Unifi and Aruba examples.

[Rob_D]

Hi guys,

 

We're looking at replacement wifi and have narrowed it down to either Unifi or Aruba (using Aruba central). Now I'm looking for some comp installations, so is there anyone who's using either Aruba or Unifi for a large installation and would be willing share their experiences?

We're a 1500 student secondary with 4 buildings. Installation plans suggest 104 APs and we're looking at having both nps/radius and guest web-portal authentication.

 

Thanks.

[synaesthesia]

To be honest, at that size it would have to be Aruba. Don't get me wrong, I love Unifi and would still have preferred Unifi over our now massive Aruba installation (and that bloody awful Aruba Central) due to it's ease, but for a large estate with portal auth etc you almost certainly should plum for the higher end enterprise level gear. Very different setups of course and probably a good £10k price difference between them I imagine!

[Primus]

We're a similar size deployment with Unifi, we installed it all ourselves about 3 years ago now and we've had zero issues.

[Net-Ctrl]

They're two quite different solutions you're looking at.

 

Whilst client experience will be important it will also come down to other factors likes time and budget. Aruba will of course be more money, but you will get the support of your chosen integrator through set-up, any teething issues and support matters, should they arise. If you also have HP ARUBA networking you would also benefit from using Central for both wired/wireless.

 

In addition, the challenge with wireless moving forward is not going to be signal coverage, but managing density. With 1500 students, that is a heavy load. If you have a BYOD/1-to-1 scheme, then your network will take a hit and your concurrent users is only going to go up so you need a network that will provide that future proofing.

 

If budget is limited, then Ubiq will provide a good solution that may require more time to upkeep and support yourself and through forums/notice boards so that is a factor to consider. But it will work.

 

Regarding your AP count - I would assume that count has come from a predictive survey or even better an onsite survey by the company involved. It is risky to assume that Ubiq would be the same count/locations. Of course, this will be harder to test but you could look at sourcing a test AP of the Ubiq model you're looking at set it up in a proposed Aruba AP placement and run some tests yourself to compare the performance of the AP to that the engineer recorded on the day.

 

Another factor to consider at the moment is going to be availability. All network suppliers are experiencing delays or limited portfolio so worth reviewing what AP models you're looking at and whether that is available.

 

Best of luck with the project. I am sure other Edugeekers will be able to provide real world experiences of both.

[Primus]

We put our Unifi WiFi in, it has taken no upkeep other than firmware updates which you should do for any implementation.

 

We've had no issues where we've had high density due to 1:1 and BYOD etc.

 

At one of our other sites we've got a full stack Cisco implementation - honestly the Unifi is more reliable!

[Rob_D]

What about managing guest access? On our current system we/reception create user credentials for the guest portal. How easy is that sort of day-to-day thing on unifi/aruba?

[Primus]

What about managing guest access? On our current system we/reception create user credentials for the guest portal. How easy is that sort of day-to-day thing on unifi/aruba?

 

We wouldn't do it using a portal, we use RADIUS fully so we use guest AD accounts and just track usage of them/reset passwords once they're no longer needed etc.

 

It's very easy to manage since you can do it directly in AD or delegate a sub-OU to an admin team to manage for example.

 

Then we pass the RADIUS log on information on to our Smoothwall UTM so all users are correctly filtered based on the groups they're in etc without having to log into the filtering separately etc etc.

[slugshead]

Ubiq are sketchy, stay away from them!

 

I'm at the early stages of planning a similar project, we're currently Ruckus (which has been rock solid), Guest access provisioning in Ruckus is very "hotel-y" Reception generates a code and gives to visitor on arrival, I like that. But I've literally narrowed it down to Ruckus or Aruba.

[chris11256]

I can vouch for Aruba, although we're a much smaller school. Very reliable, almost set & forget. We use guest AD accounts for guest wifi access. The AP's have built in Palo Alto integration so info gets sent straight to it for user-ID purposes.

 

Only thing currently is supply chain problems, if you're after Aruba AP's now then you may be in for a long wait.

[Rob_D]

Ubiq are sketchy, stay away from them!

 

Would you be able to expand on this?

[FN-GM]

We have hundreds of Unifi Nano HD access points across 18 physical sites. They work really well. Never had any issues.

 

One thing to watch out for is reseller make next to no money on Ubiquiti products so many give a negative view....

[slugshead]

Would you be able to expand on this?

 

Start here and go as far down the rabbit hole until you can't take anymore

 

https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/31/22360409/ubiquiti-networking-data-breach-response-whistleblower-cybersecurity-incident

[Primus]

Start here and go as far down the rabbit hole until you can't take anymore

 

https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/31/22360409/ubiquiti-networking-data-breach-response-whistleblower-cybersecurity-incident

 

And we definitely couldn't find security breaches for any of the other manufacturers could we?

