As you shop around, make sure you take a hard look at each candidate vendor's bug history by talking with other sites that not only have that other vendor, but who have a similar operational approach and size to your own as many bugs show only at scale. Look past the cherry-picked fanboi accounts, as you may find the grass is no greener depending on the vendor in play. Also, like with Cisco, make sure you are getting a clear read on what technology is in use as the WLCs/AireOS get long in the tooth and DNA-C/9800s feel kinda beta. Also... pay close attention to the licensing adventure that goes with each vendor as that can be wildly convoluted.
I realize this is probably nothing you don't already know... Lee Badman | Network Architect (CWNE#200) Information Technology Services (NDD Group) 206 Machinery Hall 120 Smith Drive Syracuse, New York 13244 t 315.443.3003 e [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> w its.syr.edu SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY syr.edu From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Community Group Listserv <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Michael Davis Sent: Thursday, January 9, 2020 11:27 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Who has transitioned away from Aruba, and why? While not an answer to your request, we are also starting to look into this possibility for the same reasons. While we only have about 500 515s deployed with WiFi6 extensions disabled, we haven't seen tickets to this extent but we also don't have any greenfield 515-only deployments. We will be looking at Mist, being a heavy Juniper shop, but also Cisco as some existing collaborations may lead to cost effective transitions.. On 1/9/20 11:15 AM, Turner, Ryan H wrote: All: We've been an Aruba shop for a very long time and have around 10,000 access points. While every relationship with vendors have their ups and downs, my frustration with the Aruba is finally peaking to the point that I am considering making the enormous move to choose a different vendor. The biggest reason is with the 8.X code train, and bugs that we just don't consider appropriate to use in production. It has been one thing after the other, and my extremely talented and qualified Network Architect (Keith Miller) might as well be on the Aruba payroll as much work as he has been doing for them to solve bugs. Just when we think we have one fixed, another one crops up. The big one as of late is with 515s running 8.5 code train. We have them deployed in one of our IT buildings. Periodically, people that are connected to these APs in the 5G band will stop working. To the user, they are browsing a site, then it becomes unresponsive. If they are on their phone, they will disconnect from wifi and everything works fine on cell. Nothing makes an 802.11 network look worse than switching to cell and seeing a problem resolve. Normally, if the users disconnect then reconnect, their problems will go ahead (but I think they end up connecting in the 2.4G band). We've been working on this problem with them for months. It always seems as though we have to prove there is a real issue. I'm fed up with it. We are a sophisticated shop. If we have a problem, 9 times out of 10 when we bring it to the vendor, it is a real problem. I'm extra frustrated that due to issues we've seen in ResNet on the 8.3X train that we don't want to abandon our 6 train on main campus. To Aruba's credit, we purchased around 1,000 515s last year (I think around February). When they could not get good code to support them on, Aruba bought back half of them. I asked for them to buy back half because I thought for sure with the 315s that we would have instead, the issues would be fixed by the time the 315s ran out. Not looking to be the case. So, with that rant over, we are seriously considering looking to move away from Aruba (unless they get their act together really soon). There are other bugs I'm not even mentioning here. For those of you that made the switch to another vendor, I would be curious how long the honeymoon lasted, what were your motivators, and were you happy with the overall results? Of course, this is a great opportunity to plug your vendor. As I see it, we have 3 choices.... Something from Cisco (we had Cisco long ago and dumped them for bugs), something from Extreme (we are a huge Extreme shop so this makes sense), something from Juniper (Mist). Thanks, Ryan Turner Head of Networking The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill +1 919 445 0113 Office +1 919 274 7926 Mobile [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> ********** Replies to EDUCAUSE Community Group emails are sent to the entire community list. If you want to reply only to the person who sent the message, copy and paste their email address and forward the email reply. Additional participation and subscription information can be found at https://www.educause.edu/community -- Mike Davis IT - University of Delaware - 302.831.8756 Newark, DE 19716 Email [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> ********** Replies to EDUCAUSE Community Group emails are sent to the entire community list. If you want to reply only to the person who sent the message, copy and paste their email address and forward the email reply. Additional participation and subscription information can be found at https://www.educause.edu/community ********** Replies to EDUCAUSE Community Group emails are sent to the entire community list. If you want to reply only to the person who sent the message, copy and paste their email address and forward the email reply. Additional participation and subscription information can be found at https://www.educause.edu/community
