional hardware, which ends up costing more.

I recommend that you gather all the requirements and define the API groups before the deployment of this solution.

Our primary use case for this solution is extending the LAN capabilities via wireless capabilities so people can roam around in the office with wireless connectivity. Additionally, its management has a lot of insight into which access point you're connected to and a lot of information about the devices. Some of the information is related to bringing your device, whether it's a device which is owned by the company or not and reporting what sites are being browsed and accessed.

We find its stability very valuable. It's been running for the past three years with no default configuration.

The solution could be more user-friendly.

We have been using the solution for a couple of years and are currently using the latest one.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable. We have approximately 300 users utilizing the solution.

We have had a relatively good experience with customer service and support. I rate them an eight out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup is a bit complex and requires some basic networking and wireless networking concepts.

We implemented via a vendor, and implementation took approximately one week.

We did not evaluate other options because we wanted one integrated solution which incorporated both wired and wireless, and with Aruba Wireless, we got the full package.

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. I advise users to research and decide based on their organization's needs.

We primarily use the solution for wireless access, for using WiFi and the network, the internet.

It's very popular. We've ordered more than 150 units.

It's a really good product. It's really easy to maintain. 

The AP preconfig with the USB console cable and everything is easy and really useful for the company. 

The installation is simple. 

Users have been very pleased with the solution as it offers such a high-speed connection. The network strength is good. 

It is more intuitive and user-friendly.

I don't have any access in the Aruba dashboard. I need more access. I only install the hardware and the software part for the client. However, there are no admin privileges, which is an issue. You need to contact them and make a special request. They should allow everybody to fiddle with their settings if they bought the solution.

I've used the solution for the past six months. 

We haven't had any performance issues. The solution is stable. 

The scalability is pretty good. You can expand it by using Aruba Switches. 

We have about 700 users on the solution at this point. 

I've never had any reason to reach out to technical support.

I previously used Meraki. Aruba has better network speed. Also, in Meraki, when we make changes, we need to refresh the dashboard. With Aruba, it's one click and we can regulate and refresh the dashboard. It's much easier. 

The solution is simple to install. It's not overly difficult or complex. For half of the preconfig process, it might only take 15 minutes. 

Then, there might be one and a half hours for testing, to fix the access IDs and other access points to match everything in the data center. 

We only need two people to install and set up the solution. 

I deploy the solution for our clients. 

We have seen a positive ROI.

I don't handle the licensing aspect of the solution. It is likely more expensive than Meraki since Meraki just has a dashboard. Aruba has a little bit more on offer. 

You do have to purchase the software and hardware separately.

We did not consider any other options before choosing Aruba.

We have a partnership with Aruba.

Overall, it's a good solution, and we are happy with it. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Our company has a conference center and we use the solution for all our conferencing needs. 

The solution has been helpful in improving the way our company functions. 

The solution is easy to configure on-premise. We always got complaints about support for our prior solution so handling configuration in-house is easier. 

Configuration could be made easier with more bandwidth than they offer at the moment. 

I have been using the solution for three years. 

The solution's stability is good. 

The solution is very flexible and scalable. We have about 10,000 users and are at about 50% of maximum capacity. 

We used to contract with outside, local vendors for technical support, but found them picky about their ability to respond. We now handle support on-premise. 

Neutral

Our company uses a few solutions for our conferencing needs including this solution and Ruckus Wireless. We added Aruba because we expanded and needed two solutions. 

The initial setup was easy compared to other solutions. We have two staff members who maintain the solution. 

We hired a third party for setup and it took about four months. I rate the setup experience an eight out of ten.

We have received a good return on investment. I would rate our ROI a six out of ten. 

Licensing for the solution is based on number of users. There was also an initial setup fee, but I don't have those details. 

Our company looked at a few other options, but chose Aruba based on recommendations from other large businesses that compare in size/scope to ours.

I rate this solution an eight out of ten.