Network Management

I am looking at possibly getting AirWave for managing our wireless since we are growing so much. I am interested in hearing others experiences with it and possible pros/cons or plus/deltas if you will.

Any and all comments are helpful! Thanks!

Hi,

Good evening.

i deployed a few AirWave deployments in my life. :smileyhappy:

my life spilt to two parts:

before the usage of AirWave

and after the usage to AirWave.

:smileywink:

This is a great tool:

• for big enterprises (it can alert in e-mail on rough AP , AP down,up.And much more,great tool to give faster response to client troubleshooting and network monitoring)
• for big hospital (it giving the IT team the ability to collect the needed info from all their Wi-Fi equitment from one location)
• for ISP (in order to give a ability to our client - to read and get their own reporting system)
• and also for our internal usage (in order to give a ability to our client - to read and get their own reporting system)

The ability to mange and get info from other vendors and from all the network infrastructure itself into one great GUI making all the changes.

The ability to supply chars/pie of client/usage/browser type/device type/number to unique client From each ssid on each AP.And more - usually after AirWave deployment - the life of the IT crew just become easier :smileylol:

hope it give u some idea.

(i can tell u that on our internal usage AirWave system-there are almost 20,000 users on daily base)

my conclusion:

• Installation process - very easy | very fast
• config process - very easy | very fast
• report/monitor information - 100% answers on all IT requests and needs. 100% reporting system - fully customize by site/client request and needs.

regards.

Me

We have 180+ controllers and 350+ APs.

I use Airwave for the monitoring and planning features.

It has been an invaluable tool.  Prior to Aruba, each AP (Cisco) was being managed individually.  It was impossible to get any sort of reporting or insight into any of the reported problems.

With VisualRF I'm able to properly plan AP placement, as well as go in and see what is happening.  I use this on a daily basis as we continue to move from "wireless as a luxury" to "wireless as infrastructure."

Management enjoys the reports, and they provide me with the information I need to make sure we continue to provide adequate coverage and availability to our users.  Previously I would spend hours (if not days) parsing log files and fiddling with scripts trying to get something that even resembled accurate information. 

Now I can go in, click on a controller (or AP) and see exactly how many users are connected, any issues, as well as pull up historical data to see if any above average usage is a "one off" event or a new trend that needs to be addressed.

Edit:

I recommend watching this video from the Wireless Field Day -  it should give you a great idea of the functionality of Airwave.

http://youtu.be/SkCWOJM5xZc

Thanks for your input. After reading up some more and reading what you guys have written I have decided to put it forward to our Software Budget Hearing in March. Here's to hoping it gets approved!!

It's a love/hate relationship.

Monitoring (soon to manage) 300+ controllers and 10,000+ APs. AOS 3.4/AMP 7.5.7.  Very good for reports/alerts/notifications however very dependent on fairly reliable WAN connections, otherwise a lot of false alerts. Also clunky with lower versions of AOS/Airwave, need to stay up with the latest and greatest.