Wireless Water Cooler

Hey everyone!  I'm just finishing my degree in Telecommunications Management, studying for the CCNA, and beginning my career as a Network Admin for a retailer supporting nearly 500 stores nationwide.  So a lot going on in my life!

My main point in registering and posting tonight is to give a HUGE shoutout and a massive THANK YOU to Aruba.  I started my networking career as a student worker in the Network office at my school, who uses Aruba.  In the year I spent in this position, I aided in the transition from AP65 and AP70s to AP 105s and 135s.  After my internship, I secured my current position and am again working with Aruba.

This is my last semester in school, and I am required to complete a "capstone" project of my choosing.  I decided to explore dynamic VLAN assignment through 802.1x authentication - with AD groups determining the VLAN - for wireless, wired, and VPN clients.  I have the wired down easy, the VPN is a work in progress, but I was stuck with the Wireless.  Keep in mind I am building this project in my basement using personally-bought products, namely a HP 3400cl switch, a Dell PE2950 III running a few VMs, and a whitebox firewall.  After digging into the WLAN portion, didn't know how I would accomplish this without blowing my budget, since the AP I have will only do one VLAN per SSID.  This is where Aruba stepped in.  

I sent a casual message to Aruba over Twitter, asking if I could put down a deposit to rent or borrow an evaluation AP and controller.  I didn't expect much, but I thought it would be worth a shot.  Not only did Aruba respond to me, but they put me in contact with someone who is going to let me borrow the gear I need to make my project a success.  I can't possibly begin to express how awesome this is for Aruba to hook me up like this - if anyone has a spare Aruba sticker I can put on the back of my SUV, let me know...otherwise I might be getting a new tattoo after I graduate.  

Welcome to the community......

I use that word strongly. "Community " because that what it is..

Since coming to Aruba 2 years ago I learned that everyone (Aruba, Customers, Partners, And even past Employees) will do everything in their power to help you out. If you look in the forums you will see that most of the time customers and partners are answering questions before most of us can fire up our laptops. :)

This is a great place to learn, communicate, grow your skills and you can help other along the way with the same struggles you might have had..

I've been in the networking industry for quite awhile and the one thing I've learned over the years is "Its not how well your networking equipment works, its how hard the manufacture and their employees work when it doesn't"

Again welcome to the community and time to get your geek on. :robotlol:

Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone.  I think I am going to start a new thread to detail the project - community input would be great.

And about that tattoo - as long as it's not a tramp stamp, it's an option!  From what I read, that privilege is reserved for CCIE holders.