I recommend this of you have an enterprise deployment of Aruba APs. Probably not worthwhile using if you are using other OEM APs.

You can do just about everything your physical hardware is capable of doing with this software from the GUI menus, so it is quite powerful. You can find drilldowns and reports of utilization, configuration states, security groups, literally anything you want to see.

I am against the whole pay rent for license model that is pure company arbitrage that Aruba uses simply because it can. The learning curve exists especially for advanced configurations such as different CSfC deployments. This is because Aruba has its own names that are not standard in the community for different sorts of groups and settings, so it is something you will have to become familiar with.

For several years we used the older HP IMC to monitor and manage our wired network but it was not very user friendly and it also did not adapt well to our VM network or our wireless network which is a completely separate network from the wired. A few years ago we were able to get AirWave as part of a Mibs package and it was a game changer. We were able to monitor and manage our entire network from a single console now.

The cost is the most prohibitive factor for AirWave and many other platforms similar to it as well. Which was our biggest hold up on getting the product in the first place.

Very good for monitoring WiFi infrastructure with connected clients, but managing access points and switches needs some fine-tuning

Very good monitoring of WiFi infrastructure, VisualRF module for better understanding of the wireless network

Difficult to manage AP configuration templates in text mode

Overall it's a great product and makes day to day work a lot easier, brings better visibility and deals with mundane tasks for you, which is a great help.

Airwave helps you manage, update and back up all devices that are compatible. It makes managing APs without the need for a controller and the over all feel is easy to use.

Not all Aruba branded products are fully compatible with the airwave, which means you can't utilise all features that it has to offer, which can be a bit frustrating.

Overall I cannot recommend Aruba AirWave enough. If you are already using the Aruba devices across your network, this is the perfect management platform and consolidates all devices in one interface.

What I love most about Aruba is the firmware update feature. We use the same model switches and AP's across our district and AirWave has made it extremely easy to update our devices. All you have to is upload the firmware to your portal and then manage the device and hit upgrade. They make it extremely easy to use. Also, the overall interface is great and very user-friendly.

I get why they do it like this, but I wish I didn't have to license every single device. We host the AirWave server in our own environment, and it would be nice if it was a one-time license fee and from there we could manage all of our devices. Keeping up with the licensing can be somewhat tedious, especially if you ever migrate from one AirWave server to the next.