Aruba Wireless Reviews

The most valuable features of Aruba Wireless are the seamless feature and the concurrent user.

Aruba Wireless can improve the assigning of access points. We have times that the nearest access point is not assigned but one far away. The integration between access points could improve.

I have been using Aruba Wireless for approximately one year.

Aruba Wireless is very stable among all the other access points I have used.

The scalability of Aruba Wireless is good.

We have approximately 1,000 to 1,300 users using the solution. We plan to increase the usage of the solution. There are plans to install 150 access points in January.

We have a partner in Indonesia that we use for support that is called Agiva and they sometimes escalate issues to Aruba Wireless. I do not have direct experience with the support of Aruba Wireless.

I do not have any experience with other vendors other than Aruba Wireless.

The initial setup of Aruba Wireless is simple, including a wireless plan used. If we have instant access points and change them to computer access points, it is simple to do.

We have a license for the source mobility controller.

The price of Aruba Wireless is expensive.

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

We have four people for the maintenance of the solution.

I rate Aruba Wireless a nine out of ten.

Our team handles the Aruba controller. We have four senior and two junior engineers.

AirWave is a valuable feature.

We're using the Aruba Sensor, but sometimes the sensor isn't talking to AirWave or the AP. If something happens, we need to receive an email directly from the sensor, but the controller doesn't know. If there's something like the high channel utilization from the sensor we send to the controller, the controller can change the channel because they're all in the same environment.

Also, the controller can not do active/standby mode. It only works in active/active. I haven't seen any option for active/standby because we want to put one in the backup center. However, with the active/active mode, the traffic must go to the primary and the backup center.

I would like it if Aruba had a mobile app so I wouldn't need to log in on my laptop. They should also simplify the solution, so there aren't so many layers. It would be nice if the solution double-checked your configurations. For example, it could warn you if a configuration change in one layer conflicts with your current settings. 

I have been using Aruba Wireless since 2018.

Aruba is stable. 

Aruba is pretty scalable. 

I've called Aruba support directly for several tickets. It is quite good most of the time.

I work with Cisco and Aruba. We are more familiar with Cisco because we've been using it for more than 15 years. It is stable and available in active/standby. We can put one in the backup dial center and one in the primary dial center.

Cisco's controller is also stable, and they're using DNA to monitor. It sends us an alert if something happens and tells us what caused the problem. It can identify the root cause and solution. 

Deploying Aruba is somewhat complex. There are many layers. It's easy to make mistakes because the same setting will appear in different layers. Various parts of large buildings can have different settings.

We don't like the subscription model. We need to adjust our budget every time we renew the license.

I rate Aruba Wireless eight out of 10. I would recommend it to a small or medium-sized company. It depends on your budget because Aruba is slightly cheaper than Cisco. 

Aruba is part our our network infrastructure.

The most valuable features are ease of use, a simple management interface, cost-effectiveness, reliability, and simple installation.

The web-based GUI is much simpler to use than similar products by Cisco.

Because it's cloud-based, it takes time for the floor maps and the heat map to load. I understand the reason for this but it would be nice if once you click on the flop map, instead of waiting sometimes 20 or 30 seconds, it would come up a lot quicker.

I have been working with the Aruba Wireless cloud service for between a year and eighteen months. It's fairly new but I work on it every day.

This is the most stable wireless product that we have had.

We have only had similar products by Cisco but we've had a lot of problems with them. Our partners have come out to look at them, as well as remote services, and they've told us that "everything is fine". However, we have to reboot APs here and there at all of our sites.

Once we implemented the Aruba solution, we've not had those problems since.

We have nine remote sites right now, around the world, with multiple access points per site. Some sites have two or three access points, whereas others have between 25 and 30, depending on how large the site is. In total, we have 147 access points.

We have a data network that we use, and we also have a guest network. ADF authentication logs into the data network and the guest network is open. It's pretty simple to scale.

We had a building and a site that we decommissioned, so we have between nine and eleven spare APs floating around. All you have to do is plug them into the network using the right port, give them a name, and they come online. After that, you assign a foundation license to them and overall, it couldn't be simpler.

With the spares and backups we have, should we need to scale, and we always do, it's easy.

The technical support is good. They know what they're doing although the biggest problem that I have with them is their accents.

You open up a ticket and I have nothing against the people, but it always routes to India. We open a support case and they're very difficult to understand. Not all of them, but a lot of them are. As such, we've had some problems communicating and we've had to use text messages to compensate for the accents.

Otherwise, their technical skills are top-notch.

Another thing that I'll say about their tech support is that it's easy to get in and have a ticket assigned, which gets the ball rolling when we have a problem. With Cisco, it sometimes took days to get an engineer assigned.

I also have experience with Cisco wireless LAN controllers and a little bit with the Meraki line of networking equipment.

We were primarily running Cisco products at one time. However, we pulled out the Cisco devices because they were too complicated and too expensive.

