ExtremeCloud IQ Reviews

Controller less architecture is a key to the scalability of this product. I am not trying to funnel all of the bandwidth through one interface.

We are able to deploy APs to locations that have a POE switch without much technical ability locally. I send an AP to a remote location and tell them to plug it into the switch. I've already configured it at my site and it comes up 'phones home' and I can manage it from hundreds of miles away. All without traveling.

I'd really love to see some better reporting features. The data exists because you can see it on the AP itself but getting it out through a report is just not a possibility or at least I can't make it happen.

We've had no issues deploying it at multiple locations.

I have had some stability issues with the older AP110/AP120 models taking newer v6 code. I have spoken to support about this issue but no resolution came about, other than leaving them on the older code.

Scalability is simple. You just plug in a new AP and push code. As long as you have a PoE switch you can put an AP up to 100m away without issue.

Support was excellent when I was having client hop at our High School. They helped me design the AP placement off what we could see from the heat maps on Aerohive’s build in planning tools. They used what was discovered by the existing APs to figure out I had too much signal causing my clients to swap between each of the APs it could see constantly. Once the signal was reduced I was able to narrow in on client stability and now those issues are gone.

I have had the issue with the newer 6 code that still has not been resolved. Support was great when I spoke to them, but throughout our discussions they contended there was not an issue, yet I still see data loss and eventually the old AP110/120s will just stop talking to the HiveManager and clients.

The only issues we had during setup was the fact of putting too much signal out there. Our old system (Meru) had a unique design philosophy and so we had APs in every room possible. The Aerohive system did not require that many APs to do the same job. Just placing them appropriately for RF interference and support helped me through those issues.

Everyone I’ve dealt with at Aerohive has been wonderful, down to David Coleman, the main trainer. I have taken a couple of their classes and that helped with the initial and then the advanced setup items. I’ve worked with Abby and a few others through orders and they have all been stellar.

The HiveManager reporting features are extremely valuable for quick glance at network and application usage of your wireless network.

Aerohive Wireless solutions have allowed us to take the guess work out of managing a wireless network. The “single pane of glass” view into your wireless network allows you to manage all of your access points and clients in one location, greatly reducing the amount of time it may take to isolate and resolve issues.

The initial learning curve when first deploying Aerohive is less than some larger competitors, but still significant when compared to other cloud controlled wireless products such as Meraki. Ease of setup and deployment, as well as tasks such as application access management, bandwidth throttling, and QoS could be greatly simplified.

3 years.

Some initial reading and/or training is likely required before successfully deploying Aerohive Wireless products, however once you have a firm grasp of where things live in the HiveManager issues should be few and far between.

We have not had any issues with stability or the hardware itself. Some issues were seen with older wireless standards (B/G) and needed to be addressed by modifying radio strengths, etc..

None so far.

I believe I’ve called Aerohive support 3 or 4 times and each time I had someone on the phone in less than 5 minutes. No hoops to jump through like Cisco and no basic tier 1 style questions. Just good engineers ready to help.

The level of technical support is excellent.

I’ve used both Cisco and Meraki extensively and have found Aerohive to offer the best mix between stable hardware and software and ease of setup, deployment, and management.

Initial setup can be more complex than a home office or small business wireless solution and does require some initial training or reading at the very least. It’s less complex than something like Cisco WLC.

I’ve implemented Aerohive several times both in house and as a IT Consultant for small to mid size businesses.

Hard to estimate with a wireless network solution, but time saved by keeping your workers connected to your network instead of running down obscure connectivity issues with SOHO solutions is time well spent.

All in, our deployment was under 5K for a medium size office of about 75. There really is no day to day cost associated with using Aerohive. It’s been cruising along without issue since deployment, with minimal time spent making configuration tweaks and updating firmware on occasion.

Yes. Meraki, Cisco, and Arbua networks were all evaluated.

For any wireless network implementation, a wireless survey of the space is key to a successful deployment. As for Aerohive specifically, stay away from older B/G devices if you can keep them off your network, and keep the radio power as low as you can manage to avoid issues with surrounding wireless networks…especially in congested areas/cities.

We use ExtremeCloud IQ for controlling the access points, controlling the switches, configuring the wireless LANs, doing access control for the users, monitoring, and analytics.

We manage the access points or the wireless solution using ExtremeCloud IQ.

ExtremeCloud IQ is a complete package with the pilot and the co-pilot feature that gives me full visibility of the network. It also has a reporting feature that gives me insights into the troubles on my network. AI-based analytics is another valuable feature of ExtremeCloud IQ.

The solution's performance needs to be enhanced because of a very high delay. It's a cloud solution, and when I do some configuration changes, it takes more than 10 minutes to deploy it.

