Why Aruba Wireless is Dominating the Market

Aruba wireless sets itself apart by providing the most complete and well-rounded portfolio of products. In 2022, Gartner ranked Aruba ahead of Cisco Systems in the Evaluation & Contracting and Service & Support categories.

So why is Aruba ranking so highly? Is it really that advanced? In 2016, Aruba was just beginning its climb into Gartner’s rankings. Today, Aruba wireless is dominating the market because of its ease of use and advanced capabilities, making it a worthwhile wireless connectivity solution to be included in IT architecture.

ComportSecure is an Aruba Partner, equipping us with technical expertise and preferred support to optimize Aruba implementations. Learn more about Aruba wireless to see how this innovative healthcare IT solution is leading the industry.

Aruba Wireless is an Innovation Platform

The networking space has had little innovation for quite some time. The market is concentrated with just a few vendors and the technology advancements have been incremental at best. Then along came the Aruba wireless solution, an innovation powerhouse, with new methods to handle the volumes, reliability, security, scalability, and ease of management that IT teams have been looking for, all backed with expert support.

Aruba Wireless versus CISCO

According to reviews from PeerSpot, Aruba earned an average rating of 4.0 out of 5, one of the highest in its field. Aruba has a laser focus on wireless technology and offers users a simple interface that’s easy to interact with. Overall, reviews show that Aruba offers the same capabilities as CISCO at a lower cost.

Aruba and Cisco often face off as competing solutions that offer nearly the same capabilities. Both solutions have user-friendly setup and configuration, as well as 24/7 customer support. The price point for both solutions is comparable, with Aruba wireless being slightly less expensive than CISCO. The main differences include nuances of specific features and visibility into the backend for better alert management.

CISCO is a widely known, reputable brand, but Aruba is catching up in popularity because of the focus on wireless features that it brings to the market.

Customers love Aruba wireless as the best, most cost-effective wireless solution. In addition, they are delighted to realize that it’s also a platform that provides the foundation for multiple levels of security, including secure access for guests and IoT devices, wayfinding, location-based notifications, app consolidation, and asset tracking.

9 Reasons Why Aruba Wireless is on the Rise

1. Always Putting Customers First

Aruba wireless really is that good. Lissa Hollinger, Aruba’s vice president of portfolio marketing, said, “One of Aruba’s guiding principles is ‘customer first, customer last’.” Aruba is, at its core, a customer-centered culture through and through. All product development is focused on solving customer problems, plus Aruba offers a lifetime warranty and free on-call support for many products. Devoted Aruba users are even known to label themselves as “Airheads” as a proud sign of their devotion.

2. Integrated Security with 360 Secure Fabric

With IoT, cloud, and bring-your-own-device (BYOD), today’s IT networks are like swiss cheese, with end users popping in and out constantly. A firewall protecting the perimeter is insufficient for today’s environments. This is a paradigm shift in how we handle network security. Integration is key, and Aruba’s 360 Secure Fabric is a game-changer because it protects across all points in any environment.

Aruba’s 360 Secure Fabric is composed of two signature components:

• • Aruba IntroSpect User and Entity Behavioral Analysis (UEBA) provides visibility, monitoring, and attack detection. UEBA automates threat detection and analysis by providing a consolidated view of security activities in a list format, prioritized using a 0 to 100 risk score. This type of insight allows IT leaders to review information and make decisions quickly, without using time and resources to collect activity information and evaluate its potential risk.
  • Aruba ClearPass handles authentication through its network access control (NAC) and policy management solution, and it syncs up with UEBA to automate threat responses. Aruba ClearPass is key to the BYOD culture many businesses operate within today. It simplifies creating a safe connection to personal devices with customized access control to identify, enforce, and protect access privileges, regardless of the user’s location.

With IntroSpect and ClearPass working together, security is at the forefront of Aruba wireless’ design.

