It’s important to separate marketing from the reality of how the technology functions.
* Band Steering – Cisco didn’t say it was impossible, what they said was that the client side of the equation was so fraught with issues that the feature would lead to greater problems, especially in diverse ecosystems such as education. That totally played out here, where the Aruba feature had to be disabled because it was causing a lot of issues. In the central library, I could watch as Macs (in particular) would be bounced around like a hot potato. Even today, it’s a lot better, but clients are far better at making the right decision, so leaving the feature off, be it Cisco or Aruba, is a prudent idea. * Spectrum Monitoring – Again, Aruba is/was dependent on what the off-the-shelf chipset is capable of. Perhaps this has improved in the latest AP’s, but we (and respected others in the field), found them rather blind to a lot of spectrum data that the CleanAir Cisco devices saw clearly – and significantly faster at detection of items the Aruba also saw. CleanAir AP’s have a dedicated equivalent of spectrum expert on them – they don’t need to use the client radios to do the work. It’s always on, always looking. * Bugs – I don’t know the specifics on the current issues, but I know they’ve run into a number of show-stopper problems in the past. The controllers and APs are fairly new (24 months), so it’s not because they are running something unsupported. The companies you mention were customers before HP purchased Aruba. Given what the college’s here have expressed since the change, it would be difficult to speculate on their satisfaction under the new direction. It’s sort of like saying Cisco has 45% of the WiFi market, so with nearly a three-fold advantage over their nearest competitor, it’s surprising Toyota would go with a distant 2nd. Then again, companies often make decisions based on non-technical reasons e.g. joint marketing incentives, or because the alternative is a close partner with a competitor. From: "wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu" <WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU> on behalf of "bosbo...@liberty.edu" <bosbo...@liberty.edu> Reply-To: "wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu" <WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU> Date: Friday, August 24, 2018 at 4:48 AM To: "wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu" <WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU> Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Cisco - Field Notice - 70253 - Wireless Client Fails to Associate: AID Aruba introduced client band steering before we became their customer in 2008. At that time Cisco said band steering was not possible. Aruba has had spectrum monitoring since before Cisco’s CleanAir technology. We know who is following whom. That is why we made our choice. Aruba has had ap preload for years but this is hands off seamless automated updating of controllers & APs. . I am very interested in what Aruba bugs have not been addressed, assuming they were running supported code. We work very closely with their support and they insure our needs are met. I am sure large companies like Microsoft, Google, & Toyota would not use Aruba if the support was lacking behind others. With Aruba (& Cisco) one needs to move carefully when updating to insure the new version meets your stability requirements while fulfilling your needs. The above is strictly my personal opinion and not that of my employer Bruce Osborne Senior Network Engineer Network Operations - Wireless (434) 592-4229 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY Training Champions for Christ since 1971 From: Jeffrey D. Sessler [mailto:j...@scrippscollege.edu] Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2018 9:48 AM Subject: Re: Cisco - Field Notice - 70253 - Wireless Client Fails to Associate: AID Error It’s great to hear Aruba is adding features such as “automated RF management” that Cisco has had for over a decade. In another ten years maybe they’ll catch up to Cisco’s CleanAir technology? :D In all seriousness,. if you’re talking specifically about AP updates, cisco has had AP code pre-download for years, resulting in between 2 to 4 minutes downtime when rebooting a multi-thousand AP controller. Not hitless, but low impact for sure. If you make use of Prime 3.3 or above, you’ve got Rolling AP Upgrade, ensuring that AP’s are updated and rebooted in defined groups so that clients are minimally impacted i.e. they roam to another AP while an adjacent is being updated. It’s not hitless since the client must roam, but it’s as transparent as you’re going to get. In my opinion, the only way we’re going to see better results for enterprise WiFi in EDU will be as customers transition to cloud-based managed-services. In this scenario, the vendor gains significant visibility on everything deployed in the field and isn’t waiting for a customer to decide to open a case and do all the necessary log/data collection e.g. Meraki. The campuses in our consortium that had been on Aruba have been migrating to Cisco this summer. Since the purchase by HP, support and innovation has waned, with bugs they’ve hit not being addressed. Clearly, like the difference in mu and Lee’s Cisco experience, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns on the Aruba side either. Jeff From: "wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu<mailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu>" <WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU<mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>> on behalf of "bosbo...@liberty.edu<mailto:bosbo...@liberty.edu>" <bosbo...@liberty.edu<mailto:bosbo...@liberty.edu>> Reply-To: "wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu<mailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu>" <WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU<mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>> Date: Thursday, August 23, 2018 at 4:33 AM To: "wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu<mailto:wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu>" <WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU<mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>> Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Cisco - Field Notice - 70253 - Wireless Client Fails to Associate: AID Error Come over to the Intelligent Wi-Fi side! :D We just moved to Aruba 8.2.x this summer and are impressed with the automated RF management capabilities. We can now upgrade all or part of our wireless network with zero downtime. We also are in the process from moving from 3 independent systems (campus, remote, LPV) to a single unified system, simplifying configuration and adding more consistency.. Bruce Osborne Senior Network Engineer Network Operations - Wireless (434) 592-4229 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY Training Champions for Christ since 1971 From: Lee H Badman [mailto:lhbad...@syr.edu] Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2018 4:20 PM Subject: Re: Cisco - Field Notice - 70253 - Wireless Client Fails to Associate: AID Error Is crazy- Cisco is up to 8.8.x on support site, but I hesitate to move from 8.2 MR7 as it actually works. Like hesitate to move, ever. EVER. -Lee Badman From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv <WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU<mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>> On Behalf Of Mccormick, Kevin Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2018 1:30 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU<mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU> Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Cisco - Field Notice - 70253 - Wireless Client Fails to Associate: AID Error New field notice was published yesterday. https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/field-notices/702/fn70253.html You may want to check if you are being affected. Following versions are affected. 8.0.150.0, 8.0.152.0 8.4.100.0 8.5.103.0 If you are running 8.0, TAC has 8.0MR5esc available. Kevin McCormick<https://www.youracclaim.com/user/kevin-mccormick> Network Administrator University Technology - Western Illinois University ke-mccorm...@wiu.edu<mailto:ke-mccorm...@wiu.edu> | (309) 298-1335<tel:3092981335> | Morgan Hall 106b Connect with uTech: Website<http://www.wiu.edu/utech> | Facebook<https://www.facebook.com/uTechWIU> | Twitter<https://twitter.com/WIU_uTech> [http://www.wiu.edu/university_technology/images/signatures/currentimage.jpg] ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/discuss. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/discuss. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/discuss. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/discuss. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/discuss. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/discuss.
