Aruba Instant Reviews

We use Aruba Instant Access Points — one of the components of Instant Manager — to deploy wireless services to the ships that are running on the coast of Antwerp. This would be tug boats and other vessels in shipping that need communications capabilities.  

I think Aruba Instant Management is really pretty flexible because of the versatility of the configuration and it just works very well for our purposes.  

The management interface in Aruba Instant Management is Aruba AirWave. In my opinion, it is not very user-friendly. This is not a criticism of the Aruba Products overall. In fact they work very well. I am referring specifically to Aruba Airwave — just that one component within the solution. If Aruba would do something with this to make this interface better, the product would be much improved.  

Other than that I have no idea what the product would need. I have everything that I need functionally, so I can not think of a missing feature.  

We have been using the product for four years.  

The product is very stable. We have no problems with that area of usage.  

I believe Instant Management is easy to scale. However, we do not use it on large scale environments so I cannot give you a very accurate opinion of that aspect of its use. We use it in very small setups. I do not have first-hand experience with how it works if you extend to a larger scale.  

As far as how extensively Aruba Instant is being used, we could be using it daily. It is operational 24-hours a day — that is for sure. It is stable and it works fine. But in management, we sometimes use it only once a week.  

We have three users in management to take care of the system if it needs attention. But that is management only. There are more users who are actually on the wireless, of course.  

We have not had the need to contact Aruba technical support but that could be a good sign.  

Aruba is the first product that had the capabilities that we were interested in so we did not use another product previous to this one for this purpose.  

The initial setup is pretty complex. We were able to set it up by ourselves without the help of consultants or vendors but it took some time to get it done. I think the first set up took about two days which is longer than we had hoped.  

My advice to people considering this solution is that Aruba Instant Management is a very good group of products and it is very stable. Be aware that there is quite a learning curve for the AirWave management platform.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Aruba Instant Management as an eight-out-of-ten. It is not a nine or a ten because of the problem with the user-friendliness of the AirWave management platform. The products offer a lot of flexibility. Almost everything can be configured. There is only a problem with the one component that causes it to be difficult to understand and difficult to set up and get working for the first time. It detracts from the usability of the product and how quickly it can be deployed.  

We primarily use the solution in the business environment for the office network.

The central management of multiple devices is the solution's most valuable aspect.

The solution is very user-friendly.

The solution, as it is, is perfect for us right now. There isn't any aspect that needs to be simplified.

I've been using the solution for two years now.

There was only ever one case in which an access point failed, but it was reintegrated. The issue was more of a matter of oversight. One part of the network had covered ten access points.

In general, it's quite a stable product.

The solution is absolutely scalable.

Currently, we have just under 100 employees, but I can only comment on the number of users at my particular office.

We've never been in touch with Aruba technical support. There's never been a need to. The solution works perfectly so far.

We did use a different solution, but it was medium-class and not really comparable to Aruba. It might have been D-Link or something similar.

The initial setup, from what I understand, was pretty straightforward.

Our supplier assisted with the implementation.

The price is fairly reasonable. It may be a bit expensive for some companies, but for us, it's worth every penny.

We were considering Cisco at the time, but Aruba had a better price point. Our supplier actually suggested Aruba as an optimal solution for us.

We work off the latest version of the solution.

I'm just using the system now for the management of devices. I haven't been adding devices recently, but in the last couple of years of using it, I haven't had a single technical problem with the solution.

I'd recommend the solution to mid-level businesses like ours, with up to 100 employees.

We're fully covered. Aruba is not bothering us with additional promotional materials and I don't need anything else. So far, for the level of users we have, I haven't really experimented with the solution or had to reach out to technical support or investigate other aspects of it. It's just perfect for us at this point.  

Comparing it to Cisco, which I also have some experience with, I'd rate it ten out of ten. If I had more knowledge of other solutions and could compare them to Aruba as well I'd rate Aruba lower, depending on the other offerings, but based on my knowledge of the product and my overall experience, it's been great working with Aruba.

We've used the solution for a project with a small hotel. We primarily used the solution for five access points. We use it for wifi access around the rooms.

The access it grants to wifi is the solution's most valuable feature.

The features menus are good.

The cloud configurations are very easy. We can put it on mobile, etc. if we need to.

The reach of the solution could be improved. It could be a bit stronger.

I don't know if it would be possible, but it would be helpful if there was a social login for the layer. This would help smaller clients that I work with.

There are also some features missing in the layer - like authentification and logon capabilities.

I've been using this solution for two months.

The stability of the solution is quite good. We haven't come across any bugs or glitches while using it.

The scalability of the solution has been sufficient for our needs so far. 

We've never contacted technical support so I can't speak to any experience with them. Generally, when we have questions, we look online for resources to help us if we need any knowledge or help with troubleshooting.

We've previously used Ruckus. With Ruckus, there's a controller. It's also expensive. For a mid-scale setup, you can't really compare Ruckus to Aruba.

The solution is easy to install. Our team didn't run into any issues when we were setting up the solution for our client.

Our team installed the solution for our hotel client.

The licensing cost is somewhere around $20,000.

I'm a reseller of the solution.

I'd advise others considering the solution to look at the scale of the project. If it's a rather small-scale project and the client doesn't need advanced features like a controller, Aruba is very good.

If I have small projects, I find I focus on Aruba. It's better. However, if the project is more complex or complicated or has location challenges, Ruckus is better.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. I'm not an engineer, and I didn't install the device personally, so I don't know too much about the technical side of the solution. If I did, maybe I would give it full marks. 

Our primary use case is for basic Wi-Fi and also for the captive portal authentication with 802.1X MAC.

The integration with ClearPass is the most valuable feature. 

It also has good onboarding. It's a good product. 

The meshing could use improvement but aside from that nothing else really needs improvement. It meshes well but the product's channels need to be understood better. It's not like Cisco. You set up your indoor stuff and there are channels you must exclude from the mesh.

I have been using Aruba for the last five years. 

The stability is very good. I'm very impressed with it. I've been working with it for years. 

Because it's Aruba, I can strap onto anything. We can use it anywhere. 

Maybe an outdoor range would be nice. 

Their technical support is brilliant.

The price is very well situated. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

Since I bought this brought I would like to have Aruba Central for free.

The product technically works fantastic but if I'm going to spend a couple of thousand rands on buying an access point, I'd like to have Aruba Central for free, for the equipment that I've purchased. That would be nice without purchasing the licenses because we've already purchased the hardware.

My advice to someone considering this solution is to put it everywhere and get rid of Cisco.

Our primary use case is for deploying the product in hotels, usually a small deployment where an external controller is not required. Aruba provides a cheap and good solution.

The quick setup and the automatic code embedded in one access point is really useful.

The product could be improved by having the ability to support more access points in one cluster. I would also suggest that the multicast be more efficient.

Improved managing of the multicast could be included in the next release. It's an issue that can sometimes be challenging.

I've been using the product for two years. 

It's a very stable solution. 

It's not the best product for scalability because there's a limit. We use it mainly for small installations. We do use the product on a daily basis and there are maybe 30-40 people using it. 

Aruba provides good technical support. 

We previously used Ruckus Unleashed and switched because in some areas of Europe they prefer Aruba and customers request the product.

Initial setup is quite straightforward, it usually takes about two hours. We have a team that deploy on site and about 20 people working in IT support. 

I would rate this product a seven out of 10.