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Aruba Vs. Aerohive: IT Pros Weigh In
Users discuss pros and cons of WLAN products from two top vendors.
IT Central Station
July 18, 2017
3 Min Read
Based on real user reviews at IT Central Station, Aruba, a Hewlett-Packard Enterprise company, and Aerohive Networks are widely compared among enterprise tech professionals who are researching and evaluating their businesses’ wireless LAN requirements.
Contributors at IT Central Station shared their thoughts on the pros and cons of each Wi-Fi product, based on their experience. They cited best features as well as areas for improvement.
Aruba wireless
A network administrator at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees described how wireless access for the users at his university has improved with Aruba:
It's provided our students with such reliable service that they just expect it to be there and take it for granted. They come to school, blackboard their work, get on YouTube, chat with friends, etc. …, and then go home, not realizing that they used the college network. We've been able to give them the best experience possible, and their feedback has been amazing
David Connors, manager of network services at Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology, described how his organization has benefitted from using Aruba:
AirWave allows us to do different reporting on WiFi utilization at our different campuses so I can break down different areas of the college and find out how many users are using the network at any given time. I can find out the utilization of different access points, which allows me to do capacity management.
At the same time, Aruba users note some shortcomings. Joy T. Marinas, network design and delivery at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees, discussed the drawbacks she's found:
I worked on getting the root cause of multiple alarms of wireless access points in our management platform and found it to be caused by a software bug of the current version in the wireless controller. While doing this task, I found that the TAC support people I worked with have limited knowledge or comprehension of what's going on as I was passed around to other engineers a few times.
Kevin Schmidt, network analyst at a local government with 501-1,000 employees, suggested how Aruba Wireless could improve further:
It's a little bit over-complicated. They could simplify the interface. Also, the update procedure from their website could be a little better. Finding the firmware the first time is a pain.
Aerohive Networks
Mike Cameron, Level 3 support technician at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees, discussed the value of Aerohive’s Branch Router feature:
With the Branch Router, we’re able to be factory reset and still be connected to the internet, and it finds its way to our system allowing us to get sites back online, without having to configure a new device and ship it to them for longer downtimes.
Tracy Shoene, director of technology at a K-12 educational company, described how her organization benefits from using Aerohive Networks:
After recently decreasing our tech staff, Aerohive has been a lifesaver. Our network rarely needs attention, and the reports and configurations are easy to run when needed. This has saved us a lot of man-hours!
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But IT pros also reported areas where Aerohive could improve. Daryl Reseigh, ICT systems manager at a K-12 educational company or school, said Aerohive could beef up certain features:
Additional add-ins such as HiveSchool and MDM are a fantastic idea, however they lack functionality at present. It would be great if teachers could manage their class of BYOD devices using Hive Manager.
Cam Philbeck, IT administrator II at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees, suggested several changes that would improve Aerohive's product:
Price is a little high. I would like to see a remote phone application for monitoring APs when on the road. I would also like to see the second network pass-through port on the AP provide POE.
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