ExtremeCloud IQ Reviews

Aerohive's cloud management through HiveManager NG is their most valuable feature. I can manage and configure changes to my 300+ APs from anywhere. It allows me to see APs and clients that are having issues, allowing for faster support response and less downtime.

We have over 100 offices across the state. Remote management has saved us thousands of dollars in travel and time. We are able to support our users' wireless needs anytime and anyplace. We can also proactively monitor all APs to correct errors before the users even know they may have a problem.

Price is a little high. I would like to see a remote phone application for monitoring APs when on the road. I would also like to see the second network pass-through port on the AP provide POE.

I purchased a few APs about 5 years ago. When the opportunity arose last year for a statewide deployment, management decided on Aerohive and we currently have over 300 APs deployed.

The AP deployment has been the simplest and smoothest part of our statewide network upgrade. We haven't seen any significant issues.

Our APs are so stable that I forget we have them. I almost never get service calls related to hardware problems with our wireless.

We were able to quickly configure and deploy statewide. We installed on average six new units each week for the last year. I recently installed 40 units in one week to a new campus without any difficulty.

Customer service has always been superb. Sales and technical support are always friendly, efficient and have answers to all of my questions or issues.

Tech support is extremely knowledgeable not just about their product, but about all Wi-Fi in general. I've never had a problem for which they were not able to quickly provide a solution.

We previously used a variety of vendors across the state. Aerohive was chosen to standardize our system to make maintenance and support easier.

Setup and deployment is very simple. Built-in wizards help with most tasks, making it easy for new users to get a quick start.

We used an in-house team with support from Dell and Aerohive technicians. They have made sales and technical staff available to work with us on any installation issues.

We don't have numbers for our ROI, but this is an expansion of our wireless system into 100+ offices, so we expect it will greatly increase the productivity of our employees and customers.

Although the pricing is a bit high, I consider Aerohive to be well worth the money. They have a very defined licensing scheme that is easy to understand.

We tested APs from several vendors including Cisco, Aruba and Ruckus before deciding on Aerohive. Their product quality and feature set are above average and their cloud management solution is beyond anything else on the market.

We have been extremely pleased with the quality, ease of setup and cloud management of the Aerohive APs. I would not hesitate to purchase this product again.

• Scalability - No controller so no single aggregation point and no single point of failure!
• Resiliency - All AP's in a common hive automatically create a mesh network so that if there are issues upstream in the wired network, traffic is routed around the failure. Each AP runs a layer 2 SPF algorithm to automatically determine the shortest/best path from one point to another.
• Security - All AP's have a statefull firewall built-in which makes security policy enforcement at the edge a breeze. Unlike a lot of wireless vendors, security is a cornerstone of the Aerohive product.
• Mobility - With the BR100/BR200 or the AP 350 our road warriors can take the corporate WLAN with them wherever they travel. The BR100/BR200 devices allow you to utilize both a wired network as well as a 4G USB dongle to provide transport for the IPsec connection back to the Cloud Virtual Gateway (CVG). The CVG is a virtual appliance that you run in the datacenter to terminate the IPsec tunnels.
• Simplicity - A GUI so simple to use that you truly cannot screw it up.
• Serviceability - This is especially nice for those hard to reach AP's. If for some reason an AP loses its mind and cannot be reached either via the mesh network or via the wired network it will dynamically engage a feature called the Access Console, or AC. The AC has a special SSID that is broadcast that lets you login to the device for troubleshooting purposes.

Wireless is critical infrastructure in my environment. If my drivers cannot use their handheld scanners to connect to the network for inventory then the company is losing money. With all of the resiliency features and ability to scale I never have to worry about whether people can actually get work done. I'll go weeks at a time without needing to even look at the Hive manager interface and when I do it's because I need to either provision a new AP or update a network policy. It is pretty much a "set it and forget it" product.

I can honestly say that I cannot find a single item where Aerohive needs to be improved. I have been a customer from pretty much the beginning so to see how they have evolved and grown is pretty amazing.

I have used Aerohive at two different companies between 2007 and now.

Aside from the typical learning curve that goes along with any new product I had no deployment issues.

In the early days there were some stability issues with the code, but they corrected them quickly. We had instances where the data plane on the AP's would randomly stop forwarding traffic which of course caused the wireless clients to not be able to reach the rest of the network.

Never. No controller = no bottleneck = no single point of failure

Customer service is top notch. If there have ever been non-technical issues with things such as Hive manager licensing they have always been right on top of things.

Tech support is hands down one of the best collection of individuals you'll ever deal with. The problem is that their product is so solid that I can't remember the last time I've had to interface with them.

