This article is written for the everyday consumer with a little bit of network knowledge. No extremely advanced terms will be used throughout this article, as the intention is to keep this article simple enough for anyone to understand.

It has now been a month since I have been using the HPE Aruba Instant On networking products and to be quite honest, I don’t know why I haven’t moved to Aruba Instant On even earlier. The simplicity, ease of installation, cost and quality of the Aruba Instant On products definitely makes the purchase worthwhile. This might just be the best networking products for your home or small office, especially in these times of working remotely.

To give you some background on how my home network used to be: Some time ago I have made use of a 10Mbps Telkom ADSL line (which offered fair speed and value). My network consisted of an Asus ADSL wireless router (main), with an Asus repeater / access point, connected with a CAT5 cable to my main Asus router. So that was it and it worked fairly OK for my home, but the issue was the two SSID’s which at some stages needed to be manually connected to when out of range.

Then fibre came along. I got myself a 100Mbps subscription from Metro Fibre and Vodacom, and of course received a brand-new Huawei router. It was very disappointing as the Asus router had so much more features, but I have managed to make it work with all my connected devices. I have also installed a Unifi AP LR access point which was controlled using a software controller installed on a VM. This setup worked fine and had great performance from the Unifi AP LR. I can honestly say that Unifi is great, and had a great time making use of it.

Then. We bought a new home. So, with that, it was time for the Aruba Instant On to be installed. Due to stock shortages because of this pandemic, I have waited some time for the products, but it was so worth it. I have purchased the following Aruba Instant On products:

• Aruba Instant On 8-port POE 1930 switch https://arubainstanton.com/files/DS_AIO_AP11.pdf
• Aruba Instant On AP11 access points (x2) https://arubainstanton.com/files/DS_AIO_1930SwitchSeries.pdf

(The AP11’s aren’t the top-of-the-line access points, but trust me, they are great.)

Installation

The Aruba Instant On switch do come with rack-mount brackets, which made it the perfect match for my upgraded network cabinet. It also comes with rubber feet should you just want to place the switch on a desk. And it is something to look at. The products are minimalistic and clean with subtle branding. It is really good looking.

The access points’ wall/ceiling mounts are extremely easy to install. With a twist-to-lock design, you can easily change or move the access points without much of a hassle. The access points are slightly smaller in size than the Unifi AP LR, but they feel firm and not as “plastic-ish” as most other brands.

Installation can be done extremely fast (depending on how you want to have your cabling done, etc.).

 

Configuration

Well. Aruba Instant On must be an instantly-on product then? When it comes to the configuration, it lives up to its name. You power up the switch, plug your router into an open port, wait for the cloud light to become green, and configure the switch using your phone with the Instant On app. It really is extremely easy when you make use of the cloud configuration. Once the switch is configured, you can connect the access points and provision them in the app. As easy as that.

I must note that as the switches and access points are managed devices (and not a dumb switch), they can take up to 10-minutes to completely start up. This might be a bit on the irritating side if you don’t have them connected to a UPS, and load-shedding / power dips restarts the devices. Then boot-up times can become an irritation. But then again, these are managed devices with software embedded in them.

When adding additional Access Points, they are automatically configured for MESH networking. No more jumping between different SSID’s.

Check out this video below to see how easy the configuration is of the Aruba Instant On products.

Management

When setting up the Aruba Instant On products, you have the option to set it up using cloud management or local management. Cloud management takes the hassle and tedious, advanced configuration out of the equation. It is simple, fast and effective to get up and running in no time. It packs a lot of features when making use of cloud management where you can see the amount of network traffic and what type of network traffic was accessed on your network. A clean dashboard provides ease of management for your devices and network. You can also control and monitor your network from anywhere – perfect for IT administrators who needs to monitor multiple networks.

When making use of the local management, you unfortunately lose the option for remote / cloud management. But you now have access to a vast number of settings. You can manually configure your devices with in-depth and advanced settings. The 1930 switch is also a Layer 2+ switch, where you can also specify VLANs and routing without the need of a Layer 3 switch. The configurations are endless, and you can configure a really advanced network when making use of local management.

But I have opted to make use of the cloud management configurations purely for the fact to remotely manage and monitor my site.

 

Performance

We all want the best performing products and the best value for money. With Aruba Instant On gigabit switches and WiFi 5 (and WiFi 6) access points, performance is no issue. When performing the average internet speed test, you will find that when using a LAN cable or the WiFi access points, you will get an extremely low latency and stable connections (also depending on your ISP). My Nokia FTTH router are connected with an uplink to the Aruba Instant On switch, and all the other traffic are managed by the network switch and access points, thus making the Nokia FTTH router the gateway to the internet only. Check out the results below of speed tests done on a 100Mbps Vodacom FTTH subscription.

With the dual-band radio’s of these access points, when moving out of the 5GHz range, seamless adaption to the longer 2.4GHz range takes place without any disruption in connectivity. And these AP11 access points do have some good range – and very stable as well. The Unifi AP LR might have slightly more range (as it is a Long Range AP after all), but when compared to the Aruba Instant On AP12 or AP22 for that matter, the playing field just got more equal.

Roaming between access points are also seamless with the Aruba Instant On. With multiple access points in your home or office, you will have great coverage throughout without even knowing you are roaming on another access point. I have tested the roaming, and it is flawless. Even with a lot of wireless devices on my network, the performance just doesn’t fade with the Aruba Instant On access points.

 

Conclusion

HPE Aruba Instant On really levelled the playing field with their products. It is extremely easy to set up and configure, and you will enjoy an enterprise-grade network at home or office. Reliable, affordable and durable products. Aruba Instant On really proved to be a great brand with amazing products. They still need to maybe add more functionality to the cloud management platform, but they are doing an amazing job already. Maybe some future software updates might include more functionality from the cloud management platform. The switches and access points might take some time to boot up / reboot, but it is all worth it. Again – these products amazed me and would strongly recommend Aruba Instant On for the home office and small office environments.