Aruba Wireless

There are several issues that affect the ability of Network Managers to manage their network. They can typically be placed within these categories:

• Lack of end-to-end visibility of user network issues
• Too many disparate, non-integrated management tools
• Existing solutions are not designed with mobile users in minds

Aruba Airwave is a multi-vendor management solution that is able to produce real time and historical reporting information to system administrators. There are many included technologies to support per application management, individual device support, and RF monitoring.

This is a reference to Aruba Airwave, and the embrace of comprehensive Management of Mobile Virtual Enterprise (MOVE). This encompasses not only the management of Aruba infrastructure, but equipment provided by other manufacturers as well.

Aruba Airwave supports Role Based Access to support management of the solution.

Roles fall into the following categories:

• Help Desk: Monitoring and Visualization
• Desktop Support: Client Level Troubleshooting
• Network Engineering: Configuration, Management, and Diagnostics
• Security & Audit Group: Compliance and Security Management
• Executive Management: Reporting & Analysis

Some of the key features of Aruba Airwave are:

• Comprehensive Visibility
  • Entire access network: Wired and Wireless
  • Device discovery, classification, and diagnosis
  • Reporting & analysis
• Centralized Management
  • Configuration
  • Firmware management
  • Compliance across entire distributed organization
• Easy, intuitive interface
  • Role-based administrative access
  • Organize and manage by business / organizational unit

Some of the tools available for usage are:

• RF Performance: Client RF health, speed statistics
• Firewall: Application performance / usage by devices, destinations, WLANs, users / roles
• RF Capacity: Network-Wide AP threshold and usage statistics
• Anomaly Detection: Current client count and network usage statistics, historical
• Watched Clients: Speed and health statistics for VIPs / problem prone clients

Aruba Airwave provides for VisualRF Mapping & Location through a Centralized Visibility Dashboard.

The Centralized Visibility Dashboard features:

• Display of accurate location information for all wireless users, rogues, and devices
• Up-to-date heat maps and channel maps for RF diagnostics
• Historical user location playback
• Easy import of existing floor plans and building maps
• Visual RF Plan provides off-line planning capabilities
• Multi-floor & channel utilization

Click here to view the Visibility Dashboard.

Aruba has created dashboard views within the management tool that can be used for capacity planning. These include:

• Wi-FI / radio usage with wired information: Port usage and capacity reports
• Upgrade / Migration opportunities: AP & Folder level visibility
• Client Utilization Reports:See where / what is generating the most traffic
• Proactive Alerting: Set triggers to alert on capacity issues

Aruba Airwave supports Helpdesk Troubleshooting through usage of:

• Simplified Searching: By User / Device name, IP or MAC address
• Client Health Overlay: Assists with determining if the issue is with the client or RF environment
• RF Performance: Display of clients with low health, proactive monitoring of client / RF issues
• Watched Client / VIP perspective: Tracking of specific or troubled clients

Through the usage of built in reporting and triggers, Aruba Airwave is able to provide help to network administrators.

Some examples are:

• Device Down Triggers: What is down in the network? Is it a wired or wireless issue?
• RF Health Report: What RF issues are being experienced?
• Client Session Report: What is the average client session time?
• Client Inventory Report: What devices are connecting to my network?
• Device Uptime Report: How do I define uptime / SLAs for my network?

PCI Report: Can I demonstrate compliance with PCI?

Aruba Airwave provides assistance with RF Troubleshooting through the use of several tools:

• Detailed RF Information with RF health reports
  • Individual radio drill-downs and diagnostics
  • Identify and classify sources of RF interference
  • SSO (Single Sign On) with controllers for running real time commands & status updates.
• Performance Dashboard
  • Review client RF performance health, SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio), speed
  • Drill-downs for further analysis

Aruba Airwave is able to support Network Visibility through the follow concepts and tools:

• Security
  • Wired and Wireless issues, rogue AP and client containment
  • Network anomalies, deviations, or variations
  • Security event correlation
• Capacity
  • Client Count, devices, network usage, guest access, VPN traffic, etc
  • Top clients by total traffic
• Visualization
  • Client Device /application performance and health
  • AP Placements, heat maps, coverage areas
  • 500-day historical reporting

Aruba Networks is a leading manufacturer of Wireless Access Points (APs). They have developed several applications that are supported on their APs that contribute to improving a user’s overall WLAN experience. At the same time, they have developed multiple applications that improve a network administrator’s ability to support and manage the solution.

Aruba Networks focus is on Wireless Access Points (APs), but they also manufacture centralized controllers that support their line of APs, and software applications to assist users and administrators.

Aruba Networks APs are certified to run on multiple competitor based network switches, including Cisco, HP, and Avaya. They may also be installed alongside competitor APs. It would be recommended, though, that all APs eventually be converted to Aruba Networks APs in order to be able to take full advantage of the management and software offerings available.

MIMO allows for multiple antennas to be used by both the transmitter and the receiver in order to improve communication performance. Benefits from MIMO usage can include increased data throughput and link range without requiring additional bandwidth or transmit power. Both the AP and the device must support the technology to take advantage of it.

Aruba Networks Clientmatch allows for devices to more easily shift from one AP to another as required, maintaining the best available signal for the device. Traditionally, a device will connect to an AP and will not release from that AP as long as there is some amount of signal left. Clientmatch will automatically shift devices to a new AP in order to keep the most healthy, active connection available for the device.

AppRF allows for network administrators to control and throttle bandwidth usage for specific applications that are running on wireless network devices. This allows enforcement of polices on the edge of the network, and ensures that bandwidth can be allocated and reserved for business cloud applications, while still allowing other functions to take place.

Aruba Networks APs allow for:

• Selective guest access to network resources
• The ability to blacklist intruders, rogue APs, and applications
• Quarantine suspicious and infected devices
• Redirect new and misconfigured devices
• Other items beyond these.

Aruba Networks APs support multiple methods of management. These include Aruba Airwave, Aruba Central, and Aruba Instant.

Aruba Central allows for large, multisite companies to manage their APs through a cloud based, subscription service. This is ideal for supporting individual remote locations with a handful of APs.

Aruba Instant is a built in, virtual AP controller supported by multiple versions of Aruba APs. This allows for smaller companies that wish to take advantage of Aruba APs without requiring any dedicated support staff to manage them.

Aruba Networks APs support both the 802.11n and 802.11ac standards. They are backwards compatible with older standards, such as 802.11a/b/g.

The Aruba Networks AP-224 and AP-225 both natively support the 802.11ac standard.

Aruba Networks APs support a range of connections speeds:

• 300 Mbps: AP-92/AP-93, AP-104/AP-105, AP-134/AP-135, and the AP-175
• 450 Mbps: AP-134/AP-135
• 1.3Gbps: AP-224/AP-225

The AP-175 from Aruba Networks is suitable for outdoor deployment.

The AP-92/AP-93 are recommended, though some users may find the AP-104/AP-105 a more suitable choice when a larger number of clients are expected.

The AP-104/AP-105 is the recommended choice in these instances, but the AP-134/AP-135 may be used for larger coverage areas if required, or the AP-224/AP-225 if the move to 802.11ac is needed.

The AP-134/AP-135 is recommended for spaces such as these, but AP-224/AP-225 would be a good choice if the move to 802.11ac is also required.

The difference is internal antennas vs external antennas. At times, external antennas may be required to allow for signal shaping around walls or obstructions that may otherwise impede function. When listed, the lower number is an external antenna.