Aruba Wireless Reviews

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. 

Aruba Wireless does not have too many distinguishing feature sets. However, tunneling is more flexible in this solution than other solutions, such as Ruckus.

Aruba Wireless could improve the dashboard. It is not straightforward or intuitive to use and could be more user-friendly. For IT employees the dashboards are fine but when it comes to the end-user it is difficult. The Mobility Controller dashboard is not meant for non-IT employees.

I have been using Aruba Wireless for approximately 12 years.

Aruba Wireless is a stable solution. The controllers have been working well for over four years, but I have replaced a few APs.

I rate the stability of Aruba Wireless an eight out of ten.

Aruba Wireless is scalable. However, you need to purchase certain models of the solution to have high limits. For example, the 7210 model has hard-coded limits that I cannot increase.

We primarily support hotels and I have completed 500 rooms. The system can handle approximately 500 to 1000 users.

When we need to escalate to a priority one case it is difficult.

I rate the support of Aruba Wireless a two out of five.

Neutral

I have used Ruckus previously and when I compare this solution to Ruckus, they are both very similar. I implement both of them.

The initial setup of Aruba Wireless is a lot easier to do than on other solutions.

The price of Aruba Wireless could improve. It is expensive. However, I am able to reduce my costs because I do not use all the features in the controller, such as the AD integration and other enterprise features.

I prefer Ruckus over Aruba Wireless.

I rate Aruba Wireless an eight out of ten.

The primary use we have for the product is for users' corporate mobile access.  

The most valuable feature is the fact that it can work with many devices. It supports everything that we need it to. Whatever features are required from an enterprise standard, it supports all of them. The main advantage is broad device support.  

The area that has the most room for improvement is upgrades. What we have seen many times now is that new releases tend to have bugs. Sometimes the bugs are a little bad and cause some undesirable issues. The new code in the upgrades or something leads to conflicts. I would say testing releases before making them available is one of the areas which Aruba needs to improve most with the wireless product. More comprehensive testing is required for a better, more reliable end-user experience.  

It is not necessarily testing more often, it is just for new releases. The testing they need to do is to work more closely with different environments and take notice of where issues tend to occur. They should have some idea of what environments are experiencing issues more often by now because of which companies are reporting the issues. They can make compensations for testing in those environments.  

I do not have any new features that the product requires off the top of my head. I think that more than improving the product, there are management portfolios and other peripheral things that could be better integrated. But just doing better testing is the main improvement that they need to make.  

We have been using Aruba Wireless for between seven and eight years now.  

Aruba Wireless has been a stable solution for us. Once it was set up correctly it was fine. We had some initial hiccups. We still have issues with upgrades sometimes. Except for mostly minor issues, it has been a good solution.  

Aruba Wireless is easily scaled between a lot of devices and a lot of endpoints. When we decided to use it as our solution we had planned to use it exactly for its ability to scale. We went through a massive scaling and did not have issues with devices and endpoints.  

Right now we have 30,000 users and around 45,000 devices between those users. It does not seem that there are many limitations for scaling the product's use.  

Technical support is good. The only issue we have had with them is that we often have to be referred to their engineering response team. That situation actually happens most of the time. On the other hand, we do not need to use support very often.  

So, yes, we get support for the product and we eventually get the solution we need, but most of the time it gets referred to their engineering team to get the complete solution. Overall, the support is pretty good.  

The initial setup was a little bit complex because our environment is complex. Because of that, I would say the initial setup was complex. It may not be as complex for other companies.  

It took almost a year for deployment. But there are two sides to the setup. One is the product is good and it can be configured to do what we need. But our environment was complex because it involves some legacy devices and some really advanced new devices and technologies as well. It is good that the product is able to support both of those needs.  

We have a couple of IT specialists, one architect, and a development operations engineer for deploying the updates and maintaining the solution. In total, it is around four or five people who maintain the product. Not everyone needs to be dedicated to it full-time.  

The advice that I would give to others who are looking into implementing Aruba starts with that it is a good product. It has some really good features. But the other reality is that you might need to be prepared to face some hiccups with any upgrades and with the setup.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate the Aruba Wireless solution as a seven-point-five out of ten. Because of the upgrade issues and the persistence of those, I would rate it a seven.  

The primary use is for distributing internet bandwidth. The performance is good.

The benefit is the constant delivery of internet bandwidth. Everybody is getting internet access properly. When 40 - 50 people are sitting in a small area it is capable of delivering internet to them constantly.

It delivers constantly, there is no break in the internet using these devices. It also automatically gets connected when the internet comes back. Failure is very low.

What I would like to have with these kinds of devices is the most enhanced security. For example, if I could apply security from wireless devices, that would be great.

I would also like more enhanced reports on user adoption, who is getting what bandwidth. That is the kind of report I should be getting.

It's completely stable.

Scalability is good. Suppose there are 20 people in a room and suddenly 10 more people come into the room. It automatically scales up and provides the internet.

A situation where we have had to contact technical support has never happened in the last year. It has been really constant in the distribution of the bandwidth.

