Network Management

Title sort of has the jist of the question. Aruba seems to have a lot of management product options with their own pros and cons. I realize this is something I could throw at my sales engineer. But compared to my last sales engineer at my previous job, my current one seems to always try to push us towards certain things without giving us all the available options, and while I'm sure its with the intent of mostly pushing us towards the latest/greatest and trying to offer the best options based on their knowledge of our environment. I'd rather have all the options and go from there myself even if I end in the same place. It also seems like I regularly get a 5-minute call to answer a question I sent over and it feels like they are rushing to get off the phone and onto the next client like there is never time to actually give our account full attention.


Airwave - I've worked with for years, no significant problems with it. The product seems to basically be on life support though, just getting security patches but seems to no longer be under active development.

Central (cloud) - We have been moving things to Aruba Central. Firmware updates are a breeze, some of the AI insights are great, its a little expensive though, but I think we are on this track for the time being.

Central (on prem) I wasn't even aware that this was an option when we were pitched to buy central licensing. I feel like I saw a bulletin recently from Aruba that made it sound like this option is going away and customers are being pushed to the cloud. If I'm wrong about that, is this a full central cloud replacement, or more of a local repo of your central cloud? Central is kinda slow sometimes which is why this is of some interest.

NetEdit, sounds like more of a configuration than a monitoring tool from the quick skim of information I did today when I ran across the name when downloading the CX switch simulator. Literally just came across this today but haven't even really found much information about it.


Long story short, where I am going with this is that we have 50x CX6200 switches on backorder and I'm wondering if NetEdit is a better way to go about configuring them en mass for deployment than the tools available in Central for pushing configurations. I know Central can push a lot of config, but I'm not sure if something like NetEdit would also be worthwhile, granted I have no clue what it costs either, but the trial would probably be enough to get our deployment done anyway. We are planning to let our airwave support expire and be fully moved to central when it comes up for renewal in 6ish months.

Just trying to double check the direction we are headed before its too late or very difficult to turn back at all.

Ask your sales Engineer and report back his/her answer here.  We also are not aware of pricing here.

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Any opinions expressed here are solely my own and not necessarily that of Hewlett Packard Enterprise or Aruba Networks.

HPE Design and Deploy Guides: https://community.arubanetworks.com/support/migrated-knowledge-base?attachments=&communitykey=dcc83c62-1a3a-4dd8-94dc-92968ea6fff1&pageindex=0&pagesize=12&search=&sort=most_recent&viewtype=card
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Original Message:
Sent: Aug 12, 2022 04:59 PM
From: Justin Rasmussen
Subject: Aruba Central vs NetEdit vs Airwave

Title sort of has the jist of the question. Aruba seems to have a lot of management product options with their own pros and cons. I realize this is something I could throw at my sales engineer. But compared to my last sales engineer at my previous job, my current one seems to always try to push us towards certain things without giving us all the available options, and while I'm sure its with the intent of mostly pushing us towards the latest/greatest and trying to offer the best options based on their knowledge of our environment. I'd rather have all the options and go from there myself even if I end in the same place. It also seems like I regularly get a 5-minute call to answer a question I sent over and it feels like they are rushing to get off the phone and onto the next client like there is never time to actually give our account full attention.


Airwave - I've worked with for years, no significant problems with it. The product seems to basically be on life support though, just getting security patches but seems to no longer be under active development.

Central (cloud) - We have been moving things to Aruba Central. Firmware updates are a breeze, some of the AI insights are great, its a little expensive though, but I think we are on this track for the time being.

Central (on prem) I wasn't even aware that this was an option when we were pitched to buy central licensing. I feel like I saw a bulletin recently from Aruba that made it sound like this option is going away and customers are being pushed to the cloud. If I'm wrong about that, is this a full central cloud replacement, or more of a local repo of your central cloud? Central is kinda slow sometimes which is why this is of some interest.

NetEdit, sounds like more of a configuration than a monitoring tool from the quick skim of information I did today when I ran across the name when downloading the CX switch simulator. Literally just came across this today but haven't even really found much information about it.


