Aruba’s AirWave Management Platform provides centralized visibility into the types of devices in use on the network, which can aid in troubleshooting for a specific device and provide enterprise-wide visibility into client demographics with historical reporting and live dashboard breakdowns of connected device types.
AirWave 7.3 (and newer versions) collects device type information controllers running ArubaOS 6.0.1 (and newer) and from Aruba Instant.
For Aruba Instant, AirWave collects the “OS” property of a client, which is based on the device type determination made by the Aruba Instant software. AirWave displays this as “AOS Device Type” for a client.
For ArubaOS 6.0.1+, AirWave collects both the “Device Type” property, which is the device type determination made by ArubaOS that’s displayed in the ArubaOS web UI, and the raw HTTP User-Agent string captured by the controller in order to make the device type determination. AirWave displays these as “AOS Device Type” and “Aruba HTTP Fingerprint” respectively for a client.
When AirWave is able to obtain the Aruba HTTP Fingerprint, it will attempt to provide a more detailed determination of the device type by populating the OS, OS Detail, Manufacturer, and Model fields.
Using the best available information for each client, AirWave ultimately determines a Device Type that is used throughout the rest of the system to report on client device types.
The rules for determining the AirWave “Device Type” are configurable by the administrator on the AMP Setup > Device Type Setup page. By default, AirWave will report the Device Type based on the Manufacturer and Model (Apple iPad, for example), but an administrator might be more interested operating systems vs. device models can drag the “OS Detail” rule to be first in the list, followed by “OS.” The rules for displaying Device Type are global, and the values will be recalculated whenever the rules are enabled/disabled or reordered.
Additionally, AirWave users can override the device type properties detected by ArubaOS as well as set other properties, like the device name or asset tracking details.
These properties are available for display throughout the AirWave console anywhere lists of connected clients are displayed, like on the monitoring page for an AP.
The set of columns and their order can be configured for each list by clicking on the “Choose columns” link at the top of any table.
A breakdown of the types of devices that are currently connected to the network can be displayed on the AirWave dashboard on the Home > Overview page. To choose from the available widgets, click on the “Customize” link.
AirWave users can generate several reports that include device type, either as the subject of the report (a client inventory report to display device type usage over a particular time range) or as a filter on a usage report (total data transferred by RIM devices).