Aruba ClearPass Reviews

We use Aruba ClearPass for our authentication server and also integrate it with our active directory. We also use the endpoint function of the solution.

Aruba ClearPass has improved our organization because, through it, we have much better visibility in terms of who our users are in our network. We have more insight into the type of devices people are using and their roles. For guests, we can also gather some information from them, for example, their emails, so in most cases, Aruba ClearPass is pretty useful for us.

What I like most about Aruba ClearPass is its access tracker that serves as its monitoring feature. The access tracker is really helpful when you want to troubleshoot authentication failures.

What needs improvement in Aruba ClearPass is just the endpoint context server, in particular, the indication with the context server because sometimes the daily process isn't as smooth-sailing. Sometimes, the information isn't up-to-date. I'm not sure if that's a vendor limitation, but currently, it's the only tricky part of the current configuration.

What I'd like to see in the next release of Aruba ClearPass is a dashboard or a monitoring feature that would allow users to see the integration process with an external server because there's no visibility into that right now.

I've been using Aruba ClearPass for one and a half years.

Aruba ClearPass, in terms of stability, is good. We haven't experienced it shutting down in the last one and a half years of using it.

We've only used Aruba ClearPass for the last one and a half years, and we haven't had any need to scale it up, but it seems to be a scalable solution.

We haven't had any issues with Aruba ClearPass. It's been really quiet in the past year, so we haven't contacted their technical support team.

We used a different system before using Aruba ClearPass, but we heard that the licensing scheme for Aruba ClearPass is permanent. The solution offers a permanent license while our previous system had an annual license that we had to renew and repurchase yearly, so that was troublesome for us. With Aruba ClearPass, we don't have to repurchase or renew every year, so that's one of the main reasons we switched to it.

Installing Aruba ClearPass was quite easy. The deployment process for it was quite easy and quick. It took our partner less than two weeks to deploy the solution, so it was quite quick.

We used a third-party company for deploying Aruba ClearPass.

You can get ROI from Aruba ClearPass after two or three years.

I can't give the exact cost of Aruba ClearPass because that's handled by the purchasing team, but it's on the cheaper side, and on a scale of one to five, I'm rating the cost a four.

Initially, the pricing for the solution is expensive in terms of deployment, but in the long term, for example, after more than five to ten years, the operational cost incurred by the company is quite affordable because you don't have to renew the license. It's a one-time purchase.

My company only uses the standard license for Aruba ClearPass.

My company has eight hundred users of Aruba ClearPass in the IT security team, and about five or six people are required for the deployment and maintenance of the solution.

Currently, my company doesn't have any plans of increasing usage for Aruba ClearPass because it's been scaled up three times more than the current need when it was first purchased, so the solution is only being used at about 30% of its maximum capacity. It could take another four or five years before my company increases its usage.

Aruba ClearPass is a solution I would highly recommend to others looking into implementing it because, in my experience, it's really easy to manage. It has a low production cost, and even if the initial cost for the deployment is quite high, it becomes pretty cheap because you don't have to renew the license. If you need basic captive portal authentication, I would recommend Aruba ClearPass.

I'm rating Aruba ClearPass nine out of ten.

My company is a customer, not a partner of Aruba ClearPass.

We use ClearPass for access points. We are primarily working on hospitality projects, including some major hotels in Saudi Arabia. They only allow Aruba and Cisco, so we need this product.

I joined this company a few days ago, but they've been dealing with Aruba for a long time. They use it for specific projects with a local partner in Saudi Arabia that requires Aruba.

We haven't had any issues with stability so far .

Aruba is a highly scalable product. It just works. We have no issues with scalability.

The technical support has some room for improvement. It takes them a long time to respond sometimes. I rate Aruba support six out of 10. 

Aruba is a little more expensive than other products in the market here.

I rate Aruba eight out of 10. I would recommend it. Our company prefers Aruba because it has an attractive design that can decorate a hospitality area. 

If for example, a user in my office received a particular VLAN for the USA and relocated to the UK, they will not get the same access. This is the challenge that we are trying to achieve through the CPPM. 