Long story short, where I am going with this is that we have 50x CX6200 switches on backorder and I'm wondering if NetEdit is a better way to go about configuring them en mass for deployment than the tools available in Central for pushing configurations. I know Central can push a lot of config, but I'm not sure if something like NetEdit would also be worthwhile, granted I have no clue what it costs either, but the trial would probably be enough to get our deployment done anyway. We are planning to let our airwave support expire and be fully moved to central when it comes up for renewal in 6ish months.

Just trying to double check the direction we are headed before its too late or very difficult to turn back at all.

I wasn't asking about pricing. I was asking what the differences between these tools are because there are so many of them that seem to overlap significantly.
Original Message:
Sent: Aug 15, 2022 10:04 AM
From: Colin Joseph
Subject: Aruba Central vs NetEdit vs Airwave

Ask your sales Engineer and report back his/her answer here.  We also are not aware of pricing here.

------------------------------
Any opinions expressed here are solely my own and not necessarily that of Hewlett Packard Enterprise or Aruba Networks.

HPE Design and Deploy Guides: https://community.arubanetworks.com/support/migrated-knowledge-base?attachments=&communitykey=dcc83c62-1a3a-4dd8-94dc-92968ea6fff1&pageindex=0&pagesize=12&search=&sort=most_recent&viewtype=card

Original Message:
Sent: Aug 12, 2022 04:59 PM
From: Justin Rasmussen
Subject: Aruba Central vs NetEdit vs Airwave

Title sort of has the jist of the question. Aruba seems to have a lot of management product options with their own pros and cons. I realize this is something I could throw at my sales engineer. But compared to my last sales engineer at my previous job, my current one seems to always try to push us towards certain things without giving us all the available options, and while I'm sure its with the intent of mostly pushing us towards the latest/greatest and trying to offer the best options based on their knowledge of our environment. I'd rather have all the options and go from there myself even if I end in the same place. It also seems like I regularly get a 5-minute call to answer a question I sent over and it feels like they are rushing to get off the phone and onto the next client like there is never time to actually give our account full attention.


Airwave - I've worked with for years, no significant problems with it. The product seems to basically be on life support though, just getting security patches but seems to no longer be under active development.

Central (cloud) - We have been moving things to Aruba Central. Firmware updates are a breeze, some of the AI insights are great, its a little expensive though, but I think we are on this track for the time being.

Central (on prem) I wasn't even aware that this was an option when we were pitched to buy central licensing. I feel like I saw a bulletin recently from Aruba that made it sound like this option is going away and customers are being pushed to the cloud. If I'm wrong about that, is this a full central cloud replacement, or more of a local repo of your central cloud? Central is kinda slow sometimes which is why this is of some interest.

NetEdit, sounds like more of a configuration than a monitoring tool from the quick skim of information I did today when I ran across the name when downloading the CX switch simulator. Literally just came across this today but haven't even really found much information about it.


Long story short, where I am going with this is that we have 50x CX6200 switches on backorder and I'm wondering if NetEdit is a better way to go about configuring them en mass for deployment than the tools available in Central for pushing configurations. I know Central can push a lot of config, but I'm not sure if something like NetEdit would also be worthwhile, granted I have no clue what it costs either, but the trial would probably be enough to get our deployment done anyway. We are planning to let our airwave support expire and be fully moved to central when it comes up for renewal in 6ish months.

Just trying to double check the direction we are headed before its too late or very difficult to turn back at all.

Depends on multiple factors like size of network, devices (3rd party?), features used/need  etc. I would still suggest to check with your sales rep to see what fits your needs.
Airwave as you mentioned, will be there for a while, and will add support for new Aruba devices. However, config support of CX is not in plans for Airwave.
Central on other hand provides varied range of features and part of NetEdit, called MultiEdit is part of Central to configure CX switches along with many great new features like AI, API etc.
Central on prem is trimmed version of Central on cloud (based on server specs) for customers who are cloud averse and want NMs sytems to be on prem. It has the same multi Edit feature for CX config.

