Hi Ethan, After extensive investigation we adopted the Aruba Solution about 3 years ago and have been very pleased. We have a slightly smaller deployment with 160 A/B/G APS deployed and beginning our N role out with 5 N AP-125s deployed. Instead of hidden costs several of the features that were originally paid additions are now included in base licenses. We use Bradford Campus Manager for our student authentication and role based access. We use 802.1X 256/AES encryption using radius from our AD servers for faculty and staff. I can't speak about the other systems but the Aruba Wireless is a set and forget solution. No Regrets at all.
Chris Drever - PSU Networking (The opinions expressed herein are my personal opinions and not that of Plymouth State University) -----Original Message----- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of Ethan Sommer Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 2:21 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Aruba vs HP vs Meraki We are considering replacing our 200+ AP wireless infrastructure with a controller based 802.11n system. I believe we have narrowed it down to Aruba, HP Procurve (we use HP switch gear), and Meraki. I have two questions: 1. Are there any hidden costs we should watch out for with any of these (particularly Aruba.) Will we hit major costs other than the up front cost for the APs and the controllers? 2. I know a lot of schools are very happily using Aruba, but I haven't heard of any schools using HP and very few using Meraki. Are there any schools who have gone with Aruba and regretted it? If so, why? Are there any schools out there using HP Procurve (formerly Colubrius) or Merkai? What do you think of them? Did you have any surprises after you deployed? Ethan -- Ethan Sommer Associate Director of Core Services 507-933-7042 somm...@gustavus.edu ********** 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/.
