Aruba Wireless Reviews

Aruba is moving to the cloud platform model. We are presenting solutions using Aruba Central to clients for the management of their infrastructure. The majority of the implementations we have are still currently are on-premises. Customers now are slowly implementing cloud solutions for Aruba. We have 80% on-premises and 20% migrating to the cloud version of the solution.  

With Aruba Central, we can manage controllers, EAPs (Employee Assistance Programs), switches, et cetera. Everything in one place. So we can manage anything we need to using Aruba. Aruba on-premises wireless is something we use for education. It is mostly implemented in schools and in universities. We use it to establish APs (Access Points)  around the campus to make sure there is coverage campus-wide. Then they have mobility controllers on-premises that control all the infrastructure.  

Another use case is for companies that have branches from the data centers. At the prime location, they have APs powered within the company and Mobility Masters in the data center. The Mobility Masters cluster-connect to the mobility controllers and then control all the APs and all the wireless infrastructure. Then we have links connecting the branches. On the branches, we have small mobility controllers that feed all the information to and from Mobility Masters. That is, the Mobility Masters connect to mobility controllers and then the mobility controllers connect to the APs.  

Portugal is a small country and our smallest companies always have EAPs. EAPs are a version of a solution from Aruba that the NAC (Network Access Control) AP has inside a virtual controller. These NAC APs control all the other APs.  

It gives us a reliable, mature solution that we can roll out to our clients.  

Wireless technologies, relatively speaking, are a new solution. The technical guys from Aruba are very good. The support is very good. It is very easy to implement the product. Another solution that Aruba has is the NAC and the ClearPass. ClearPass is a good solution for additional security of access points and it is integrated so it is very easy to deploy. It is very interactive and not so analytic as other solutions so, in my opinion. Aruba is a very good company — very good technology-wise — and they make very useful products.  

Perhaps one of the things that I think Aruba can improve on is developing their current information channels. Aruba has a lot of information available about their products and to find the information you need is not always so easy. It is more complicated than it should be. I think that they are great and do have a lot of information available — probably all the information that any user really needs to do things themselves. They are doing things well and trying to do things in the right way. They should just improve more on the organization and searchability of the information to make it easier to find what you are looking for.  

I am with the sales service for Arrow, Portugal which is a solutions company. My role is to help the partners in designing solutions. I am working with Aruba products as a partner and reseller for three years now.  

Aruba Wireless is stable. Very stable. Because Aruba has already been around for more than 10 years or so, it is a mature product and a very stable product. If there is a problem, the support team is very good with working through the problems. When a client wants a new version, we have confidence in Aruba that everything has already tested and we have access to stable versions of the release. We have access to all the information for the versions whether they are the old ones or the new ones.  

My impressions about the scalability and the product is that it is highly scalable. You can start with a low quantity of access points — as low as one installation — and then scale it to thousands if you have to. You can do the upgrades in the mobility controllers to allow the growth of the infrastructure. Because of the way it is created, it is highly scalable and highly reliable.  

Of course, we have plans to scale our own usage of the product. Because we work as a value-added distributor of Aruba in Portugal, we have to meet the needs of our client base which is growing all the time. We have plans to increase the implementation of the product in our market to meet those demands. It is partly because we are working with a superior product like Aruba that we are growing in our market.  

The Aruba technical support team is very good. They are very skilled people and can help you with the support you need when it comes to their products. They are very good at turning around a response within 24 hours. It is fast and helpful.  

In my experience the initial setup of the Aruba EAP solution is straightforward. We can call on all the APs and then you have everything connected. Now they also have a Soho gateway solution that it is integrated. It is very easy to turn on this solution. I can install the Soho add-on instantly for the Aruba solution. I think that they are doing very well to keep the customer in mind when building and testing their products for ease of setup and use.  

Our deployment did not take a very long time. Even initially. For clients, the deployment takes more or less time than ours. It depends on the size of the implementation. If you have to do only 10 APs in a small deployment, it can take only two or three days to complete the whole thing. If you have a bigger implementation, it depends on the size of the project. It could take weeks for the deployment if it is a very large one.  

We did not have to use an integrator, reseller, or consultant for our deployment. We could do that ourselves. But we do work with all the integrators in Portugal because we help them to sell the solution so that they can implement it for the clients. We help them sell the product and then they do the deployments.  

The advice I would give to a customer that wants to implement this product is that they must have good support from a product partner. Try to find a certified partner to do the job of planning and implementation. This should be a certified HP partner to do the job as Aruba is an HP company. Choose the right partner, the right technical guy, and the right company to implement the solution for you. It will make sure you have the solution deployed in the way you need it to be done to fit your needs and expectations. That is the most important thing that I can think of.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product as a nine-and-a-half.  

The primary use case of this solution is to manage all of our wireless devices.

I like the way it groups and manages access points.

You have to use the command line for a lot of commands but then get back to the GUI for the main actions. A lot of the access point commands are in the command line interface, versus being in the GUI.

Some control systems have the ability to right-click to go to the common line. I would like to see that incorporated onto the interface.

I have been working with Aruba Wireless for three years.

I have almost 1,300 access points and on an average day, I have less than 1% down. I am usually sitting at 100%. This solution is stable.

This solution is very scalable.

The technical support is very good and I haven't had any issues with them. They were pretty responsive.

They had their wireless in place for eight years and I have been here for three. I wasn't a part of the initial decision-making process.

The initial setup was straightforward.

It only takes a few minutes to deploy. I would say that it is about as long as it takes to reboot the access point.

The pricing is reasonable. If you compare it to other solutions then it's reasonably priced.