I have personally used many different vendors’ products such as Trapeze, Aruba, and Cisco. Dealing with those solutions after having dealt with Aerohive was pure torture. I used to work for a Cisco Gold partner where our major client base was K-12. I dare you to try and get Bonjour or any other multicast based application to work with a Cisco WLAN. You can do it, but it is a painstaking experience. Every enterprise should be Aerohive in my opinion, but K-12 especially should be taking a serious look.

Initial setup is ridiculously easy. If you're going with the on-premise Hive manager then you install the OVA, get into the text-based setup, assign a hostname and network information, and then launch the web GUI. From there you are two minutes away from having a functioning wireless network. If you're going with the Hive Manager Online (HMOL) then it is even easier. The AP's find their own way to the Hive manager either via DHCP options or via a DNS lookup for their HMOL.

We implemented Aerohive in-house.

This is not something I have calculated at this point.

It has been a while, but I believe it was around 5k for the Hive manager virtual appliance and then the price of each AP which range from $400-$1100. Day to day cost is pretty much nothing other than when I need to provision a new AP or update a network policy. As I said before, I can go weeks at a time without even looking at it.

Yes, we looked at Aruba and Trapeze. The Trapeze folks almost got into a fist fight in the data center and the Aruba folks were so ridiculously arrogant I couldn't stand it.

If you're going to have a bake-off try Aerohive last because you won't want to take it out. Take this from someone who is about to sit the CCIE Route/Switch lab, just because it doesn't say Cisco doesn't mean it isn't top notch gear.

We do training here, so we have several people coming into our system, and they're logging in with their phone or PC. ExtremeCloud IQ gives us some control, which our admin considers crucial.

The tech who handles Extreme IQ tells me it's easy to use and learn. He felt like it was pretty intuitive. It comes with solid training materials.  He also has talked about the security features that give you as much or as little control as you want. 

This is my third year at the education co-op, but they were using it before I joined. I believe that they have been using ExtremeCloud for four years. I'm not the technical person managing the solution.

I had some experience with Extreme Networks equipment when I was the superintendent of a school district, and It was always great. We never had any problems. We may have had an issue with a switch here or there, but they always came in and swapped it out.

Our tech guy has always said that tech support is Extreme Networks' strength. They respond quickly and provide excellent assistance when needed. If necessary, they'll have a person on-site. 

I don't know if it's the reseller or Extreme Networks, but one thing I consistently hear about is the customer support. I'm sure I could probably pay a little bit less with another vendor, but I'm not sure I would get the same level of support.

They used Aerohive.

I haven't done an in-depth analysis, but I think it's competitive. I couldn't tell you if it's the cheapest, but I have no reason to believe that it's out of line with the prices on the market. If you ask the superintendent of a co-op if the price of a product could be better, the answer will always be "yes." 

You get what you pay for. In my experience, you want to ensure you're buying something of reputable quality, and you have a duty to pay a reasonable price when you're spending public funds. There are other considerations, too. How long is it going to last? Are you going to have ongoing support? Is that support going to be delivered in a timely manner?

When they put out an RFP for the last project where we purchased some Extreme Networks products, it listed certain specs we were looking for. Some solutions met those specifications exactly or better than Extreme. One vendor who responded told us that they didn't think we needed that level we requested. They specified less, and their price was less, so I had to go into a detailed analysis to show whether they did or did not meet the requirements of the RFP.

One of the things I learned in that process is that it's hard for a layman like me to tell whether I'm comparing apples to apples. It would be nice if a person in my position could compare an Extreme switch and switches from Aruba or another company, but that was a challenge for me. That's why I'm hesitant to compare solutions and pricing. I might be comparing a Chevrolet to a BMW, for all I know.

I rate ExtremeCloud IQ 10 out of 10. I have no complaints. It's a high-end solution. I've worked with three technology coordinators, and I've never heard any of them say something negative about Extreme Networks equipment.

Thanks to their new cloud solutions, Extreme can be used in major stadiums, universities, and colleges. Extreme wireless devices are widely used in those spaces that require high throughput and density.

Extreme is transitioning to 802.11ax facilities running the 2G and the 5G cloud, allowing for higher density in education use cases, and ExtremeCloud IQ provides you with novel ways to manage everything. In the old days, you used to have a controller on-site for your access points, but everything is easier now.

The certification costs from suppliers are getting out of control, and it's not just Extreme. We have the same problem with Cisco and Huawei.

