We have been extremely satisfied with Aruba over the past 16 months we've had them deployed on our network. I'd like to comment on a few points from the previous posting to consider:
Whichever you chose, they are both overlays on you existing network. Cisco is still Airespace technology, no matter what name is on their boxes. We have 900 APs/six controllers deployed completely over a Cisco infrastructure, no issues whatsoever. If you are looking to do role based access, Aruba is your vendor. Their controllers come with a built in firewall that lends itself perfectly for this task. We have different roles/policies based on university affiliation (staff, student, faculty, guest) and by method of access (captive portal, WPA). Straightforward, easy to configure. I would like to know one feature that Cisco offers that is not available from Aruba. If someone knows of some feature, please let me know. Lastly, reading the Cisco/WISM issues on this list makes me cringe. Mainly, from having dealt with the same type of issues in deploying "special function" blades in our core 6000's. As soon as I have an issue with one of my controllers, I'll be sure to post here, but it hasn't happened yet. Just my 2 cents, Don Wright Senior Network Engineer Brown University Network Technologies Group ________________________________ From: Lee H Badman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 11:10 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice I would advise evaluating what management platform you use separately- especially if you go with Cisco. We have had a running series of major annoyances with WCS that render it 50% useless for us, and plenty of promises that each would be fixed with the next release, which may or may not happen. Look at the list of open caveats and bugs, as well as spending time in the discussion forums for issues that may be important to you.. AirWave's AMP may be a better fit- depending on your needs and expectations. As for picking WLAN hardware/management- I'd ask these sorts of questions as well, as they can be vexing day-to-day: - Is configuration scheduling for APs available? - Do I have to reboot APs just to add SSIDs? - How much can be done through GUI, and how much has to be done at the command line? - Can devices be sorted in simple numeric sequence in GUI views? - Can I turn off 802.11b (or a or g) on individual APs if need/desire be, or am I limited to doing it controller-wide? - Can I do any configurations on multicast or Peer-to-peer blocking on a per-VLAN basis, or is it strictly controller wide? - Are effective CDP/LLDP views available between AP/switches that show not only attached port, but also speed and duplex mismatches? Also- if you are looking at doing mesh at all with Cisco (the outdoor APs)- get clarification on what's going on right now between controllers and APs- I'm getting conflicting reports between SEs that the mesh nodes now require their own dedicated controllers (where as they did not on earlier versions of code) but that later on the code will be "repaired" again so that dedicated controllers won't be required. Depending on the answer- this can really add to the cost. This one is very strange- different SE's have differing versions of reality on this one. Best of luck to you as you proceed. Lee H. Badman Wireless/Network Engineer Information Technology and Services Syracuse University 315 443-3003 ________________________________ From: Jay Howell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 10:12 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Vendor Choice I am in the process of evaluating vendors for a campus-wide rollout of wireless. I have narrowed my choices down to Cisco and Aruba. We are planning on creating three roles which are faculty/staff, student, and guest.Each of these roles will have varying degrees of access to systems on the network. Because of manpower issues we will be broadcasting the SSID and using Novell's LDAP to authenticate to the system. We are not a Cisco shop so there is no advantage either way as far as dropping into our existing system. My question is are there any gotchas I might be missing with these two vendors? From what I have seen, both systems seem to work nearly identically. You can access the same information from each controller, and both are self-healing when an AP goes out. Are there any support issues I should be aware of? We plan on making our decision around the first of November, so I look forward to any comments this group might have. -- ********************************************************* Jay Howell Executive Director of Information Technology Chowan University Ph: 252-398-6361 ********************************************************* ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
