Wireless Access

Hi community,

 

Looking at the new 9004 gateway, which can also be used as MC. And looking its performance I can see is better than the 7005 MC, it supports the double APs, double concurrent devices, double firewall sessions and so on. In terms of connectivity they are equal, same number of ports, fanless, etc. And the price is the same. Putting all this together, is it worth purchasing the 7005 from the 9004 release date on?

 

Regards,

Julián

Hi,

 

I would definitely go for 9004. 

For the same price/performance i would propose to go with newer models, for minimum reason, of the life-span of the device (its new compared to 7005 so EoL/EoS period is longer).

More, better, faster.... go for 9004...
I have two of them to

Yeah, and if you don't need more Ethernet or PoE ports, it happens the same with the 7008 MC. Then, will we expect the 7005's EoL soon?

 

Regards,

Julián

Hi Marcel,

 

can you confirm that the 9004 Gateway can work as a standalone controller?

 

I see it's mentioned in the datasheets but it also infers that a Mobility Master might be needed, could you please clarify this for me?

 

 

Best regards,

 

Aarón

 

 

Hi Aaron,

 

The 9004 can be used as standalone controller with or without a MM.

 

Regards,

Julian

There is SD-WAN and Controller based firmware. When you install the controller firmware you can run a 9004 in standalone mode without the need of a Aruba Mobility Master.

 

• SD-WAN Mode – Aruba Central Foundation or Foundation Base Licenses (9004 and 9012 are supported)
• ­ Controller Mode – AP License (9004 supported as of ArubaOS 8.5, and 9012 will be supported in a later release)

When you flashed the controller through Aruba Cloud Central it will install the SD-WAN firmware. You can download the controller based firmware here; https://asp.arubanetworks.com/downloads/software/RmlsZTo2NTRiMzdmNi03NmI0LTExZWEtOTY0NC0xMzRlYzBjMzEwNzg%3D

 

Thank you fjulianom and mkk!

 

I couldn't find a clear statement that said that in the documentation. We are going to go with the 9004 gateway instead of 7005 controller now.

 

Best regards,

 

Aarón

In this topic you see a image of working 9004 controller image (with mobility master) ;). MM is not required for a standalone controller!

 

https://community.arubanetworks.com/t5/Wireless-Access/Standalone-9004-or-7005-with-8-5-0-X-all-version-ALE-error/td-p/655527

 

In the 9004 datasheets you can find your clear statement Also how many AP can be terminated in controller mode.

https://www.arubanetworks.com/assets/ds/DS_9000Series.pdf

 

7005 = 16 AP's

9004 =  32 AP's

The 9004 controller is excellent choice ;;)).

 

Does anyone know default firmware of Aruba 9004? SD-Wan or Controller ?

Not sure what you mean by default firmware but the minimmum required firmware for the 9004 is depedant on the model and mode.

 

9004/9004-LTE

9004: SD-WAN R1.7 (default) and
Aruba Central 2.5.x in SD-WAN
mode, or support started with
8.5.0.5 in Mobility Controller mode.

 

9004-LTE: SD-WAN R2.1 (default)
and Aruba Central 2.5.1 in

 

9012

SD-WAN R2.0 (default) and Aruba
Central 2.5.x in SD-WAN mode,
ArubaOS (Future) in Mobility
Controller mode
SD-WAN mode

Sorry for making you confused. I mean default mode. It comes with  SD-WAN mode or Mobility Controller mode?  Thanks for your answers

Sept 2020 - Current Shipped Software

Aruba 9004	ArubaOS_8.5.0.0-1.0.7.1_72342	SD-WAN
Aruba 9004-LTE	ArubaOS_8.5.0.0-2.1.0.0_75359	SD-WAN
Aruba 9012	ArubaOS_8.5.0.0-2.0.0.4_75023	SD-WAN

When a controller comes out of the box you can do normal "full-setup" whatever what firmware (sd-branch or campus) is used.

 

When subscribed the licence an provisioned in Aruba Central, Central will push de SD-Branch firmware version (it's not manual downloadable on the ASP website).

 

When it was configured to Aruba Central SD-Branch and you want to go back to Campus mode, just do a "write erase all" on the controllers and (quickly;) de-subscribe the licence in Aruba Central so it will not be automatic configured through activate.arubanetworks.com ;).

 

After do the "full-setup" again, mentioned that the SD-Branch firmware can't run a commando like "show switchinfo". At this point you need to load the campus firmware which can be download from asp.arubanetworks.com website.

 

(host)# copy ftp: <ftphost> <ftpusername> <image filename> system: partition <0|1>

or

(host)# copy tftp: <tftphost> <image filename> system: partition <0|1>

or

(host)# copy scp: <scphost> <scpusername> <image filename> system: partition <0|1>

 

Iam not sure what firmware is used out-of-the-box, but i think its the campus firmware because de SD-branch firmware is pushed from Aruba Central after provining.

 

In my HomeLAB i have  2x9004 in Campus Mode with ArubaOS 8.6.0.5 (L2 Clustered).

 

OK Thanks for your answer.

Not sure why Aruba has to follow Cisco with this 9k craziness. When they have everything in the 9k range.

 

But anyways 9k Aruba is going to probably replace all the 7k controllers. One day I went to ASP and saw that there was 9012 available in the documentations, though there wan't any documents available. So maybe those other 9k controllers will be released soon :) ?

Good question.

During the initial development, the controllers were named the 8xxx series.   However, we didn't want any confusion with the 8xxx CX-Switches, thus we decided to rename the controllers to the 9xxx series.

Couple of extra bits which are always worth mentioning, the 9004 has Bluetooth 5 and is powered via a power adapter instead of POE. So just bear in mind, if you are replacing a 7005 with a 9004 then the customer will need a power adapter. 

Yeah, that's true. But the customer gives more importance that 9004's performance is the double of 7005's one than the PoE-in feature. The power adapter is very cheap.

Regards,
Julián

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@pubjohndoe wrote:

Not sure why Aruba has to follow Cisco with this 9k craziness. When they have everything in the 9k range.

 

But anyways 9k Aruba is going to probably replace all the 7k controllers. One day I went to ASP and saw that there was 9012 available in the documentations, though there wan't any documents available. So maybe those other 9k controllers will be released soon :) ?

---

Yeah, and model 9012 is here:

 

https://www.arubanetworks.com/assets/ds/DS_9000Series.pdf

 

Though currently only support SD-WAN mode, controller mode in a later release.

 

Regards,

Julián

Does 9000 support BGP when not using Central? We could connect those to a ISP CPE that talks to BGP and then tunnel or something the connection to our DC 7220