Aruba Wireless Reviews

Using this solution district-wide in all of our secondary buildings. We have over 1000 IAP-225 APs deployed, along with ClearPass.

We currently use the MAC address caching through ClearPass to allow guests to connect from a prior authenticated attempt. We also use the Visual RF component in AirWave for tracking devices.

There aren't a lot of features that Aruba has that their competitors don't. With that being said, some of the implementations or features do work as advertised: easy deployment of APs, MAC caching, and aesthetically pleasing GUI for configuration.

The urgent areas of improvement would be customer support, better tuned default settings, and documentation. Aruba’s TAC support for us has been frustrating most of the time, as there is a clear language/dialect barrier when speaking or emailing a TAC representative. We’ve found that we have more emails (which equates to longer resolution time) than typically needed to cover certain questions and updates – as the TAC directions and instructions were either incomplete or we couldn’t understand what they were referencing. There have been occasions where a local Aruba rep, has had to step in for the TAC due to this problem.

Out of the box the Aruba gear (at least with the IAP-225 APs) comes with all of the marketing promised higher throughput settings (which causes issues such as CCI) enabled such as (but not limited to): 80 Mhz channel width (which anybody rarely uses), all 2.4 Ghz channels enabled, and high transmit power turned on. Many of these settings are used rarely in most deployments, and will need to be tuned. Aruba should enable 40 Mhz channels, only enable channels 1,6,11 on 2.4 Ghz, and set the power lower – as this will give most deployments a better chance at succeeding. This would benefit those who just put them in and call it a day or have little to no knowledge on the inner-workings of RF. This isn't an Aruba only problem, many of the wireless vendors do this, and the community has asked for this to change – however, I felt it was worth noting.

Aruba’s documentation is pretty good, however there are cases where something is recommended by a TAC or an Aruba engineer that cannot be found in their documentation for the product itself, or their best practices guides (often referred to as Validated Reference Designs – VRD). The things that we've had to change/rethink but weren't in the documentation are: cluster sizes, standard L2 VLAN, disabling L3 Mobility, and client match.

Four to six years.

We have encountered stability issues. The APs would sometimes randomly reboot; no idea what was causing it and support was less than helpful. The clients connecting would have a magnitude of issues until we turned off or disabled some features (some of which we really wanted to use).

We have encountered scalability issues. We were initially hooked by the simplistic nature of the "controller-less" idea. We have come to find out that we need to revamp our networking from 1-2 clusters per building (depending on size), to one cluster per network closet. This is not in the official documentation, so it feels like bait and switch. We also need to redo our VLANS, as now we've been told to go to one big L2 network for data, again not located in the documentation.

Customer Service:

Customer service is very poor. We've had many problems with Aruba TAC, such as (and not limited to): not being able to understand them, them not being complete in their requests, and outright incompetence. We've had to bring in Aruba reps and other third parties locally to assist in getting issues resolved.

Technical Support:

Technical support is very poor; see Customer Service section.

We previously used Extreme Networks. We switched from 802.11n to 802.11ac, and Aruba was rewarded the bid mainly due to cost.

The setup for the APs is straightforward; however, you need to be extremely knowledgeable to set up ClearPass.

Implementation was done by a little bit of both an in-house team and a vendor team. The vendor helped us get the ClearPass set up; otherwise, we set up the AirWave appliance (monitoring solution - similar to a controller).

Not sure about ROI, but with the money spent attempting to fix the problems caused by this solution, it's definitely not as good as we would like.

In regards to perhaps a 'hidden' ROI, one of our building's WiFi was extremely unreliable that the staff and users of the network simply gave up using it. We are pursuing a different vendor at this location.

Get multiple bids/quotes, and talk to the representatives about the limitations of the product; pretty standard.

Before choosing this product, we also evaluated Cisco, Extreme Networks (Enterasys at the time), and Xirrus. This process was completed before I came aboard.

Honestly, and simply put, I would look elsewhere. I feel this company falls short on its promises, has been a pain to work with, and the product I feel is inferior to its many competitors.

Don't be fooled by the marketing hype; it's a fair product but it's not everything they promise.

We primarily use the product for wireless connectivity in terms of securing wireless access.

Wi-Fi 6 is the most beneficial aspect of the solution. Apart from that, the WPA3 introduction in terms of security is one of the key features.

The solution is stable.

It's a scalable product.

Technical support is helpful.

The pricing is pretty good.