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Regards
Gowri Amujuri
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Aug 15, 2022 10:10 AM
From: Justin Rasmussen
Subject: Aruba Central vs NetEdit vs Airwave

I wasn't asking about pricing. I was asking what the differences between these tools are because there are so many of them that seem to overlap significantly.
Original Message:
Sent: Aug 15, 2022 10:04 AM
From: Colin Joseph
Subject: Aruba Central vs NetEdit vs Airwave

Ask your sales Engineer and report back his/her answer here.  We also are not aware of pricing here.

------------------------------
Any opinions expressed here are solely my own and not necessarily that of Hewlett Packard Enterprise or Aruba Networks.

HPE Design and Deploy Guides: https://community.arubanetworks.com/support/migrated-knowledge-base?attachments=&communitykey=dcc83c62-1a3a-4dd8-94dc-92968ea6fff1&pageindex=0&pagesize=12&search=&sort=most_recent&viewtype=card

Original Message:
Sent: Aug 12, 2022 04:59 PM
From: Justin Rasmussen
Subject: Aruba Central vs NetEdit vs Airwave

Title sort of has the jist of the question. Aruba seems to have a lot of management product options with their own pros and cons. I realize this is something I could throw at my sales engineer. But compared to my last sales engineer at my previous job, my current one seems to always try to push us towards certain things without giving us all the available options, and while I'm sure its with the intent of mostly pushing us towards the latest/greatest and trying to offer the best options based on their knowledge of our environment. I'd rather have all the options and go from there myself even if I end in the same place. It also seems like I regularly get a 5-minute call to answer a question I sent over and it feels like they are rushing to get off the phone and onto the next client like there is never time to actually give our account full attention.


Airwave - I've worked with for years, no significant problems with it. The product seems to basically be on life support though, just getting security patches but seems to no longer be under active development.

Central (cloud) - We have been moving things to Aruba Central. Firmware updates are a breeze, some of the AI insights are great, its a little expensive though, but I think we are on this track for the time being.

Central (on prem) I wasn't even aware that this was an option when we were pitched to buy central licensing. I feel like I saw a bulletin recently from Aruba that made it sound like this option is going away and customers are being pushed to the cloud. If I'm wrong about that, is this a full central cloud replacement, or more of a local repo of your central cloud? Central is kinda slow sometimes which is why this is of some interest.

NetEdit, sounds like more of a configuration than a monitoring tool from the quick skim of information I did today when I ran across the name when downloading the CX switch simulator. Literally just came across this today but haven't even really found much information about it.


Long story short, where I am going with this is that we have 50x CX6200 switches on backorder and I'm wondering if NetEdit is a better way to go about configuring them en mass for deployment than the tools available in Central for pushing configurations. I know Central can push a lot of config, but I'm not sure if something like NetEdit would also be worthwhile, granted I have no clue what it costs either, but the trial would probably be enough to get our deployment done anyway. We are planning to let our airwave support expire and be fully moved to central when it comes up for renewal in 6ish months.

Just trying to double check the direction we are headed before its too late or very difficult to turn back at all.

Hello @jrasmussenhtc, were you able to resolve your question regarding the three administration platforms of Aruba. I have the same doubt as you. In my case, I am currently managing Aruba Central as an administration platform. But I have certain problems that I consider important, one of them is the few options that I can manage to provision the switches by creating templates that central offers to provision the switches.
Original Message:
Sent: Aug 12, 2022 04:59 PM
From: Justin Rasmussen
Subject: Aruba Central vs NetEdit vs Airwave

Title sort of has the jist of the question. Aruba seems to have a lot of management product options with their own pros and cons. I realize this is something I could throw at my sales engineer. But compared to my last sales engineer at my previous job, my current one seems to always try to push us towards certain things without giving us all the available options, and while I'm sure its with the intent of mostly pushing us towards the latest/greatest and trying to offer the best options based on their knowledge of our environment. I'd rather have all the options and go from there myself even if I end in the same place. It also seems like I regularly get a 5-minute call to answer a question I sent over and it feels like they are rushing to get off the phone and onto the next client like there is never time to actually give our account full attention.