I have been working with ExtremeCloud IQ for about three years.

ExtremeCloud IQ needs some improvement regarding fixing the firmware bugs.

I rate ExtremeCloud IQ an eight out of ten for stability.

ExtremeCloud IQ is a very scalable solution. Four customers are using the solution.

I rate ExtremeCloud IQ a nine out of ten for scalability.

When I tested the solution's on-premises technical support, I was not happy with it. For the cloud solution, I didn't even need to open tickets or have issues with the support.

The solution's initial setup is straightforward.

ExtremeCloud IQ is a cloud solution. So when the AP joins the cloud, it takes 10 to 15 minutes to deploy.

Deploying ExtremeCloud IQ involves connecting the AP to a wireless internet source, then registering the serial number of the AP on the ExtremeCloud IQ portal. Then it will be onboard, and I can do whatever I want.

One engineer is needed for the maintenance and deployment of the solution.

The ROI depends on the solution itself and the size of the solution.

Customers need to pay a yearly licensing fee for ExtremeCloud IQ, which is a little bit expensive. They do not have to pay any extra costs in addition to the standard license fees.

If users need an insightful cloud solution, they should choose ExtremeCloud IQ.

Overall, I rate ExtremeCloud IQ a nine out of ten.

We primarily use this product for wireless control.

We didn't have wireless service available before implementing this product, so it has improved things quite a lot.

The most valuable feature is the centralized management capability.

Overall, the wireless control features are good.

The licensing model could be improved.

This is a stable solution.

This product is scalable and we have approximately 125 people using it.

We don't go directly to the vendor. Rather, we get our technical support from a third party, and they have been good so far.

We did not use another wireless solution before this one. We purchased it because we needed to provide wireless service within the organization.

The initial setup was easy.

We had another company do the implementation. They showed us how to use it and handed it over. I have no complaints about the deployment.

I do the maintenance on it.

We don't operate such that this product would provide a return on investment. We're a school and we put this system in place to provide wireless access to the pupils.

The price was okay. However, there are different licensing models and it would be helpful if more of the features were in the lower licensing bracket.

Overall, this product does what we've asked it to do.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

• Controller-less APs
• Auto-Provisioning
• App and firewall security at the AP
• Reliability

I never worry about the WiFi being down. An AP might have issues, but the others automatically increase power to fill in the gap. Usually, an issue is resolved with a configuration push and a restart.

Their firewall configuration gets funky and it can be difficult to understand.

We have been using this solution for over five years.

I did not encounter any issues with deployment.

I did not encounter any issues with stability.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

Customer Service is excellent! I have had no reason to give them less than a 10 on a post ticket survey.

Tech support is great. Sometimes the Level-1 person can't help, but they engage engineers quickly to assist if needed.

We used Symbol Controller based WiFi. It was terrible, it went down all the time, and it was difficult to upgrade or add APs to.

The setup was straightforward. You build a policy in HiveManager Online, set the sub-net, and then plug in an AP on that sub-net. This will automatically push the configuration down, once it calls home from your network.

A vendor assisted with our first roll-out. After that initial one, we have done all other implementations ourselves without any issues.

It is difficult to say with WiFi. I never have to deal with it and people don't complain about it. If everyone who needs to connect, and can do so without issues, then productivity is increased for sure.

Buy near the end of Q4 in order to get a deal.

We looked at several other options, including Cisco and Aruba.

You will not regret buying this solution.

• HiveManager has been a valuable tool to manage/troubleshoot Access Points, Branch Routers, and connected clients.
• Easy and consistent deployments allow for a seamless user experience and lowers the chances for administrative mistakes.

We are able to provide wireless service while leveraging security mechanisms and utilizing some web filtering such as blocking torrent traffic.

• Hivemanager NG does not support all devices.
• Policy management - objects become tied together so you have to dismantle a policy to be able to delete it. They can not be renamed.
• There are also configuration sections that require you to scroll through a list instead of just giving you an "edit" button.

5 years.

Deployment was smooth. Being able to use the planning tool helped create the layout for AP's in the building and the best signal coverage.

Generally no however there are 2 occasions that caused us some problems.

AP120 back on hivemanager 4 ran into a buffer issue where clients would just stop communicating even though they remained connected. This was a driver buffer overflow issue fixed with a newer firmware and AP121s.

We had issues on hivemanager 6 where the roaming capabilities between access points stopped working. Also fixed with an update provided by Aerohive.

No, we have many AP's and 100 branch routers. The hivemanager design makes it easy to add a new piece of hardware and just send an update with the existing policy to get it configured.