We bought out another company that is currently using Aruba wireless LAN controllers. However, we're getting rid of that system and moving them to the cloud.

The reliability of Aruba products is better and the technical support from Aruba is more responsive.

Cisco is good but there's much better competition out there.

The initial setup is very easy.

Once the cloud is set up, you assign each AP a license through the web portal. You plug it in, make sure it's in a port that's configured for our Wi-Fi network, and it works. It's a three or four-step process and it's very simple to do.

Maintenance, such as deploying updates, can be done using a single person. I do all of it for our company and we have 147 access points, worldwide.

Doing an upgrade involves two clicks, and it can be done within 15 minutes.

This can be compared to Cisco, where you had to pre-stage everything. It was painful and it took me four hours to complete.

This is by far the best investment that we've made in a long time.

Aruba Wireless is much cheaper than our previous solution by Cisco. It is a significant saving, measured in thousands of dollars per year.

We looked at Fortinet, Aruba, and several other vendors. Ultimately, we found that Aruba was by far the best.

We authenticate through Aruba ClearPass, which is the TACACS server that we use.

This is a product that I recommend and especially if you're with Cisco, I suggest switching. Cisco just makes things complex. They are simplifying things with Meraki, which is something that I understand because I've been in the IT industry for a long time. With the company scaling back, I'm doing the job of three or four people and with this in mind, it's important to go with simplicity. Cisco, for some odd reason, just cannot keep it simple. It has to be complicated, even when it comes to their documentation.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We primarily use the solution due to the fact that the architecture is suitable for management and engineers.

The user interface is great.

We have found the pricing to be reasonable. 

Technical support is pretty good.

It's very easy to set up the solution. 

The certification for licensing could be better.

I've been using the solution for seven years. 

The solution is stable and reliable. While we have noticed many bugs in other offerings, Aruba has been issue-free. The performance is good.

The solution can scale if you need it to. It's not a problem. 

We have 20,000 people, including network engineers, using the product in our organization. Right now, we do not have plans to increase usage.

I've used technical support in the past and find them to be helpful and responsive. They are better than, for example, Cisco, when it comes to assisting us.

We also use Cisco. We find Aruba's technical support is better.

I've been a part of the implementation process and found it to be quite straightforward and simple. It's not an overly complex or difficult process at all. 

We can have it deployed in an hour. It's pretty quick to get everything up and running.

We are able to handle the implementation process ourselves.

It's not an overly expensive solution. However, I cannot speak to the overall costs involved in buying or operating the product. I don't handle the licensing aspects. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. We've been fairly happy with its capabilities. 

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.

I found a lot of things, a lot of functions to be most valuable in Aruba Wireless. It depends on the category of the features you are looking for. From a security perspective, a performance perspective, a quality perspective, and a user experience perspective, there are a lot, so I can't mention a specific feature.

The best feature for me would be the visibility of this solution.

This solution can also cover thousands of access points, and that's another thing I like.

What I'd like improved in Aruba Wireless is for it to be a full cloud solution.

Making the setup more simple is another area for improvement for Aruba Wireless. There's a big solution for this, but it's not a huge enterprise solution, but Aruba Wireless has thousands of access points, so it's okay.

Security still needs some work with Aruba Wireless, because you don't know which users are accessing, what each user is trying to do, what the applications are and the intentions behind the applications, so there are a lot of complexities behind the scene.

The wireless access points from Aruba Wireless are not just access points, e.g. they form a platform that contains a lot of features such as cloud features, security features, even IoT, so I recommend to have these in all the product range, including small business solutions, so this is what I'd like to see in the next release.

I've been working with Aruba Wireless for more than six years.

Aruba Wireless has great stability within uptime and service time, but from a security perspective, it's not stable, because it's exposed to the users. A lot of CDEs and security issues appear every day. From a security perspective, there are a lot of challenges for everyone, but within uptime, the stability of this solution is perfect.

I have no doubts about the scalability of Aruba Wireless. Its scalability is amazing.

Technical support for this solution is good. If I were to rate technical support, with five being the highest, I'm giving it a four out of five.

The initial setup for Aruba Wireless is not easy. It's not straightforward. The setup for the solution is quite complicated, but this is not unusual, because it is an enterprise solution, and it is no different from the competition, in terms of the complexity of the setup.

If I would rate the setup of Aruba Wireless between one to five, with five being the highest, I'm rating the setup a two.

I've worked with Cisco and Mojo solutions.

I'm a technical engineer, and I'm leading the networking team in one of our system integrations today. I'm an integrator. One of the solutions that we are providing is wireless, e.g. Cisco, Aruba Wireless, and Mojo from Arista.

My advice to an organization looking to implement Aruba Wireless is to take it, because I've seen a lot of vendors and I've dealt with customers, so everyday I assume there would be different challenges with my customers. With Aruba Wireless, there are no doubts about its quality and uptime.

I'm rating Aruba Wireless an eight 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 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.