The scope of improvement would go along with the technology's adoption into the market. Even though Wi-Fi 6 has been introduced, everyone is quite skeptical in the market in terms of the adoption part, as the platform network should be that strong to cater to that kind of bandwidth. While it may be great in the future, currently, the existing versions are incompatible with some of the networks which customers own.

They could improve the seamless roaming, which is already there, however, needs some tweaking.

I've used the solution for quite a long time. I've been deploying this product to multiple customers and it's been almost five years.

The solution is stable. For example, even some military organizations are using Aruba Wireless and RF features. It is quite reliable for an enterprise to work with.

Aruba works with small to large companies. Data is open for all three. They have different kinds of solutions for individual stakeholders in terms of small, medium, and large. They have a different product portfolio offering for small. They have something else for mid-size enterprises and larger enterprises as well. Everyone can be catered to.

It is quite easy to scale, even if a small-scale business is starting with a standalone deployment. They too can scale up to 50 or 60 access points on a mid-scale deployment eventually. The group pattern in terms of the wireless controller has limits to the physical hardware appliances if you already own one. That said, the cloud adoption part is one of the aspects which gives you quite a bit of scalability and you need not worry about your scalability and your future growth.

Technical support is quite brilliant and they offer good support as well as product replacement. Any Aruba product that is wireless includes a limited lifetime warranty wherein the delivery scope is not bound to an SLA. They will give a replacement if you purchase support or not. That is the best part of Aruba.

Positive

I also use Cisco.

There are no differences in the technology. There are some user experience differences. Integration would be a part of that. There are many integrations possible in the Cisco portfolio in terms of their own product line. If the entire portfolio is of Cisco, then the integration is quite easy and Cisco has the same kind of offerings. The SLA might differ and some of the user experiences might differ. However, in terms of the portfolio, Cisco stands out as they have an enterprise-class and a different portfolio altogether to cater to the cloud-based market. They have an entire offering called Meraki. They do focus on the enterprise with Cisco. Companies that are small or medium scale work more with Meraki.

The standalone deployments are straightforward whereas the introduction of wireless controllers and security parameters can be complex. That depends on the architecture to which you are applying. Even though direct integration with any of the radio servers or any of the triple-A authentication servers like Mac is very straightforward, it could be complex depending upon the environment.

A standalone deployment would not take more than 15 minutes. It is quite simple. You might need some pre-planning before that. If you planned enough in advance, then it would take you 15 minutes or 20 minutes at a maximum to deploy. If there's a wireless controller deployment, it would take a maximum of two hours to three hours. Not more than that.

Maintenance as such is not required. It's just the regular maintenance that you do in terms of software upgrades or firmware upgrades, in terms of when vulnerabilities are found. 

Aruba is quite competitive in pricing. In some cases, on a case-to-case basis, Cisco also gives better discounts in terms of price. 

You may have to pay for additional support if you require services bound to some actual replacement time. They will charge you some amount for RMS support, not for technical support. Eventually, the technical support is built into the cost.

I used to work with an organization that had a business relationship with Aruba, however, recently I've moved on.

I typically work with the latest version of the solution.

It can be deployed on-premises as well as in the cloud.

I would recommend new users utilize each and every feature of the wireless capabilities which are being offered for security. There is quite a bit of integration possible.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Aruba Wireless could improve the interface, it does not have a smart web interface. Other solutions have smart web interfaces, such as Cisco Meraki.

I have been using Aruba Wireless for approximately six years.

Aruba Wireless is stable.

Aruba Wireless is scalable for the needs of my customers. Some of my customers have approximately 1,500 users using the solution and it works well.

The price of Aruba Wireless is reasonable.

I rate Aruba Wireless a seven out of ten.

It gives us centralized management for all campuses and all wireless access points. Students have guest networks, so the centralized management help us to manage all of users.

Some of the diagnostic features I'd expect to help me troubleshoot parts of the network are missing. I'd like to have diagnostic tools to pinpoint where devices are not getting good signals and why.

We've been using it for about four to five years.

We've had no issues with deployment.

We've had only minimal outages over the past 5 years thanks to the High Availability solution for the controllers and the access points. If we do have an outage on one controller, the access points can free-associate to another controller on another campus and still function properly for the students and staff. So this is a very stable solution.

We've been able to scale sufficiently for our needs.

Customer service and technical support have always been great. We've never had an issue getting support from Aruba. We've always had quick responses and very helpful solutions when we contact them.

Before Aruba, we were on individual "fat" access points, so we had to manage each one individually.

