AirWave Management

Benefits:

Singular location to manage all aspects of your Ap's and also helps identify when issues may come up.

Drawbacks:

For such a crucial software, I would have expected to come included with my Aps

Benefits:

This software is feature rich and powerful that it makes wireless administration fun all the while being able to provide executive level of reporting.

Drawbacks:

I dislike that I don't have a blank checkbook. I think this should be the standard for all wireless enterprise platforms.

In sum:

Overall satisfaction. It definitely provides the proper experience for the end user and reporting executive features.

Benefits:

Power of the real time and resport aspects. Great support for management and monitory of our wireless envrionment.

Drawbacks:

Setup and be a bit confusing. Navigation has some shortcomings. Organization of the interface could be better.

In sum:

Excellent reporting tool that can be shared with management.

Benefits:

With our 100% Aruba network, we have leveraged AirWave to deploy switches and monitor all of our network devices.

Drawbacks:

Initially, the setup was a bit clunky, but once we had the system running, it has been smooth sailing.

Benefits:

The ability to view heat maps and view network statistics on a site by site basis is a great feature. Especially when your network consists of over 30 different sites.

Drawbacks:

Web application can sometimes be clunky and doesn't always display the data in real time. I'm sure there is a minor issue though.

Benefits:

What I love most about Aruba is the firmware update feature. We use the same model switches and AP's across our district and AirWave has made it extremely easy to update our devices. All you have to is upload the firmware to your portal and then manage the device and hit upgrade. They make it extremely easy to use. Also, the overall interface is great and very user-friendly.

Drawbacks:

I get why they do it like this, but I wish I didn't have to license every single device. We host the AirWave server in our own environment, and it would be nice if it was a one-time license fee and from there we could manage all of our devices. Keeping up with the licensing can be somewhat tedious, especially if you ever migrate from one AirWave server to the next.

In sum:

Overall I cannot recommend Aruba AirWave enough. If you are already using the Aruba devices across your network, this is the perfect management platform and consolidates all devices in one interface.

Benefits:

Customer support is too good, the VisualRF tool is best due to which I was able to know exactly where a client device is as well as what AP it is connected to. Also, it is easy to use, amount of data statistics, and reporting

Drawbacks:

So far I am unable to see any cons while using AIrwave but only con I can see is that Airwave is bit pricey though it gives some value.

Benefits:

You can do just about everything your physical hardware is capable of doing with this software from the GUI menus, so it is quite powerful. You can find drilldowns and reports of utilization, configuration states, security groups, literally anything you want to see.

Drawbacks:

I am against the whole pay rent for license model that is pure company arbitrage that Aruba uses simply because it can. The learning curve exists especially for advanced configurations such as different CSfC deployments. This is because Aruba has its own names that are not standard in the community for different sorts of groups and settings, so it is something you will have to become familiar with.

In sum:

I recommend this of you have an enterprise deployment of Aruba APs. Probably not worthwhile using if you are using other OEM APs.

Benefits:

Airwave helps you manage, update and back up all devices that are compatible. It makes managing APs without the need for a controller and the over all feel is easy to use.

Drawbacks:

Not all Aruba branded products are fully compatible with the airwave, which means you can't utilise all features that it has to offer, which can be a bit frustrating.

In sum:

Overall it's a great product and makes day to day work a lot easier, brings better visibility and deals with mundane tasks for you, which is a great help.

Benefits:

There are too many pros to list so I will just sum it up as I can finally see what is happening on my network, no more guessing what a problem is or spending hours going through logs.

Drawbacks:

You need a very hefty server to run this at it's full potential and not have performance issues. That being said it is very robust.