In terms of new features, Extreme access points are already on the leading edge. It's like cell phones where you're not even using 60 percent of your features and that's the problem. Extreme has the latest technology, and it's already better than Aruba or Cisco. However, if there are any features that could reduce costs, that would be welcome. 

I have been using Extreme for about 18 years. I started working with Extreme back when it was still called Enterasys.

ExtremeCloud is stable. I rate the solution 10 out of 10 for stability.

Extreme Wireless scales easily.  We are already running almost 6,000 access points at the university.

I rate Extreme support 10 out of 10. We get support from Dubai and third-line support from Boston.

Nothing is straightforward in the data world, and it won't be easy for people who don't know what they're doing, especially as environments become more complex. However, it's effortless if you've been trained and certified. One person could handle a small deployment, but we're doing around 850 access points at the university, and we've got a team of eight people. 

Extreme licensing is based on the number of access points. When you buy the license for the first year, everything is included, such as access to mapping, etc. If you don't renew your software assurance for the second year, the access points will still work, but you can't use the cloud management tools.

A lot of customers will say that ExtremeCloud isn't affordable. However, I think the price is reasonable compared to Aruba and Cisco. As a seller, I believe the price is competitive, but customers don't want to pay licensing fees. In South Africa, once I've bought something, it must work forever.

I rate ExtremeCloud IQ eight out of 10.

We see use cases a lot in the education sector. You could find Extreme Wireless just about anywhere. However, I would say the majority would be education due to the dashboard, which is something that people really like.

That's not to say you can't find it in manufacturing. That's not to say you can't find it in healthcare. It's just not viewed as strongly as Cisco.

The dashboards are great and the user interface is quite intuitive.

I'm not on the technical resource. I know a school district, a big school district of mine, ripped out Extreme due to inefficiencies. It was the guest network that can be a struggle. They tried to differentiate between their primary network, and then offer a secondary. For example, if you go to a store and you get the guest network. However, there's been issues with that.

I want to say we had a five-year-old relationship with Aerohive, prior to Aerohive being acquired by Extreme. I would say Extreme has been a presence for two years.

It's a little bit more comfortable for these medium size businesses.

We also use a lot of Cisco products.

The solution is moderately priced. I’d rate it a three out of five in terms of affordability. If five is the highest, which would be Cisco, I would say Extreme definitely gets most of their business by not being as expensive as Cisco. And the licensing also costs less, which is a big selling point.

We sell the solution. We are an Extreme partner. I don't know to what level. We're Cisco through and through. About 70% of what leaves this company is Cisco and we're a $270 million company. However, we’re partners with Extreme too.

I’d rate the solution a seven out of ten.

I'm the founder of the company. 

The most valuable feature is that you can assign zero trust policies from the user. As a result, policy enforcement is very good, it's simple to use and it can traverse multiple switches. The policy works for everyone, whether it's a customer, enterprise organization or someone working from home. It has all layers of security capabilities and that's very useful. Once users are connected you can subscribe a policy that can switch firewalls from remote or from the core network which is useful now that more people are working from home. They can enforce the deep packet inspection, the application layer, presentation layer, and things like that. There is a full suite of capabilities all under the same operating system. If you change one area, the global policy setting can be pushed out for all assets. 

From my perspective, they need to add cyber asset tracking. You can't defend what you don't know, and they're missing the wireless cyber assets. The problem that you have with wireless is that it's more of a rollout product. It's a fixed chip set of 2.4 or 2.5 gigahertz only. When you look at 5GS, it's taking advantage of six gigahertz and of 600 megahertz. Extreme doesn't have a product to fill that gap, so they're flying blind to the new multi-access edge. Whether it's a security feature, an update, or it's adding zero trust policies to their running and switch platform, they're missing that; it's an area that needs beefing up.

Extreme has a different operating system that is easier to use and easier to apply a policy from the edge to the core than Cisco or other solutions offer. Extreme is also backward compatible. You may have firewalls and switches on different versions, but it's compatible. With Cisco, you need to have them all on the same version in order for it to flow through from the edge to the core. You may have different organizations and slightly different versions, but you can easily appreciate an update that will be applicable across the deployment. Those are two key differences. 

No controller is required. Management can be done with either an onsite appliance or a virtual appliance. The heat map is a great aid in choosing the number and location of access points.

It allows our guests to register and accept our terms and conditions without the paperwork that the IT team used to have to do to get someone connected to WiFi.

The firewall inside the AP is a little limited in what it can do. Aerohive support indicated that there are some improvements planned for the next release of software.

I have used it for six months.

Deployment went without any major issues. Most of our issues were with getting cable runs to the AP locations. We wanted an open guest network that would allow access to only our website. That did not work as planned, and we needed support assistance.