I wanted experience using more products. We were already using another product but I thought, "Okay, let's try Aruba this time and see what the feedback is like." I thought Aruba would give me better performance, after looking at the performance of the existing devices.

When selecting a vendor, the most important factor is that support has to be there. I would look for constant support from any vendor. It can't be that the product is sold and after that there is no support. There has to be constant and quick support from the vendor.

The setup is straightforward, it's not complex. Things are quite easy with Aruba.

We were looking at different products for our new premises. Aruba was known to me so I compared Aruba with Ruckus.

I would definitely recommend Aruba devices.

I rate Aruba Wireless at nine out of 10 because of the performance and stability of the product. It's not a 10 because it needs enhanced security and a more granular level of reporting. If these kinds of things were provided it could be a 10.

We're primarily using it for wireless users. It's actually to monitor use; we're using stand-alone wireless controllers in all our sites.

Before we used Aruba Wireless we had individual access points connected to our switches. We didn't actually have a centralized switch that could control all of our access points. Now, bringing the Aruba Wireless Controller into production, it's really giving us good visibility. All our access points are connected to one controller. Through that controller, we can actually handle each access point; we can disconnect or connect that access point, and then we can tell, or see, or allow how many users are, or should be, connected through that access point. These are the developments, or the functionalities, that wireless controllers provide for us.

The most important feature is all about the two wavelengths, the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz, and the access points which are connected to this wireless controller.

The perfect thing is that if we really want to know where a specific user is connected, it gives us the ability to see that and how that user is actually receiving. We can know the speed and their IP, their MAC address and, most of the time, how much bandwidth they're using per day. The wireless controller actually gives that functionality as well.

The other good thing is the dashboard. It tells us who is using most of the bandwidth, and how many APs are not in good range, or that do not actually have good security. It shows us which users are trying to hack or how many users are trying to use BitTorrent. So it gives us very good visibility into the user, so we know who we have or who we are providing internet or bandwidth for.

The speed could be better. I heard that Aruba is trying to shape the speed inside the wireless controller, but that has not been adopted yet. If they put some kind of mechanism inside the wireless controller for the speed such that, "Okay, this many users will have 20 by 20, 20 in the upload, 20 in the download. Just this many users. And this many users will have this type of speed or that type of speed." I think it would be very good if they actually bring that functionality inside the wireless controller.

I would also like to see stable firmware.

Every month Aruba has new firmware. I don't know if it's good or bad but it's not good in terms of production. We can't upgrade our firmware every month, especially an enterprise company, because if we upgrade our firmware based on the latest firmware that Aruba has, that firmware is not stable. They're not 100 percent sure about it.

My suggestion is, take your time, or invest in your knowledge. Bring on more engineers. Don't produce or broadcast firmware every month. Just have two or three firmware updates each year, and make them stable. Perfect. The way that Cisco does.

The amount of work that the controllers are handling is perfect. It's very good.

Tech support is pretty easy to work with, pretty fast. But when it comes to sending your logs to the Aruba guys, then it takes time. I had some crash logs the other day. I sent them and it took about three weeks for them to analyze the logs and then, in the end, they told me they really didn't know what was going on.

So the help desk, the first level of support is very good. But when it's going to the engineers to analyze logs, then it takes time.

The setup was a little bit complicated. It really depends on the person. If you really don't know and it's your first time that you are touching an Aruba device, then it takes a lot of time. You're not going to get it, if you have never actually touched an Aruba Wireless Controller. You have to have an experienced engineer with you to show you what to do: how to add an AP, how to proceed with all the other configurations. Once you have had your hands on it a couple of times, then it becomes easier.

It's not expensive. That is the reason we switched to Aruba.

Take the training at first and then implement it. Be sure to have full knowledge of your network, know how your network has been set up. And have a senior engineer or have one of the Aruba engineers so they can help you with the project that you have. Ask them how to actually implement Aruba into your network and they can advise you.

I give this solution a 10 out of 10. It's a new product, Aruba is somewhat new to the market but I think they are doing an excellent job. For a newbie type of product, it's not very easy to compete with the market, especially with the Cisco controller manager. But I think Aruba is on top, nowadays, in the market.

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.

We primarily use the solution for access points. 

The solution is very complete. 

The portal has been very helpful for us. 

It's easy to set up the solution. 

We have found the product to be stable. 

It's scalable. 

They need to increase the number of routers on the controller. The VSSIP needs to have at least 25 access points. I just need them to increase the access points without the controller.

Other than that, it has everything we need, and we do not need any new features. 

The downside is right now there is a shortage of hardware. It's hard to acquire switches and access points. 

I started using the solution one year ago.

The stability has been good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution is scalable. 

We have ten people using the solution right now. 

I've never called technical support. I haven't needed any assistance so far. 

I've also used Juniper.

The product has been very easy to set up. It's straightforward to implement. It did not become overly complex. Under ten access points only takes about five minutes to set up. 

We only need one person to manage the solution. 

It is free to use. It is open source. We do not have to pay for a license. 

We're an Aruba partner. 

We are using version 11. In 2022, it might be now version 12. 

I'd rate the solution eight 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.