ExtremeCloud IQ Reviews

• 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!

Since these APs are controller-less they are very dependable and easy to configure. Other features that add value to our institution include deployment planning tools, load-balancing, auto-channeling, auto-power, Cooperative Control Protocols, Firewalls, QoS, to mention a few.

Ease of use and features are its strongest points.

Sometimes, packing a wide array of feature into these APs might overtax them. They would benefit from creating more powerful APs (Processing-wise)

4 years

We started with a small deployment of 300 APs in 2010. Our campus now has ~1400 and we plan to expand to 2000 in the next 2 years.

When we installed the latest firmware versions on these APs, sometimes we encountered major/minor bugs that would force us to roll back until an appropriate patch was released. Also, with some bleeding-edge AC units we had some problems when they were under high client-loads were new clients would be unable to associate to the APs.

Not really. We simply had to buy a more powerful Hive Manager appliance when we went over the 1000 AP mark, but other than that, this product scales very easily.

I would rate it at 10 out of 10 as their staff is very polite with customers.

I would rate their TAC team at 9 out of 10 as some of their Tier 1 engineers needed more experience and/or training.

The initial setup is very easy. the APs automatically find our local Hive Manager and make it very straight-forward to configure.

Day to day cost is minimal, as these APs don't fail very often. The initial setp was a bit pricey as well as our expansion (if you calculate at around $1200 per newly deployed AP, including wired lines)

I'd highly recommend this product if they're looking for feature-rich APs that are easy to deploy & manage.

We are partners and distributers for ExtremeCloud and we sell the solution to a lot of our customers. It is a cloud management solution that provides management and access control in a centralized environment with complete control over your network.

ExtremeCloud offers features that not a lot of other vendors do like their data storage and the ability to swap licenses.

I would like to see more security features such as NAC integrated to the solution. This would allow customers to be able to control all other users under one dashboard.

I am excited for the SD-WAN pieces to be added as well but I believe that there are already plans for this to happen.

I have been using this solution for the past seven years.

This is a stable product, I have not had any issues regarding stability.

The main reason why a lot of customers choose this solution is because of how scalable it is. You can scale as you grow by just adding more products.

We have had good experiences with respect to support.

It is easy for customers to use this product because they are able to interchange the license depending on their usage rather than having to buy individual licenses for each asset.

I would recommend this product to anyone who does not have it.

I would rate it a nine out of ten.

Their distributed model - they call it cooperative control - rather than a controller-based system, has permitted a centralized management control plane with HiveManager while data flows just as it does over any LAN. They also have robust troubleshooting tools available.

We have been able to deploy complex wireless solutions to our users with minimal difficulty.

Aerohive's new version of HiveManager, known as NG, while offering new features, still needs development and an ability to migrate from "classic" versions of HiveManager.

NG is a step in the right direction towards both an improved interface (interface being a deficit noted by other reviewers) and SDN. After years of development on "classic" versions of HiveManager, NG is still a work in progress. As of 2016, they have yet to add support for their line of BR routers and CVG VPN Gateway to HM NG. HiveManager 6 is still required to centrally manage these devices. As a result, we are currently running both HM "classic" and NG in our environment.

I have been assured support is on the way, but other features, such as open API support, seem to be taking precedence in development.

We have used it since 2008.

There have been minimal issues, usually when updating to new versions of Hive OS.

One HiveOS release, we downgraded until the next revision was released.

We have never hit a ceiling, although I feel confident we would have if a controller-based solution had been deployed.

They have been very eager to please us.

As with any other IT vendor I've worked with over 20 years, some are better than others. Again, they seem eager to please and resolve any issues we've encountered.

I previously used Symbol/Motorola. We switched due to scalability and management issues.

It can be as simple or complex as you wish.

An in-house team implemented it.

Without needing to pay for controllers, we were able to invest in better wireless hardware. License and maintenance costs were minimal.

Before choosing, we also evaluated Cisco, Aruba, Meru, Meraki, Ruckus, and Motorola.

We integrated Aerohive into our Cisco-centric environment in 2008 and never looked back. Subsequently, when Aerohive offered other layer two devices, specifically switches, we opted to begin to upgrade our older Cisco access switches with Aerohive devices.

The controller-less device management, built-in captive web portal, and reporting.

We moved from 6 individual consumer-grade APs to the Aerohives.  Keeping the devices up to date and obtaining usage info from them was a never ending ordeal.  I didn't have 1 controller to deal with I had 6.

The reporting, while a great improvement, is limited, at least in my experience, to the preconfigured charts and templates for those charts.  Obtaining raw data from the Aerohive units for use in other applications requires Tech Support intervention.

The Charts are nice for the circumstances for which they are developed. We just happen to be slightly outside of that so we have to hand write the data to enter elsewhere. 

To start with I work at a Library watching and running reports on clients is not really in our best interest.  So  many of the charts don’t help much at all and only if we are making a presentation to the board or something like that.  Which doesn’t happen very often.

We are really just after usage numbers to justify the money being spent.  To be very specific all we need is the number of unique clients we get per day totaled up for the month.  There is one report that gives us a bar graph showing unique clients each day of the month.  However, since we can’t get those numbers in any other form we have to total them up by hand to get the total for the month.

Not very difficult I admit.  However, we need to do this every month for 7 different libraries.  It would save us several minutes on the first of each month if we could just pull a report that could sum up those numbers for us or transfer the numbers into a preconfigured spreadsheet and then just send that to each library.  The first of the month is typically so busy every extra minute helps.

