HPE Aruba Networking EdgeConnect SD-WANs are a solid SD-WAN solution with a single bigger flaw
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We currently use HPE Aruba Networking EdgeConnect SD-WAN solution as our method for connecting our sites via SD-WAN. Primarily our environment is a fully meshed environment, which is an easy to configure option with the HPE Aruba Networking EdgeConnect SD-WAN solution. It's a very reliable product which allows for our high uptime demands that has come with an amazing customer vendor relationship.
Pros
- Linking multiple sites quickly and efficiently
- High uptime
- HA Configurations with active active load balancing
- Fully SaaS controller that is only dependent upon WAN devices having internet access (which they should be plugged into)
Cons
- There are a lot of menus for items to hide under
- Often there are alarms that are false positives due to bugs in the code - these are usually rectified in the next patch but that seems to be a common occurrence with updates
- Can only have 7 "BIOs" - which are effectively policies that you use to choose how traffic is handled in terms of routing and QoS
- Devices throughput is capped by Aruba licensing meaning that's an additional concern you'll have to monitor and take into consideration when choosing ISPs.
- Alerts sometimes don't tell you things you'd like to know (like when a site is nearing its bandwidth cap)
Return on Investment
- It's simplified and expedites traffic by building and managing tunnels between all sites
- Does have integrations with Zscaler Internet Access which is a product we've recently onboarded
- Has a semi high learning curve as it can do a lot (suffers from the same issue as Aruba ClearPass where it can do so much which makes it a daunting tool to learn, but a powerful one)
Usability
Alternatives Considered
Palo Alto Networks Prisma SD-WAN
Other Software Used
HPE Aruba Networking ClearPass Policy Manager, Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series, Zscaler Digital Experience (ZDX), Zscaler Internet Access, Zscaler Private Access, HPE Aruba Networking Switches