I think that Aruba Wireless is a great option. I hardly ever have problems with access points and the failover mechanism works well. 

Overall, It's a good solid system.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We have used Aruba Wireless, with an Alcatel-Lucent logo, as the wireless connection for our office and guest users for nine to ten years.

We just use Aruba Wireless to provide our wireless connections.

The most valuable feature of Aruba Wireless is application monitoring. I can choose which application can connect. You can select the menus. It's very important that it's easy.

Aruba Wireless has already improved all that we need. There is a new version, 8.x, that provides a mobility controller. They probably upgraded their cloud servers. 

We have Mobility Manager. The idea is to have a mobility-based machine that can manage a controller around the company.

For a more senior tool, a local application monitoring related to IoT vendors would be useful. Because the company is stable, they have good quality.

Aruba Wireless is stable. Now we don't have any issues. In the early versions, there were problems, but now all is okay. They've advanced a long time ago.

With Aruba Wireless you can scale to 10,000 IPs. It's very scalable. In our office, we use around 100. We have customers around the world. 

We use Aruba Wireless with thousands of internal users in our office. We resell the product around the globe, so we have thousands of people connected. No extra staff is required to maintain the installation.

We use web resources to fix problems or for the recovery of data. We start around the Aruba network site. We found out the solution to recovering data there. 

We don't escalate issues to technical support. We have a lot of support here with our team.

The initial set up of Aruba Wireless is in the middle, i.e. not so easy and not so complex. You need to learn to understand the process through the provided documentation.

We installed Aruba Wireless by our internal team, as we resell their products.

We saw an ROI. We are looking for eventually replacing Alcatel-Lucent because it's a senior to Huawei and Aruba. 

With Huawei, you are talking about an enterprise solution. With Aruba, you are talking about a standard solution. Hopefully, we will take the best of each of the previous vendors.

We do not have a leased license with Aruba Wireless. We bought ours earlier. We don't use the cloud solution of Aruba. We bought the license for life. We don't rent the license or pay a monthly fee.

We are looking at Stellar solutions currently as an alternative: OmniAccess Stellar solutions. The new product line from Alcatel is what we are using for it.

Aruba Wireless is very expensive. They changed a lot of models in the last two years. The cost has increased quite a lot in my local area. 

Other than costs, it depends on whether you have a discount on the license. Aruba Wireless changed all of the portal payments a couple of years ago. This created some issues. 

On a scale of one to 10, I would rate the product with an eight.

Implementing wireless networks.

It seems a little bit more difficult to implement than Meraki.

Clear pass, it helps a lot with admin.

Analytics and big data.

• A solution to problems for end users with friendly and easy to use work environments.
• It helps the user to have a better vision of what is happening in their network.
  

We have begun implementing its infrastructure, and it has helped us have better control of our wireless network.

• Aruba Central
• The easy use of APs
• It has helped us have better control over what is happening in our network. 
• User management has helped us control their access and bandwidth on our network traffic.

• They should provide usage guides and solutions to frequent problems.
• A telephone line dedicated to technical support for not-so-skilled users.
  

I use Aruba Wireless to manage and monitor mobile users.

It has helped in making deployments easier despite the configuration's complexity.

I have found the Access Point (AP) group profile feature extremely useful. It makes deployments look easy.

• They should simplify the configuration flow. 
• Additional detailed reporting for client traffic would be a great addition.

The primary use is for distributing internet bandwidth. The performance is good.

The benefit is the constant delivery of internet bandwidth. Everybody is getting internet access properly. When 40 - 50 people are sitting in a small area it is capable of delivering internet to them constantly.

It delivers constantly, there is no break in the internet using these devices. It also automatically gets connected when the internet comes back. Failure is very low.

What I would like to have with these kinds of devices is the most enhanced security. For example, if I could apply security from wireless devices, that would be great.

I would also like more enhanced reports on user adoption, who is getting what bandwidth. That is the kind of report I should be getting.

It's completely stable.

Scalability is good. Suppose there are 20 people in a room and suddenly 10 more people come into the room. It automatically scales up and provides the internet.

A situation where we have had to contact technical support has never happened in the last year. It has been really constant in the distribution of the bandwidth.

I wanted experience using more products. We were already using another product but I thought, "Okay, let's try Aruba this time and see what the feedback is like." I thought Aruba would give me better performance, after looking at the performance of the existing devices.

When selecting a vendor, the most important factor is that support has to be there. I would look for constant support from any vendor. It can't be that the product is sold and after that there is no support. There has to be constant and quick support from the vendor.

The setup is straightforward, it's not complex. Things are quite easy with Aruba.

We were looking at different products for our new premises. Aruba was known to me so I compared Aruba with Ruckus.

I would definitely recommend Aruba devices.

I rate Aruba Wireless at nine out of 10 because of the performance and stability of the product. It's not a 10 because it needs enhanced security and a more granular level of reporting. If these kinds of things were provided it could be a 10.

For campus wireless coverage, and it is performing very well.

The performance and the application monitor. You can select the applications you want to use and block your network. Most importantly, it has a lot of bandwidth and good connections.

I would like to be able to customize Captive Portals.

Stability is good.

The scalability is very good. You can use it from SME through to enterprise companies. It provides full coverage.

We provide technical support ourselves.

I have been involved in setups for our customers. It's not too complex. Of course, you need to know the solution very well.

I would recommend it for the performance and support.

For me, the most important criteria when selecting a vendor are

• performance
• reliability
• support.

I rate Aruba at eight out of 10 because every software has problems at times. It also doesn't fit all our customers' requests.