3. Strong, Scalable Guest Access Control

Guest access is an important requirement of any wireless infrastructure. Aruba ClearPass Guest combines automated registration (no more manual entry) and enterprise-grade security to give visitors — customers, contractors — secure access to wired and wireless networks. Not only that, but ClearPass also detects anomalies and deals with them automatically if possible, creating alerts and making you aware of any possible breaches. This feature alone will allow you to avoid a multi-month undetected breach by a guest. Go ahead and expand your user experience — without the risk.

4. IoT Security Across Devices

Internet connected devices are projected to reach 28 billion by 2020. That’s a lot of devices! ClearPass is integral to IoT security, whether industrial, retail or biomedical. All connected devices and sensors can be — and often become — entry points for breaches. Aruba’s four categories of defense combine to ensure maximum protection.

• • Visibility is created with orchestrated discovery.
  • Access privileges must conform to context-based rules.
  • Enforcement is enterprise-wide across wired, Wi-Fi, and VPN.
  • Automated end-to-end workflows ensure situationally-aware security.

5. Aruba Wireless Access Points Enable Remote Connection

Aruba Instant On Access Points strengthen Wi-Fi coverage, and broaden the number of devices a network can support at once. After all, network support is useless if poor connections result in a slow or ineffective user experience.

Aruba Access Points expand Wi-Fi coverage in a way that allows small and medium-sized businesses to experience enterprise-level networking at a manageable cost for their organizations.

Similarly, Aruba’s Remote Access Points (RAPs) enable the work-from-anywhere norm to continue without a hiccup. RAPs allow employees to connect to secure wireless networks, regardless of their device or their location. What started as remote work out of necessity has evolved into verified users with appropriate access and reliable connection no matter where they are.

6. Integrated Network Management with Aruba Airwave

Airwave offers integrated IT operations management tools ideal for multi-vendor environments. Its unified network management handles both wired and wireless networks, with step-by-step workflows and streamlined automation capabilities. It also provides granular visibility into devices, users, and applications on the network. With detailed health and analytics dashboards, Aruba Airwave offers real-time monitoring and control.

7. Scalability and Security in One Edge Services Platform

Aruba Edge Services Platform (ESP) identifies issues at network edges and uses AI to resolve many of them before they become problems that are detrimental to business. Aruba ESP introduces next-level networking, letting internal teams focus their attention elsewhere while enhancing network security. Aruba ESP secures the network edge to provide a highly scalable cloud-native platform.

8. Wayfinding & Asset Tracking for End User Satisfaction

Aruba wayfinding includes the foundation to build location-based services on top of the network infrastructure. With beacons and Aruba Meridian — a cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution featuring wayfinding, proximity-based notifications, and digital asset tracking — you can provide game-changing services. This flexible platform’s tools can be customized to offer all kinds of new services for university campuses, stadiums, airports, warehouses and retail stores. Being able to track assets such as shipments, medical equipment, and lift trucks saves time and money while increasing productivity. Use your imagination for how these capabilities will benefit your business.

9. Breadth and Functionality to Accommodate Any Need

Since Aruba is owned by HPE, you’re not just getting its full range of IT solutions, but also the products for which HPE is known. Over the years, HPE has amassed a broad range of high-quality (and lower priced) networking hardware including WLAN, routers, and switches. The HPE AllianceOne Partner Program, developed in 2010, allows HPE to bundle its hardware with vendor products, offering its customers a complete, end-to-end package. For customers, that means one-stop shopping at its best, where you can rest assured you are getting industry-leading design.

The list of rationale why Aruba wireless is gaining popularity could go on. These are only the first of dozens of reasons why Aruba wireless is leading the industry in end-to-end wired and wireless management and security.

To dive deeper and discuss your particular needs, get in touch with Comport today. Our in-house technologists will help you and your team map out a path forward to best use Aruba wireless for your most pressing connectivity goals. Get started with an Aruba Wireless Assessment today!

Author:Bill Flatley, Field CTO for Healthcare

Bill is responsible for technical strategies and recommendations for Comport’s Healthcare clients. His extensive experience includes four healthcare systems in leadership roles supporting Clinical Applications, Digital Health, and Office of the CIO as the primary liaison between IT and the business.