Aruba Instant On AP Series Access Points vs. Fortinet Wireless LAN

Aruba Instant On AP Series Access Points are well suited for a small to mid-size setup (i.e., from 20 users to 500 devices that need to connect to WiFi). Aruba provides access points for both indoors and outdoors (e.g., commercial spaces and offices, and manufacturing units as well). Aruba Instant On AP Series Access Points can also support controller-based architecture, and I would recommend going for that when the AP devices are more than 30.

Fortinet offers great Security features and is one of the leaders on that, and integrating Wireless LAN infrastructure with Access points proved to work rather seamlessly. Ease of management, single platform and ability to customize licensing as per needs were elements in favor of adding the Wireless LAN solution from Fortinet to our security portfolio.

• Controllerless solution
• Users connect to different APs seamlessly (soft handoff) when moving from one region to another
• Stable--we have never faced any downtime with any APs
• Different SSID to segregate internal and guest networks

• Really easy to configure
• Really easy to manage
• Great value for price

• Aruba Instant On AP Series Access Points miss having OTP generation--this is must, for guest users at least
• Pricing is high

• In the web portal, it would be nice if you could create a customer, assign that customer all the devices in the solution, and have a single pane glass to manage them all. Right now you need to access different web links to manage the devices.
• The security feature set could be a bit more sophistication, like an Arista AP which polices the air.

Fortinet offers excellent support. They will work with you until the solution is doing what it is designed to do, within its capabilities. They also do an excellent to follow-up with the end-user prior to closing the ticket.

as a stand-alone product, the Fortinet wireless LAN solution isn't the most powerful, nor compelling out there. Others, like Cisco Meraki, offer great products, with added wifi features at a similar price point, but where Forti shines, is when integrated into a network with firewall enablement such as FortiGate. Overall, it stacks up well with others and is a solution that needs to be evaluated in a purchasing project.

• Our users' productivity has increased, as they can now connect wirelessly
• We are now centrally controlling users' traffic from firewall and blocking or limiting use of unwanted web apps
• Has helped us in improving monitoring of user traffic

• Less management cost
• Less expensive to buy