I can also imagine where some places would not want graphs or charts at all, just the raw data.  They could then use the data they need in reports or other applications that they already use.

The way it is now is still do-able and much better than it was.  That was merely the only gripe I really had about Aerohive for which I have yet to find a resolution.  

We've had no issues with deployment.

We've had no issues with stability.

We've had no issues with scalability.

The ability to connect unconfigured Branch Routers to the internet and they find there way back to our system so we can set them up. The way Access points work together to hand users off when moving around building so they never lose connection

With the Branch Router able to be factory reset and still able to be connected to internet and it finds its way to our system allows us to get sites back online with out having to configure a new device and ship it to them for longer down times.

The web UI could be designed for more organization for the administrators and maybe a more customization for the views.

I have been working with Aerohive for over 5 years while the company I work for has had it for longer.

Was not here when deployed for the first time. When we deployed at other sites we recently acquired we had no issues.

We have run into some stability with older firmware on Access Points but that is very rare usually there is a update that fixes it or we roll back if it an update issue.

So far no issues have come up with scalability. we have installed these in around 40 nursing homes and they are working great.

3 out of 5, depending on the technician you get some want to troubleshoot over email other will actually call or ask you to call them.

3 out of 5, majority of the issues we report they want us to factory reset which was already done and o the basic troubleshooting which I have already done.

I came onboard with company using this system so we have not even looked at any other systems or even had another system at the time

Setup seems to be pretty straightforward, I was not here for initial setup that was handle by other techs. Setups I have done have been very simple and straight forward.

I was not here when this was implemented for the first time. have not worked with a vendor team or in house team. When troubleshooting issues been working with Aerohive directly.

That I am not sure about our ROI, but these devices have held up very well and with how old some of these devices are (4 or more years old) they're still working.

I don't handle pricing or licensing. Some of the devices seem pricey but quality seems to be top notch because we don't have devices coming back to be returned all the time.

Was not apart of team that was choosing wireless options at the time. Have not even heard or seen any other wireless system that was before this.

This system has been very decent system and has held up through the 5 years I have been here. I believe we will continue to use Aerohive when we go to upgrade.

The most valuable feature for me is the ability to operate in a controller-less fashion. Allowing the APs to function if connectivity is lost to the controller can be very valuable.

These devices have allowed our wireless network deployment to go from a 'best-effort' nicety to an 'expected' accommodation. The dependability is definitely appreciated.

The area that I would like to see improved is searching within Hivemanager. There have been several occasions where I was attempting to delete an 'unnecessary' or 'unused' configuration item and was advised by the system that it was still in use by another policy. Trying to find that policy was very time consuming.

We have had Aerohive deployed in our environment for over eight years.

We did not encounter any issues related to deployment of the Aerohive access points.

We have not encountered any issues related to stability of the Aerohive access points.

We have not encountered any issues related to scalability of the Aerohive access points.

I would rate customer service around 8/10. We have not had any significant problems necessitating a call to customer service. They have always been willing to help.

I would rate technical support at 8.5/10. The technical support teams seem to be pretty robust. Our main needs for technical support have been for hardware failures rather than software or configuration issues.

We did not have any previous solutions in our environment.

This system was set up before I began managing the environment. I cannot say if there were issues in the initial setup, or speak to it being straightforward or complex.

This was implemented via an in-house team with the assistance of an Aerohive engineer.

Our return on investment has been positive, overall. It is very difficult to gauge this statistic in our environment due to this product being used 'in addition to', rather than 'in place of' a wired infrastructure.

Concerning Aerohive, this topic is not one that I have been involved with and, as such, I do not wish to give advice regarding.

This system was set up before I began managing the environment. I cannot say which vendors, or even if other vendors were evaluated.

Aerohive's Hive Manager allows you to control all aspects of your WiFi network, from anywhere. The dashboard shows you the heavier users, the problem spots on your network, and the general health of your WiFi system, at a glance.

One can easily set up and take down new networks for testing, or long term visitors, or easily set up temporary access for visitors.

Not really. I'm not sure what more to say except that I can't think of any areas for improvement. The 120 character requirement for reviews is unnecessary.

5

No issues with deployment. Again, I'm not sure what to say except that I didn't encounter any issues with deployment.

Have had no issues with stability. Again, and again, I'm not sure what to say except that I don't have any issues with stability.

The adapters have scaled to meet the needs of our students without issues. Which means that I didn't encounter any issues with scalability.

Excellent service. Yes, the service was and is excellent. And again, and again, the one hundred and twenty character requirement for reviews is unnecessary.

Excellent support. Yes, the support was and is excellent. And again, and again the one hundred and twenty character requirement for reviews is unnecessary.

Mikrotik, impossible to manage these devices. Mikrotik requires that you know their proprietary system to get it to work.

Very easy to set up. Much easier to set up than to meet the requirements for this review, the one hundred and twenty character requirement is very onerous.

Installed and set them up myself. If you can string wire and find an electric outlet you can install these WiFi adapters. The software is a breeze to use.

I don't calculate that. These just work and fit our needs. Again, I don't calculate the return on investment. If the device makes my life easier, and it works, I judge it a positive move.

In education, install via e-rate to make the product quite affordable. They are similar in price to most competing brands.

Yes (ruckus, cisco, meraki, etc.) but this had the easiest interface to set up. Again, the interface is very easy to set up. A general knowledge of networks is all you need.

No. No. No. I have no additional comments or advice, but I do have a suggestion, that the 120 character minimum is removed from these reviews.