RE: Big Aruba Environments- Management of multiplecontrollers
Hi Bruce- I do understand your points. I am actually a fan of AirWave as a network admin, and as a freelance writer have covered their development in both Network Computing Magazine and Information Week. I'm throwing no stones at them or anyone- just responding that from experience with multiple central WLAN management tools that with the dollars these systems often command, I personally want my money's worth out of the investment. And that for our team, jumping in and out of command line and between multiple GUI systems is not only not scalable, but also prone to errors. May be OK for us in engineering who are extremely close to the WLAN, but gets dicier for installers who do a lot more than wireless in a very large environment. Not evangelizing, just pointing one perspective. Regards- Lee From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of Osborne, Bruce W. (NS) [bosbo...@liberty.edu] Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 7:30 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Big Aruba Environments- Management of multiplecontrollers Lee, I understand from Airwave support that they expect to have improved Aruba management capabilities later this year. A multi-vendor management solution cannot be expected to manage all vendor platforms equally. The perform the easy things first and then add more capabilities. Bruce Osborne Liberty University -Original Message- From: Lee H Badman [mailto:lhbad...@syr.edu] Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 1:28 PM Subject: Re: Big Aruba Environments- Management of multiplecontrollers Hi John- "It does not do config now, but really I'm not sure you want it to. How often do you change your WLAN network?" we change some of ours on occasion, both in prod and for development- to meet different transient circumstances while our prod "main" WLANs roll along largely undisturbed. And when you want to make changes, to me it's important to be able to do what you want, when you want with no management system impediments, forced practices, or jumping between systems to do a little hereand a little there. "...do you really want to set up your QOS or multicast outside the Aruba interface?" If ANY product (not picking on any vendor with this comment) touts themselves as a WLAN management solution, then yes, I'd expect to set up QoS, client security, WLANs, or any system parameter in a single pane of glass. Or if a vendor is better at monitoring, I'd like to see a monitoring only version at a reasonable price marketed rather than be expected to pay top dollar for a complete solution but only have it be practical for half my team's needs. That being said... everyone has their own needs and ways of solving those needs. It's nice to see a growing number of viable options and healthy competition making for better solutions. Respectfully, Lee Badman From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of John W Turner [tur...@brandeis.edu] Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2009 7:56 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Big Aruba Environments- Management of multiplecontrollers We have 6 controllers (though that is really immaterial since you only config the WLAN on the master) and have been deployed with 900 AP's for over 3 years. We went with Airwave about 6 months ago and are EXTREMELY happy with it. It provides an invaluable amount of visibility into the network and is a huge help in diagnosing client problems. We see this as a business intelligence tool to assist us in strategically tweaking/upgrading our WLAN network. It does not do config now, but really I'm not sure you want it to. How often do you change your WLAN network? I can see some features getting into Airwave (black listing, key rotation, guest provisioning) but do you really want to set up your QOS or multicast outside the Aruba interface? I see the Airwave and Aruba controller interfaces serving two distinct purposes: Airwave for operations and Aruba for management. -- John W. Turner Director of Networks & Systems Brandeis University - Original Message - From: "Ken Connell" To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Sent: Friday, March 6, 2009 8:39:15 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Big Aruba Environments- Management of multiplecontrollers We did a trial on both... For us the MMS was unreliable and some of the tools (like finding users) just didn't work. We were constantly rebooting and tweaking, but I must note we had the software version not the appliance. The airwave product for us was great with stats, finding users and what not, but the config for Aruba just isn't there yet, and for
RE: Big Aruba Environments- Management of multiplecontrollers
All, First, let me say "Thank you" to all who responded. This forum is a great tool for learning through your shared experiences and perspectives. While I appreciate the desire to have all-things-wireless available through the "single pane of glass" approach, I'm just not convinced that you can (at least not immediately) expect that from a product that seems to aspire to be the monitoring tool of choice in a vendor-agnostic package. I hear people saying that monitoring in a WLAN environment or, as someone else framed it, the "Operations" side of the equation, is where the Airwave product shines, and that represents a great value to multi-vendor shops. Having said that, I think that the ability to also do all configuration tasks on this same console, again with multiple-vendor architectures, is substantially more difficult to deliver. The MMS appliance for Aruba does provide significant, but by no means complete, configuration capabilities. For me, that means I may be using it while working on configuration tasks, but still have to jump out of the MMS for regular trips to the CLI. Replacing the MMS with the Airwave product actually promises some clarity for me in that respect, using the CLI for all configuration tasks. Thanks once again for the insightful responses. Cheers, John John Steely Associate Director Infrastructure Systems Department Library and Information Services Dickinson College P.O. Box 1773 Carlisle, PA 17013 717-245-1613 (Voice) 717-245-1690 (Fax) ste...@dickinson.edu -Original Message- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of Osborne, Bruce W. (NS) Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 7:30 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Big Aruba Environments- Management of multiplecontrollers Lee, I understand from Airwave support that they expect to have improved Aruba management capabilities later this year. A multi-vendor management solution cannot be expected to manage all vendor platforms equally. The perform the easy things first and then add more capabilities. Bruce Osborne Liberty University -Original Message- From: Lee H Badman [mailto:lhbad...