Ryan - I can't speak to anything related to Aruba (except that we could never afford ClearPass).
We've been running the WiNG platform (initially from Motorola then acquired by Zebra now owned by Extreme) since 2011 and we've never been affected by a bug in the platform (small or large). With that said, the main WiNG user interface is a bit lackluster and their feature set is likely less than Aruba. The combination of WiNG and PacketFence has served us well for the last 8 years. I will also say it doesn't seem to be a very popular platform based on the strange looks I've received at conferences (people seem to be always amazed if you aren't running Cisco or Aruba in higher ed). Max -- Max McGrath <http://www.linkedin.com/in/max-mcgrath-a299124b> Infrastructure and Security Manager Carthage College 262-551-6666 mmcgr...@carthage.edu On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 10:15 AM Turner, Ryan H <rhtur...@email.unc.edu> wrote: > All: > > > > We’ve been an Aruba shop for a very long time and have around 10,000 > access points. While every relationship with vendors have their ups and > downs, my frustration with the Aruba is finally peaking to the point that I > am considering making the enormous move to choose a different vendor. The > biggest reason is with the 8.X code train, and bugs that we just don’t > consider appropriate to use in production. It has been one thing after the > other, and my extremely talented and qualified Network Architect (Keith > Miller) might as well be on the Aruba payroll as much work as he has been > doing for them to solve bugs. Just when we think we have one fixed, > another one crops up. > > > > The big one as of late is with 515s running 8.5 code train. We have them > deployed in one of our IT buildings. Periodically, people that are > connected to these APs in the 5G band will stop working. To the user, they > are browsing a site, then it becomes unresponsive. If they are on their > phone, they will disconnect from wifi and everything works fine on cell. > Nothing makes an 802.11 network look worse than switching to cell and > seeing a problem resolve. Normally, if the users disconnect then > reconnect, their problems will go ahead (but I think they end up connecting > in the 2.4G band). We’ve been working on this problem with them for > months. It always seems as though we have to prove there is a real issue. > I’m fed up with it. We are a sophisticated shop. If we have a problem, 9 > times out of 10 when we bring it to the vendor, it is a real problem. I’m > extra frustrated that due to issues we’ve seen in ResNet on the 8.3X train > that we don’t want to abandon our 6 train on main campus. To Aruba’s > credit, we purchased around 1,000 515s last year (I think around > February). When they could not get good code to support them on, Aruba > bought back half of them. I asked for them to buy back half because I > thought for sure with the 315s that we would have instead, the issues would > be fixed by the time the 315s ran out. Not looking to be the case. > > > > So, with that rant over, we are seriously considering looking to move away > from Aruba (unless they get their act together really soon). There are > other bugs I’m not even mentioning here. For those of you that made the > switch to another vendor, I would be curious how long the honeymoon lasted, > what were your motivators, and were you happy with the overall results? Of > course, this is a great opportunity to plug your vendor. As I see it, we > have 3 choices…. Something from Cisco (we had Cisco long ago and dumped > them for bugs), something from Extreme (we are a huge Extreme shop so this > makes sense), something from Juniper (Mist). > > > > Thanks, > > Ryan Turner > > Head of Networking > > The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill > > +1 919 445 0113 Office > > +1 919 274 7926 Mobile > > r...@unc.edu > > > > ********** > Replies to EDUCAUSE Community Group emails are sent to the entire > community list. If you want to reply only to the person who sent the > message, copy and paste their email address and forward the email reply. > Additional participation and subscription information can be found at > https://www.educause.edu/community > <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.educause.edu_community&d=DwMFAg&c=6woNz-MH7rT4h2NzwpOIrDoM44CA9bO_yzozu4WPyPQ&r=cz9bFTuo0gfmX0NZrLwiOdqnmojS2OEjy-Q_kIRFWXU&m=6FKcaaRAkVyz6dR2WNnpt8cXzw6N2hXxiVrQARjeGxg&s=w854WgbWy4QbpmGi7FLCewe67VvOvr1DYG_FlM8Jh1o&e=> > ********** Replies to EDUCAUSE Community Group emails are sent to the entire community list. If you want to reply only to the person who sent the message, copy and paste their email address and forward the email reply. Additional participation and subscription information can be found at https://www.educause.edu/community