Customer service meets expectations however there is room for improvement. Sometimes the communication occurs via email and can try your patience.

Technical support has declined in recent years. Fairly functional however much more difficult than in the past to get escalated to someone that can help investigate specific issues. There also may be language barriers that require someone else to relay information.

No. We researched multiple vendors however the controller-less system and hivemanager capabilities won. Why is there a minimum character of 120 if the answer is No.

Setup is fairly straightforward. Our initial deployment included using the Aerohive AP's to authorize radius requests which made it more complex for setup.

In house, Hivemanager makes policy configuration and deployment simple enough that engineers were able to design and configure the initial settings and have support staff deploy the equipment.

We are able to increase employee productivity and provide guest internet services.

We no longer need ethernet ports/switches in the conference rooms.

Hardware is more expensive than a home router but there is a reason. In addition to the feature sets that hivemanager provides having a maintenance agreement allows us to provide better service to the end users.

Meraki/Aruba.

Buy it!

WLAN deployment for girls' hostels of the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. It has four hostel complexes for in-house undergraduates. Our University has the largest WLAN deployment in Sri Lanka. Now, we are expanding it to cover all rooms in the hostels. This time, we are seeking a cloud-based system with BYOD. 

This is an implementation stage for Aerohive Wireless. We are still in a PoC with Dell Sri Lanka. HiveManager is extremely easy to use for anyone with little network experience.

The cloud-based controller through HiveManager is its most valuable feature. I can manage and configure changes to my access points from anywhere.

Browser load time for the cloud is long and needs improvement. 

We chose to evaluate Aerohive and Cisco Meraki for this project. Price-wise Aerohive is the lowest competitive bidder for this WLAN project.

The cloud interface is decent. It has a smooth dashboard. 

Aerohive has been the perfect fit for a University like us. I am the Senior Network Administrator of the University. I am thrilled that I have no worries about our wireless network.

Since we started to work with this product, we have been able to save a lot of time, money, and support costs for our customers. Hence, we are able to deliver secure and fast unified network solutions across complete distributed locations for our customers.

With Aerohive it is not just about "which features". It is a complete system which is able to serve all types of customers starting with one Access Point with ability to scale to thousands of Access Points. 

If I need to point out some features, this would definitely be a true controller-less approach, where each AP is 100% independent from the management system. 

Integrated firewall in every AP (with DPI inspection) is a killer feature and it is included already in the price of licence (with others, this feature is an add-on licence). 

The feature that everyone should try at least once is PPSK - Private PSK for every user (configured in under three minutes). 

The feature that I like to most is unified management in a multitenant environment, where we can manage all our customers with thousands of devices (routers, switches, VPNs, and APs). 

Features that also are adding great value to the product are: Auto-Provisioning, advanced troubleshooting tools, real-time reporting, WIPS, integrated radius system. 

From our perspective, we would love to see Aerohive provide faster feature enhancement in their Virtual Appliance to match the features with the cloud solution more quickly.

Yes, there have been stability issues with the Virtual Appliance. It crashed once while doing an upgrade. The good thing here is, even if the management system fails, all our networks and features still remain 100% stable and working.

No issues with scalability. We can scale with as many devices as we want, without replacing any infrastructure or adding large bundles of licences.

Eight out of 10.

We were using Ruckus and UBNT. We changed because neither of these solutions was able to provide us with unified management within one central management system. Also, neither of these past solution got even close in features and capabilities to Aerohive. We noticed that Ruckus is, perhaps, 10% better in performances than Aerohive, which is a very small percentage when comparing the complete set of functionalities and network capabilities of these two vendors.

Straightforward. You can set up Aerohive in just six clicks, and the system even guides you throughout the setup. Implementing 802.1x auth is also very simple and is doable in just five minutes.

I would advise that you be sure to compare apples with apples. Many customers just look at the price per AP and licences, and compare that against other solutions. But, they do not look at the complete picture such as:

• TCO - how much the equipment will cost you over, say, seven years?
• Will the customer need to change complete infrastructure when they want to buy the newest hardware?
• Does support include a lifetime warranty and RMA? 

For example, if you compare Aruba vs Aerohive, you need to check which licences from Aruba you need to match the functionality of Aerohive (usually you need at least three types of licences and a controller with redundancy). The same goes with Cisco, where you need buy additional licences for central management, firewall, spectral analysis, WIPS, PPSK, etc. Aerohive has a very simple model - one licence for all the functionalities - and you can believe that there are many. One licence makes it easy to maintain, scale, renew and you can plan your costs 10 years in advance.

Start small and grow big. You can choose the basic Aerohive Connect free subscription solution and, later, if needed (in terms of functionality) you can upgrade to Aerohive Select.