Cloud Managed switches

[yannderry]

Hi There, 

Not really a technical question (and I'm not a techie or enginneer), I'm wondering if the Aruba cloud based aruba central switches can be now considered as equal to fully managed swtiches ?

I read the forum and I can see that we can now download full configuration on cloud based switches and I'm wondering if it is equivalent to configure a fully managed switch. 

For example, if you buy a 2540 switch (or another serie supported by Aruba central), will you have access to the same configuration features via Aruba central than if you were managing your switch locally via Cli ? 

In other words, if it is the case, can we now consider that a Cloud-managed switch (aruba or Meraki for example) is as powerful as a fully managed switch in terms of configuration possibility ?

I'm not talking about switches that would be lower-end and Smart cloud managed.

And as an additional question, if my assumption is correct, can we consider that all he Aruba switches from the 2540 and all the way up (when it is supported by Aruba Central obviously) are cloud managed and it is not a lesser management than the full management feature ?

Thank you, hope my question is not too out of subject :) 

[Willem Bargeman · Accepted solution]

With Central we can manage the Aruba switches. There are two modes, GUI based and template based configuration. With GUI based you can configure all basic options to make the switch working using a GUI. Some specific options are not available in be GUI. In that case template based is the way to go. Create a template (text based config) and apply that to the group. I prefer this mode because you have all the options available.

For a full list of supported device see the following page.

http://help.central.arubanetworks.com/latest/documentation/online_help/content/public_cloud/get_started/supported_switches.htm

[yannderry]

Thanks Willem, very clear ! 

[dkatai@valkyr.hu]

Hello Willem!

Can you please share some best practices that you use when managing switches in template mode? I am asking this, because I find that if later I want to change the template of the switch (like adding a new vlan) then the config push falls apart and gives me an error. 

Do you have a template that is good for all switches and has all the variables you can use in anycase? Or do you change the template when you want something different?

Br.:

Daniel