Aruba Instant

[Rob_D]

We're looking at replacing/upgrading our wireless and Aruba Instant keeps coming up, and looks like a very compelling solution.

Has anyone got any IRL experience with it? If so how does it compare to a regular AP+controller system? Are there any weird gotchas we need to be aware of?

 

Thanks for the help.

Rob.

[psydii]

Yep, Its pretty wonderful. Best network I've had since a Chantry + Propagate derived one back in 2006.

 

It is not controller based, so you need to present the appropriate VLANs to the each switch port that has an AP connected.

 

All SSIDs are presented by all APs in a cluster.

 

If you don't have Airwave the telemetry from the APs rolls over in a few minutes - so I would recommend that. Central offers some telemetry retention too, but not as much as you get with Airwave.

 

But other than that it just works. And when we did a bake-off a couple of years ago their recommended AP for our scenario outperformed the other vendors. They are super easy to install and have the limited lifetime warranty that we are used to from the old HP Procurve days.

Edited April 22, 2021 by psydii

[foofighterjim]

Yes it is pretty good, coming from Aerohive there are a few plusses and a few negatives, for instance:

 

+ APs are relatively cheap, compared to most.

+ The IAP system if pretty robust and fault tolerant.

+ Regular and clear updates from Aruba over any known vulnerabilities.

 

- Guest wireless unusable without a properly signed SSL cert (can't be wildcard).

- Maintenance and configuration can get a little complicated if you mix multiple models of IAP into the same setup.

- Interface (both versions) leaves a lot to be desired.