It's pretty simple. Once the master controller and the local controllers are set up, it's just a matter of syncing the configurations, so you do the configuration once on the centralized controller, and everything gets replicated to all the local controllers at each campus. Adding, removing, changing, bringing on new controllers to replace old controllers is a pretty simple process.

I think originally we were in the $30-50,000 range, with yearly maintenance costs and support for licensing, which cost $10-$15,000.

We needed a more centrally-managed solution so that you didn't have to manage each individual AP. When we sought out quotes, we looked at Aruba, Meru, Cisco, and a couple of others. Based on the features and the scalability and all the deployment solutions and everything that we needed, Aruba was the best solution for us.

Make sure you get a proper configuration. Do a proper site survey of your location to know what you need to configure and how you need to customize it to your own environment so that when you deploy your wireless, you're not popping up with any surprises from a bad signal or bad interference in certain places. Just make sure you know your area and you customize your solution around what your area provides for you.

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.

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. 

I work for an international service integrating company and we provide resources that are distributed internationally. We use Wireless for our branch and remote locations, and it's mainly for the internet. We are service integrators and deploy this solution as well as provide support to multiple customers. I am the director of technology and we are currently customers of Aruba. 

Reasonably priced and great for small to medium size organizations. One positive is that they're not constantly providing upgrades and that reduces exposure to complications.

I haven't yet seen a cloud-based wireless controller in Aruba and I'm waiting for that as well as a heat map analysis which is also lacking. I'd like to see application visibility in the next release on the inbound and outbound traffic flow. 

The solution is working well and we haven't had any issues with stability. Traffic flow is starting to increase now that workers are returning to the office, and we're likely to move to Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 7 in the near future.

Getting a response from technical support is really tough and is a pain point for us. It doesn't flow like in Cisco Tech.

Neutral

The initial setup is pretty easy, certainly not as complicated as Cisco. There aren't many upgrades or major bugs so it's more stable than Cisco. Deployment time depends on the size of the project. A small site will take about two weeks, a larger project might take three or four weeks. We have nine engineers supporting Aruba.

I'm unaware of the cost but I know it's cheaper than Cisco and that is why Aruba generally wins when a contract goes to tender or in the procurement phase.

A key factor is to ensure the solution suits your requirements. If a smaller organization is looking for an on-prem solution, then Aruba would fit in. For larger deployments, it would be better to go with Cisco. If you're an organization with 400 different sites, Cisco is the way to go. Aruba has proven itself for smaller to midsize deployments.

The solution does what it's meant to and I'm happy with it. I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

We're using Aruba Wireless as a wireless access point, particularly Aruba AP-505.

We're also using Aruba Wireless for guest management purposes.

For my organization, the most critical feature of Aruba Wireless is guest management.

An area for improvement in Aruba Wireless is creating a DMZ. Without Aruba ClearPass, you need to allow guess access directly via the internet, which means you need to implement the security in between, so this is what I'd like Aruba to improve in the product.

Another area for improvement in Aruba Wireless is delivery because right now, in the COVID-19 pandemic, the product doesn't have much availability. There's a limited supply of semiconductors, so I want Ariba to increase Aruba Wireless production. The product needs to be available and delivered to customers faster.

I've been working with Aruba Wireless since 2016.

I would rate the stability of Aruba Wireless as nine out of ten.

From a scalability point of view, I don't see any challenges with scaling Aruba Wireless. After all, my organization only has one office and only needs approximately fifty APs.

Aruba Wireless has good technical support.

We used Cisco, the older technology, before using Aruba Wireless. We were not getting guest management as a feature on Cisco, while Aruba Wireless came up with guest management via Aruba ClearPass, so we started using Aruba Wireless.

The initial setup for Aruba Wireless was easy. It was so simple. My organization used it as a standalone solution.

Deploying the product took approximately six months.

We implemented Aruba Wireless through a consultant. Our experience with the consultant was good. He provided good support without the need for any intervention. The product was implemented well and working per our requirements.

The commercial department handles the Aruba Wireless license for my organization, so I cannot comment on the product's pricing.

I have experience with Aruba Wireless.

My organization is an Aruba Wireless customer.

My organization has three administrators of the product. Currently, there is no plan to increase Aruba Wireless usage.

I'd tell anyone looking to implement the product that Aruba Wireless works well in my environment. I have no complaints about it, so I can only say this.

Overall, I'd rate Aruba Wireless as eight out of ten.