@syr.edu] Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 1:28 PM Subject: Re: Big Aruba Environments- Management of multiplecontrollers Hi John- "It does not do config now, but really I'm not sure you want it to. How often do you change your WLAN network?" we change some of ours on occasion, both in prod and for development- to meet different transient circumstances while our prod "main" WLANs roll along largely undisturbed. And when you want to make changes, to me it's important to be able to do what you want, when you want with no management system impediments, forced practices, or jumping between systems to do a little hereand a little there. "...do you really want to set up your QOS or multicast outside the Aruba interface?" If ANY product (not picking on any vendor with this comment) touts themselves as a WLAN management solution, then yes, I'd expect to set up QoS, client security, WLANs, or any system parameter in a single pane of glass. Or if a vendor is better at monitoring, I'd like to see a monitoring only version at a reasonable price marketed rather than be expected to pay top dollar for a complete solution but only have it be practical for half my team's needs. That being said... everyone has their own needs and ways of solving those needs. It's nice to see a growing number of viable options and healthy competition making for better solutions. Respectfully, Lee Badman From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of John W Turner [tur...@brandeis.edu] Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2009 7:56 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Big Aruba Environments- Management of multiplecontrollers We have 6 controllers (though that is really immaterial since you only config the WLAN on the master) and have been deployed with 900 AP's for over 3 years. We went with Airwave about 6 months ago and are EXTREMELY happy with it. It provides an invaluable amount of visibility into the network and is a huge help in diagnosing client problems. We see this as a business intelligence tool to assist us in strategically tweaking/upgrading our WLAN network. It does not do config now, but really I'm not sure you want it to. How often do you change your WLAN network? I can see some features getting into Airwave (black listing, key rotation, guest provisioning) but do you really want to set up your QOS or multicast outside the Aruba interface? I see the Airwave and Aruba controller interfaces serving two distinct purposes: Airwave for operations and Aruba for
RE: Big Aruba Environments- Management of multiplecontrollers
Lee, I understand from Airwave support that they expect to have improved Aruba management capabilities later this year. A multi-vendor management solution cannot be expected to manage all vendor platforms equally. The perform the easy things first and then add more capabilities. Bruce Osborne Liberty University -Original Message- From: Lee H Badman [mailto:lhbad...@syr.edu] Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 1:28 PM Subject: Re: Big Aruba Environments- Management of multiplecontrollers Hi John- "It does not do config now, but really I'm not sure you want it to. How often do you change your WLAN network?" we change some of ours on occasion, both in prod and for development- to meet different transient circumstances while our prod "main" WLANs roll along largely undisturbed. And when you want to make changes, to me it's important to be able to do what you want, when you want with no management system impediments, forced practices, or jumping between systems to do a little hereand a little there. "...do you really want to set up your QOS or multicast outside the Aruba interface?" If ANY product (not picking on any vendor with this comment) touts themselves as a WLAN management solution, then yes, I'd expect to set up QoS, client security, WLANs, or any system parameter in a single pane of glass. Or if a vendor is better at monitoring, I'd like to see a monitoring only version at a reasonable price marketed rather than be expected to pay top dollar for a complete solution but only have it be practical for half my team's needs. That being said... everyone has their own needs and ways of solving those needs. It's nice to see a growing number of viable options and healthy competition making for better solutions. Respectfully, Lee Badman From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of John W Turner [tur...@brandeis.edu] Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2009 7:56 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Big Aruba Environments- Management of multiplecontrollers We have 6 controllers (though that is really immaterial since you only config the WLAN on the master) and have been deployed with 900 AP's for over 3 years. We went with Airwave about 6 months ago and are EXTREMELY happy with it. It provides an invaluable amount of visibility into the network and is a huge help in diagnosing client problems. We see this as a business intelligence tool to assist us in strategically tweaking/upgrading our WLAN network. It does not do config now, but really I'm not sure you want it to. How often do you change your WLAN network? I can see some features getting into Airwave (black listing, key rotation, guest provisioning) but do you really want to set up your QOS or multicast outside the Aruba interface? I see the Airwave and Aruba controller interfaces serving two distinct purposes: Airwave for operations and Aruba for management. -- John W. Turner Director of Networks & Systems Brandeis University - Original Message - From: "Ken Connell" To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Sent: Friday, March 6, 2009 8:39:15 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Big Aruba Environments- Management of multiplecontrollers We did a trial on both... For us the MMS was unreliable and some of the tools (like finding users) just didn't work. We were constantly rebooting and tweaking, but I must note we had the software version not the appliance. The airwave product for us was great with stats, finding users and what not, but the config for Aruba just isn't there yet, and for that reason we haven't committed. Ken Connell Intermediate Network Engineer Computer & Communication Services Ryerson University 350 Victoria St RM AB50 Toronto, Ont M5B 2K3 416-979-5000 x6709 From: "Steely, John" Date: Fri, 06 Mar 2009 08:11:18 -0500 To: Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Big Aruba Environments- Management of multiple controllers I am curious if we have any Aruba shops on the list who have Airwave, but also had experience with the Aruba MMS appliance and would be willing to share your thoughts on comparing the two? Thanks in advance, John John Steely Associate Director Infrastructure Systems Department Library and Information Services Dickinson College P.O. Box 1773 Carlisle, PA 17013 717-245-1613 (Voice) 717-245-1690 (Fax) ste...@dickinson.edu<mailto:ste...@dickinson.edu> From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of Lee H Badman Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2009 9:55 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Big Aruba Environments- Management of multiple controllers