Airwave - I've worked with for years, no significant problems with it. The product seems to basically be on life support though, just getting security patches but seems to no longer be under active development.

Central (cloud) - We have been moving things to Aruba Central. Firmware updates are a breeze, some of the AI insights are great, its a little expensive though, but I think we are on this track for the time being.

Central (on prem) I wasn't even aware that this was an option when we were pitched to buy central licensing. I feel like I saw a bulletin recently from Aruba that made it sound like this option is going away and customers are being pushed to the cloud. If I'm wrong about that, is this a full central cloud replacement, or more of a local repo of your central cloud? Central is kinda slow sometimes which is why this is of some interest.

NetEdit, sounds like more of a configuration than a monitoring tool from the quick skim of information I did today when I ran across the name when downloading the CX switch simulator. Literally just came across this today but haven't even really found much information about it.


Long story short, where I am going with this is that we have 50x CX6200 switches on backorder and I'm wondering if NetEdit is a better way to go about configuring them en mass for deployment than the tools available in Central for pushing configurations. I know Central can push a lot of config, but I'm not sure if something like NetEdit would also be worthwhile, granted I have no clue what it costs either, but the trial would probably be enough to get our deployment done anyway. We are planning to let our airwave support expire and be fully moved to central when it comes up for renewal in 6ish months.

Just trying to double check the direction we are headed before its too late or very difficult to turn back at all.

You can always try NetEdit for free.

You're correct in assuming that NetEdit is more about configuration than long term monitoring (although some would get by just fine with it). If would be very useful if you were configuring large complex networks and didn't have Aruba Central. It brings the CLI interface into the future with validation and compliance checks prior to pushing configuration to switches. It's for CX switches only though... so it just doesn't compare to Aruba Central which is for your full stack - wired, wireless and WAN. 

It's worth, if you have spare time, spinning up a NetEdit VM and having a play just to see what it is all about. But it does sound like you'd miss things like AI insights and more client centric network monitoring.

Original Message:
Sent: Aug 12, 2022 04:59 PM
From: Justin Rasmussen
Subject: Aruba Central vs NetEdit vs Airwave

Title sort of has the jist of the question. Aruba seems to have a lot of management product options with their own pros and cons. I realize this is something I could throw at my sales engineer. But compared to my last sales engineer at my previous job, my current one seems to always try to push us towards certain things without giving us all the available options, and while I'm sure its with the intent of mostly pushing us towards the latest/greatest and trying to offer the best options based on their knowledge of our environment. I'd rather have all the options and go from there myself even if I end in the same place. It also seems like I regularly get a 5-minute call to answer a question I sent over and it feels like they are rushing to get off the phone and onto the next client like there is never time to actually give our account full attention.


Airwave - I've worked with for years, no significant problems with it. The product seems to basically be on life support though, just getting security patches but seems to no longer be under active development.

Central (cloud) - We have been moving things to Aruba Central. Firmware updates are a breeze, some of the AI insights are great, its a little expensive though, but I think we are on this track for the time being.

Central (on prem) I wasn't even aware that this was an option when we were pitched to buy central licensing. I feel like I saw a bulletin recently from Aruba that made it sound like this option is going away and customers are being pushed to the cloud. If I'm wrong about that, is this a full central cloud replacement, or more of a local repo of your central cloud? Central is kinda slow sometimes which is why this is of some interest.

NetEdit, sounds like more of a configuration than a monitoring tool from the quick skim of information I did today when I ran across the name when downloading the CX switch simulator. Literally just came across this today but haven't even really found much information about it.


Long story short, where I am going with this is that we have 50x CX6200 switches on backorder and I'm wondering if NetEdit is a better way to go about configuring them en mass for deployment than the tools available in Central for pushing configurations. I know Central can push a lot of config, but I'm not sure if something like NetEdit would also be worthwhile, granted I have no clue what it costs either, but the trial would probably be enough to get our deployment done anyway. We are planning to let our airwave support expire and be fully moved to central when it comes up for renewal in 6ish months.

Just trying to double check the direction we are headed before its too late or very difficult to turn back at all.