 

The incident was very disappointing and the attempted "cover-up" even more so, however we don't connect our controller to the remote connection servers.

 

How you set something up is as important as what you buy.

[synaesthesia]

Start here and go as far down the rabbit hole until you can't take anymore

 

https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/31/22360409/ubiquiti-networking-data-breach-response-whistleblower-cybersecurity-incident

 

But you still use (insert any hardware supplier here) running (insert any software product here). What's your point?

[MatthewL]

I've used both Aruba & Unifi, both great products but massively different cost wise. I've just about finished ripping out Aruba and replacing it for Unifi, benefits for us are Unifi gives better coverage, doesn't rely on the controller as much so we often had drops it would take the network down, cost is peanuts compared to anything else. Downsides to Unifi lacking in SSID, no RADSEC without an additional server, support isn't great when having issues relies on community forums, logging doesn't seem as good but at the end of the day you get what you pay for.

 

Would I put in Unifi again hell yeah, its simple, don't need a third party to do it for me (other than mounting and running cables - that is another story), I have some 4-500 AP's out there, just setup another batch today and will keep adding. Maybe move my controller onto Linux but that is out of my hands.

 

At the costs I can afford to loose a few AP's now and again, I can deploy and swap them with ease, would I use USG's with them that is a no, switches yes on a budget but prefer Aruba but it's down to what you are used to.

[RedwayNetworks_Michael]

Aruba is a pain due to central licencing for cloud, just gets expensive and complicated.

Unify i know many use it but no support and they have had data breaches back in January.

 

The middle ground for me is Cambium Networks, free cloud licencing and support but still at a competitive price with Unify but much better features and support.

[psydii]

We've got nearly 100 Aruba IAPs for nearly 2000 users (around 1000 active devices per day). Works fine. No ongoing licences. No dependency on servers, controllers or cloud. HP Limited Lifetime warranty.

[RedwayNetworks_Michael]

Yes correct you could go down the IAP route but its limited to, if im correct 125APs and features are much less, Its similar to Ruckus Unleashed and also Meraki Go

 

Budgets are also something i suppose needs to be considered.

Personally ive had issues with the Instant On switches they do, they seem to fail. one of the schools i look after had one arrive faulty and then the replacement sent out was also faulty.

I suppose it could have just been bad luck. I did some more for another school and out of 5 of the switches 2 was faulty, the other 3 was returned without even trying and we upgraded to the 2530 range instead, cost alot more but we lost faith in the Instant on range

[psydii]

"Instant On" is a completely different platform to "Instant AP" and the old ProVision heritage kit.

 

 

But yes, last time I checked IAP were limited to 125 in a cluster - but that is plenty for most schools. If you need the additional features you can always add ClearPass and/or Central (or even AirWave if that's what you want)

[RedwayNetworks_Michael]

Sorry yes you are right,

 

You do have the option to go into central and add clearpass whihc is the way they want customers to go, understandable, but its when you start looking at Clearpass and central that makes it expensive and alittle complicated too

[Davit2005]

Aruba is a pain due to central licencing for cloud, just gets expensive and complicated.

Unify i know many use it but no support and they have had data breaches back in January.

 

The middle ground for me is Cambium Networks, free cloud licencing and support but still at a competitive price with Unify but much better features and support.

 

We don't use the cloud management for Aruba. We have 3 controllers in HA, the APs are paper weights with out the controllers. It's expensive but we have only had downtime due to admin error in the past 5 years. 2500 APs, remote sites with Remote APs (Aruba RAPs), role based access, dhcp pools, captive portal is a separate product which is again highly available. WiFi is pretty important here.

 

Yes Unifi have had a breach which they did not handle very well but many other orgs have had breaches too. I don't like the UDM Pro need to have online access or a UI account though and I'd jus host in a VM with no internet access what so ever.

Edited September 24, 2021 by Davit2005

[RobFuller]

@psydill do you have a direct link into the product range as interested to take a look? Not sure if I'm looking at Instant AP or Aruba Central APs unless they are one the same?

[psydii]

https://www.arubanetworks.com/products/network-management-operations/instant/ looks like they are rebranding/repositioning the line to compete with meraki et al. When we bought the IAPs, Central was very much an optional extra. Probably still is if you speak with the right people.

 

https://www.arubanetworks.com/products/wireless/access-points/indoor-access-points/510-series/ (if you scroll down to the specs under 'minimum operating systems versions' you can see InstantOS listed.