Document authentications allows us to decide which users can connect to an office VLAN and this has been the most valuable feature. It is dependent upon the policies that we have created on CPPM. If a domain laptop needs a Windows update, the device is updated. 

This solution could be improved by making it possible to use it across different territories. Currently, if a user moves from the US to the UK, their usage and access will be restricted. 

I have been using this solution for one year. 

This is a stable solution.

This is a scalable solution. 

The initial setup is straightforward. 

The suitability of this solution is dependent upon the requirements of the business. You need to consider if you want authentications for every network devices like switch, routers, firewalls and wireless. This can depend on the type of projects you are running. 

We needed the enterprise authentication because we needed the wifi dot certification. Using this, we can access network devices and policies. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten because the Aruba dashboard is quite simple compared to other solutions.

We have Aruba ClearPass installed on a VM.

We are using Aruba ClearPass for our data needs, and authentication for local networks. We are adding some additional features to control clients using agents. We installed an agent for clients and it controls many things such as if the firewall is enabled or the antivirus is up-to-date.

The most valuable features of Aruba ClearPass are the GUI and its ease-to-do configuration. Additionally, we can troubleshoot many things in one window.

Aruba ClearPass could improve when it comes to troubleshooting, it can be difficult. Some advanced problems are difficult. 

The documentation could improve.

I have been using Aruba ClearPass for approximately five years.

The stability of Aruba ClearPass is good.

Aruba ClearPass is scalable. You can scale it in the same network, or you can scale the Aruba ClearPass server to another disaster recovery site.

We have over 10 customers using this solution. We have some large customers that have 300 companies and it's all linked. They have hundreds of users.

Aruba ClearPass has good support. The engineers are good, they solved every problem that we have.

The initial setup of Aruba ClearPass is simple. It is done through the CLI asking questions that need answers to be input. It takes approximately 20 minutes to complete.

Aruba ClearPass has permanent licenses. You purchase it one time and this license is yours. You don't need to refresh it for five years, et cetera. They have a couple of licenses for enabled features with not only one license.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Aruba ClearPass an eight out of ten.

Aruba ClearPass is used for enforcing certain security policies all around the organization, it covers certain security policies, which is in turn, is deducted from the business requirements. You start with a security policy, then you need technology to enforce it, this is where Aruba ClearPass is used.

A lot of the issues in Forescout are mitigated in Aruba ClearPass, it supports all the expected protocols.

Aruba ClearPass has fewer deployment scenarios and flexibility than Forescout.

I have been using Aruba ClearPass for five years.

Aruba ClearPass is reliable.

I have found Aruba ClearPass to be scalable.

I have approximately two clients with 400 users each, giving a total of 800 users using the solution.

Aruba ClearPass has a very good technical support team. Whenever we need the vendor to be involved, we find a good deal of technical support.

I have used Forescout and I would rate Aruba ClearPass second best.

The initial installation is simple. The deployment could be better since it has fewer capabilities than other solutions, it could be more flexible.

We have a dedicated engineer for Aruba ClearPass when it comes to deploying and support of the solution. One engineer is enough for my client's environment.

The licensing model is very straightforward. There are two types of licensing for Aruba ClearPass, a perpetual license, and a subscription. Both of them are straightforward. We don't need to read an ordering guide, it's very clear.

I would recommend this solution to others if they have a certain use case. If there is a lot of Cisco environments that need to be implied under the security policy, then ClearPass is the right solution for them. It supports a wide range of Cisco technologies and Cisco protocols.

I rate Aruba ClearPass an eight out of ten.

Before ClearPass we were using the native captive-portal on our Wi-Fi controllers (Aruba) to authenticate users but this was causing httpd daemons to overload the CPU on the controllers. This situation created a denial of service condition on the Wi-Fi which was a major call driver for us.

Before ClearPass we were using the native captive-portal on our Wi-Fi controllers (Aruba) to authenticate users but this was causing httpd daemons to overload the CPU on the controllers. This situation created a denial of service condition on the Wi-Fi which was a major call driver for us.

Ability to drill down on items like “System CPU Utilization” or “Device Family” stats from the dashboard. As of right now you need to pick up to 5 items listed on the Dashboard but they seem to be static.

