HPE Networking Instant On Access Points vs. HPE Juniper Access Points

It is possible that we have a bad luck with the deployment. However, It is capable to perform enterprise-level security to fit some of the organization's standards. With Airwave and other tools, it's easy to manage and administrate your wireless environment. Make aware of the IPsec tunnel from each user to the controller if you are using Clearpass for NAC. If you have a remote office with local resources, you will need controller or IAP to route traffic locally. If you have many remote offices, you will need to deploy controllers or IAP in each office, which lead to additional cost and management.

The Mist portal-controlled Juniper APs are great in an environment where clients are relatively stationary. Coverage is fantastic, and throughput is really good. I would be more concerned about placing these in a distribution-type warehouse where clients frequently roam between APs. While I've not had any issues, I could see where some APs might become sticky due to the cloud-controlled nature. In my experience, a local controller would be better suited to environments like that. I'm also concerned that support and quality may suffer due to the HPE merger.

Incentivized

• They offer both a controller-based and controller-less option. This allows customers of all sizes to deploy a wireless network without the upfront cost of controller hardware. A controller can be added later.
• Aruba also offers Airwave which is a single management point for all AP swarms in the environment. It offers many reporting features as well as visual RF maps displaying heatmaps of the AP signals and client positioning.
• The Aruba Access Point we have (224s and 225s) also offer both PoE and external power supplies for those smaller deployments that may not have PoE capable switches.

Incentivized

• Mist APs are really good at self-adjusting power and channels.
• Mist APs provide quality bandwidth to all users.
• Mist Radius meets my authentication needs for production users.

Incentivized

• We have had a bunch of these stop working after a power outages. We are guessing a surge or something caused them to stop working.
• Some of the documentation is outdated. It seems they like to make changes to how things work and it usually mean less access and insight into the devices you manage.
• The auto signal strength feature could use a little work. It seems like even when we turn it down all the way it tries ot increases the signal strength.

Incentivized

• I wish there was a mobile app that allows configuration and health status checks
• The MIST UI could use some improvements - some things take more than 1 click to access
• Marvis doesn't impress me. I ask it questions and sometimes it doesn't respond or understand

Incentivized

It is a good and stable product, and does exactly what it is intended for. It provides a good wifi connection, and ensures that the users on the work floor can do their work well. In addition, there are so many technical possibilities, that you can configure the wifi network completely to the specific wishes of the work floor.

Incentivized

We used a reseller to help set up and initially manage the Juniper APs. Templates are set up and deployed to sites, and at first, it may seem complicated, with a slight learning curve. Once created and deployed, the overall management and usability are great. In summary, the initial setup takes some advanced knowledge of the Cloud Dashboard setup with templates. After that, it's easy to use and manage moving forward.

Incentivized

Aruba Wireless Network support has always been reliable and great to work with. There was a period during the HPE acquisition of Aruba Wireless where getting in touch with an engineer took somewhat longer than usual, but it still was not a huge issue. The most difficult part of the merger was getting an accurate view of our inventory according to HPE Aruba as they were merging/choosing a system to host all of that information.

Incentivized

When comparing Aruba Instant Wi-Fi Access Points to Cisco Meraki MR the most significant factors are pricing and license fees. At the current cost of one Meraki MR AP, we can deploy three Aruba Instant Wi-Fi Access Points, providing equivalent functionality, coverage, and performance.

Incentivized

Mist has more features than meraki in regards to wireless management. Adding devices is still simple and licensing is much easier to undertsf

Incentivized

• Excellent uptime and reliability
• If licensed properly, failover is easy
• The newest version upgrade is somewhat cumbersome as they want us to replace hardware, which seems silly, so we are on the most current legacy supported version. Once unsupported, we will need to replace hardware.

Incentivized

• Streamline our infrastructure so we don't have multiple brands to manage.
• Allowed for better placement with channel planning
• Saves time when configuring

Incentivized