The Aruba 7000 Mobility Controllers are Aruba’s entry-level in this category. So what is a mobility controller? A mobility controller soups up the performance of a Wide Local Area Network. It does this by centralizing all control of individual access points. So it acts as the mothership of a fleet of (what could be) widely dispersed access points.
The Aruba 7000 series consists of the 7005, 7008, 7010, 7024, and 7030.
Controllers improve security, even thought they are not themselves security appliances.They do this with Aruba’s Policy Enforcement Firewall. This is a next-generation role-based user, device and application firewall. It provides automated Dynamic Segmentation for wireless and wired access security in any Aruba environment. It’s available through Mobility Controllers, Gateways and APs in Instant mode.
The PEF enforces policies based on user role, device type, application, and location. And simplifies and secures wired and wireless network access. It encapsulates traffic in GRE tunnels for complete encryption all the way from an AP or switch.
It’s worth mentioning here that Aruba access points can either operate under a mobility controller like the Aruba 7000, or in Instant (controllerless) mode.
More stuff the Aruba 7000 series does
Controllers also improve client roaming, and general utilization. For example, in a demanding environment that requires 24/7 mission-critical connectivity, Aruba’s patented, AI-powered wireless technology integrates right into the ArubaOS. The same OS used by all Aruba devices. And that means everything’s talking the same language.
Adaptive Radio Management, AirMatch and ClientMatch (now enhanced with Wi-Fi 6 grouping) provide RF optimization. This improves user experience and network health based on changing environmental conditions. It also corrects for noisy or congested RF and resolves sticky client issues during user roaming. RFProtect provides advanced spectrum analysis and wireless intrusion protection (WIPS/WIDS). This helps identify and mitigate Wi-Fi and non-Wi-Fi interference, and contains potential security risks. So the mobility controller is sort of the mastermind of a self-monitoring, self-healing network.
Aruba Mobility Conductor
When deployed with Aruba Mobility Conductor, the Aruba 7000 Mobility Controller can be joined to a controller cluster. A Mobility Conductor is basically the next step up in the hierarchy. It controls all the controllers that are controlling all the access points. Up to 1000 mobility controllers and 10,000 access points, as a matter of fact. And the mobility conductor does add it’s own capabilities, too.
You can increase scale, obviously. But you also can improve reliability with enhanced high availability. And, you can adopt configurations seamlessly based on hierarchy, support Live Upgrades to reduce maintenance, and share licenses from a global licensing pool. The 7000 Series also serves a key policy enforcement role in Aruba’s 360 Secure Fabric. Aruba AirWave provides real-time monitoring, reporting and Wi-Fi planning and visibility services.
Back to the 7000 series
Do you find yourself managing multiple WAN connections? Aruba 7000 Mobility Controllers can connect to Aruba’s SD-WAN fabric right out of the box. And, Aruba’s integration with Microsoft enables unique application intelligence. It can detect Microsoft 365, Teams and Skype for Business traffic. Then, it prioritizes them over less critical applications. Through management interfaces on ArubaOS, Aruba Central, and Aruba AirWave, call quality metrics such as MOS, latency, jitter, and packet loss can be visualized for additional insights.
Enhanced capabilities
Who doesn’t like those? Well, with Aruba ClientMatch, the performance, speed, and efficiency of Wi-Fi 6 (as well as the key features like OFDMA, 1024-QAM, and bidirectional MU-MIMO) is maximized by grouping 802.11ax clients together. This will optimize the multi-user experience.
We’ve touched on security a little. Support for WPA3 brings stronger encryption and authentication methods, while Enhanced Open brings automatic security to open networks. And there’s now simpler passkey management for WPA2 devices. Should the Wi-Fi password on one device need to be changed, no additional key changes are needed for other devices on the network.
And the Policy Enforcement Firewall mentioned earlier. It tunnels traffic to a stateful firewall on the Aruba 7000 Series through GRE tunnels for inspection. Policies are enforced based on user role, device type, application and location. It is enabled by the PEF license. As part of the PEF license, there is also application visibility with Deep Packet Inspection. It evaluates and optimizes performance and Quality of Service policies for over 3,000 applications. Even for encrypted or hidden traffic. You also get Web Content Filtering, Zero Touch Provisioning, and built-in VPN services, with no additional hardware needed.
Specs on the Aruba 7000 Mobility Controllers
The Aruba 7005 and Aruba 7008 each support 16 access point licenses and 1,024 concurrent users/devices. The 7010 and 7024 support 32 and 2,048 users/devices, and the 7030 supports 64 and 4,096, respectively.
The 7005 and 7008 push 4 gbps of Firewall Throughput, 4 Gbps of Wired Bridged Throughput, and 1.2 Gbps of encrypted throughput (3DES).
The 7010, 7024, and 7030 deliver 8 Gbps of Firewall Throughput, 8 Gbps of Wired Bridged Throughput, and 2.4 Gbps of encrypted throughput (3DES).
Summary
The Aruba 7000 series is well suited for medium-to-large organizations. Each 7000 Series provides connectivity for up to 4,096 concurrent users or devices and 64 access points. Plus, they include up to 24 Ethernet ports and multiple WAN uplinks. And they come with up to 8Gbps of maximum throughput to perform their built-in firewall features.
The Aruba 7000 Mobility Controller delivers superb, easy user experience for medium-to-high density environments.
And Corporate Armor gives you uninterrupted 5-star service and years of specialization in Aruba’s whole family of products. So call us at 877-449-0458, or email us with any and all questions.
Aruba 7000 series highlights
| Support for new Wi-Fi 6, WPA3 and Enhanced Open – and existing standards |
| Patented ClientMatch technology can now group together Wi-Fi 6 capable devices |
| Dynamic Segmentation enforces wired/wireless policies to simplify and secure the network |
| 8 Gbps of maximum firewall throughput |
| Built-in AI-powered wireless/RF optimization |