The interface is a little confusing as is setting up some of the options but this is partially due to the flexibility of the product. There are wizards available to create policy which is helpful. We’re primarily using it for RADIUS based AAA for 802.1x Wireless.

One and a half years primarily using the Policy Manager module, and one year using the Guest module. No Onboarding use as of yet.

MS AD integration was a bit of a problem at the beginning until our SE realized that the ClearPass servers need to be joined to the domain before AD lookups can be done.

I haven't experienced any issues.

I haven't experienced any issues.

Mixed – our current SE does not seem to have much knowledge about configuration of ClearPass and I have been referred to their “ClearPass Expert” on a couple of occasions but I have yet to speak to him/her. Aruba TAC has been able to help the few times I’ve called.

Our existing wireless infrastructure is Aruba so it made sense to use their solution for AAA. We did a trial with Win Server 2012 RADIUS and that worked as well, however it does not offer as many options as ClearPass does.

Initial setup was fairly straightforward following the “Start Here” wizard. Our only real “snag” was the Active Directory integration, but that was remedied by our SE.

The licensing model wasn’t explained terribly well to us so we vastly under-purchased. This has unfortunately caused us a bit of trouble over the last year. The licensing numbers are based on unique connected authenticating endpoints per day, averaged over 7 days. When we purchased the product we were under the impression that the licensed nodes were concurrent devices, of which we typically see 8000+ in the middle of the day. Our licensing ended up being 19000+ unique devices and we’ve had to put together a cluster of 4 Clearpass nodes to accommodate this.

The licensing model wasn't explained terribly well to us so we vastly under-purchased. This has unfortunately caused us a bit of trouble over the last year. The licensing numbers are based on unique connected authenticating endpoints per day, averaged over 7 days. When we purchased the product we were under the impression that the licensed nodes were concurrent devices, of which we typically see 8000+ in the middle of the day. Our licensing ended up being 19000+ unique devices and we’ve had to put together a cluster of 4 ClearPass nodes to accommodate this.

Tread carefully when estimating the number of unique device nodes for licensing. If using Active Directory for MSCHAPv2 authentication make sure that you add Clearpass to the Windows Domain.

I have a few customers that are using Aruba ClearPass.

The most valuable feature of Aruba ClearPass is the ease of deployment and integration with other equipment in the network.

Aruba ClearPass could improve the complexity of the initial usage. It takes some time to be good at it. It's not simple to build and connect the rules to the network you want to deploy them on.

In a feature release of Aruba ClearPass, they should add a more graphical way to deploy the rules.

I have been using Aruba ClearPass for approximately two years.

Aruba ClearPass is stable.

I rate the stability of Aruba ClearPass a nine out of ten.

The scalability of Aruba ClearPass could improve. It is easy to make room but some aspects are difficult.

We have approximately 2,000 to 3,000 users that use Aruba ClearPass.

The response time and the knowledge of the support could improve from Aruba ClearPass.

I rate the support from Aruba ClearPass a three out of five.

Neutral

The initial setup of Aruba ClearPass is straightforward. When you need to activate the rules it becomes difficult.

We have one person that is needed to use to support Aruba ClearPass.

The price of Aruba ClearPass is expensive. However, Cisco ISE was as expensive when we were comparing.

We compared Cisco ISE before choosing Aruba ClearPass. Aruba ClearPass is better to use, especially if you have a mixed environment from different deployers or different hardware, it scales better.

I rate Aruba ClearPass a seven out of ten.

We recently implemented ClearPass for a ministerial-level government agency with 2,500 users.

ClearPass prevents hackers from accessing the network. No one can get inside without authentication. It provides a lot of features we are missing. It's incredibly powerful and stable.

I have been using Aruba ClearPass for seven years.

Like most security products, ClearPass is difficult to deploy. You need to use the CLI to implement security products from any vendor, so configuring the authentication is complicated. Some have a GUI, but the CLI is more powerful. However, after you get the authentication protocols set up, you can forget about this device. It's stable.

I rate Aruba ClearPass 10 out of 10. I recommend ClearPass. You'll get a lot of benefits.