Our WiFi has been running without issues since deployment. Changes have been easy to implement. We upgraded the AP software once and the HiveManager NG once without any downtime.

We have not encountered any scalability issues. We added an AP to a new building in a few minutes; had a staffer plug in the AP and it appeared in our manager and received our configuration.

Customer service is excellent. We purchased through a local reseller, and they were our point of contact; took the time to make sure everything was ready for our deployment.

Technical support is very good. We did find a couple of software bugs, and we were escalated quickly through support levels and got resolutions for most within a couple of weeks, with the last pending a major software release. They did assist in a workaround until the update is available.

We previously used Meraki. We looked at TCO for five years and the Aerohive looks like it will be less expensive, especially if purchased with the support up front.

Initial setup was a little complex because of the number of options in configuration. It was a little complicated because we did not find the management interface intuitive about making changes to previously created access groups and SSIDs.

A vendor team of one person implemented it. That was all that was required to get us up and running in one day for 14 APs and 8 SSIDs.

ROI is just under three years. The guest registration allows us to require the user to read and accept terms and conditions before connecting and the basic firewall in the APs made it easy to enforce without extra hardware per site.

There are good discounts for purchasing APs with the support up front. Go for the three- or five-year options if budget allows. The heat map tends to be very conservative so you might be able to use fewer APs than the tool suggests. An extra AP or two is cheaper than a full site survey.

Meraki, Aruba, and Ubiquiti were evaluated along with Aerohive. We had evaluation APs from Meraki and Aruba. We looked at coverage, ease of use, and TCO.

The cloud version of the controller is a little better supported than the on-premises version. Only select the onsite version if there are security concerns.

We're using the latest version. It's deployed on a public cloud. We can get our management interface from the internet, from anywhere.

There are 2,000 people who use this solution in my organization, but we haven't finished the setup yet. Our users are mostly students.

It's extremely easy to deploy. Even our access points are behind the net, not using real, public IP. We can easily add to the cloud. For deployment, we just need to let the access point take the DSCP from IP and then, even if it's not a requirement, we can see the serial number from the access points and add the serial number to the cloud directly. 

The manageability is also good. We can create some places in the management interface, like different buildings (building A, building B, etc.) and floors. 

From our network, I can connect and do the deployments from anywhere.

The dashboard and stability need to be improved. We deployed some buildings and nearly 200 access points. 

We didn't install the access points for the buildings, so it would be nice for us to see which access point goes to which switch port. For example, it would be nice to know where a switch with a faulty access point is located.

The company didn't document it well, so it's like a discovery process. When there's a problem with the wireless signal, we don't know which access point is causing it. We need to go and see the access point lights. It's like the white LED is not blinking or not stable. It would be nice for us to be able to document the exact location of the access points.

I need to see the license because there are many features that are disabled for now because we are still using the essential license. Many features require the Pilot license.

I have been using this solution for about nine months.

It's not stable. I watched many videos. I thought I made some mistakes with deployment. I needed to isolate the access points management. In the beginning, it's like the data and access points were in the same zone. I watched some video that said not to do that, so I built a test environment and put the access points in that environment, but nothing changed. Hopefully, it's because we don't have the right license.

When we did the speed test, it's 500 or 600. We don't have the Pilot license, so we weren't expecting more than 150 megabits. Sometimes it's 105 megabits.

It's scalable. You can get the serial number and enter from the Extreme portals. We get serial numbers from the product, enter it in the website, and create zones, buildings, areas.

I didn't get the chance to directly communicate with Extreme like with Cisco, but it's okay. The company is helpful, but unfortunately, not like Cisco. They don't have too many engineers, so it was hard to get a response.

At this point, I don't ask for help too often. I did my research by myself. They have certification, but they don't have documents for the certification like in Cisco. With Cisco, I can get wireless certification documents from Amazon or even Cisco Press. I can pay and get the information from the internet, blogs, and the Cisco website.

In our country, many universities and companies use Extreme products, but this cloud solution is very new for us. I don't have friends who I can ask about a performance problem or how to design a network. Cisco is everywhere, but Extreme isn't.

Initial setup isn't complex. 

We opened a new email account with Extreme Portal and got a new account, like in the technical university. I entered my email address, set up a password, and that was all. We have an essential license actually, which is a limited license, but it was super easy.

Extreme is twice as cheap compared to Cisco due to the currency exchange. Normally, I think Cisco would be a little bit more expensive, but there wouldn't be that much of a difference. 

I would rate this solution six out of ten.

I hope that when we get the license, it will be a nine.