December 29, 2020 By BlueAlly
At Aruba, we are excited to release Instant On version 2.2. As always, we carefully collected feedback from our customers and partners to enhance Instant On’s capabilities to meet the needs of small businesses. Aruba Instant On customers and partners get more value and more amazing features with every software release.
Here are 10 cool new capabilities with Instant On 2.2.
- Topology View: Topology view provides an intuitive map of all Instant On devices deployed in a network, which enables IT admins to identify and troubleshoot network issues more efficiently. This view automatically maps network architectures, and seeing how Instant On switches and wireless devices are connected helps IT admins quickly see and troubleshoot connections at a glance.
- Bandwidth Limiting Per Network: Instant On has always allowed you to set bandwidth limits for individual clients on a wireless network to prevent bandwidth hogging. This improves the Wi-Fi experience for users running business conference calls while preventing other users who are streaming videos from consuming large amounts of bandwidth. The newest option allows users to configure a bandwidth limit per AP on the network, rather than limiting usage for each client.
- OWE (Wi-Fi Enhanced Open): Instant On now supports the Wi-Fi Alliance's latest security standard for public networks. Enhanced Open provides strong data encryption for open, non-password-protected Wi-Fi networks in areas such as cafes, hotels and restaurants.
- Port Security – Allow List: Network security is very important. A secure network prevents attacks from intruders who can break into your network. One way to enhance security in your network is to configure port security on your switches. IT administrators can now control which clients can access a specific switch port or a specific link aggregation group (LAG). Restricting the number of MAC addresses on a port allows you to prevent client devices with unauthorized MAC addresses from connecting to your network.
- Auto-Voice Network: Instant On now automatically recognizes VoIP phones and prioritizes voice traffic. Instant On mobile app lets you segment voice traffic to a dedicated voice network, improving voice quality in easy, intuitive steps. Simply connect your VoIP phones to your Instant On switches and you will automatically have a separate voice network to ensure high quality voice and more bandwidth available for business-critical applications.
- Cloudflare DNS integration: Nearly everything on the internet starts with a DNS request. DNS is the internet’s directory. Click on a link, open an app, send an email and the first thing your device does is ask the directory: Where can I find this? Today everyone uses an internet service provider (ISP), but did you know that all of your browsing history and DNS requests can be seen publicly by ISPs? With Cloudflare’s DNS service, your browsing history stays with you. Cloudflare built 1.1.1.1, the internet’s fastest DNS directory. By using DNS over HTTPS (DoH), you can transparently offer enhanced security to your customers while improving the speed of their connection. Even better, you can support DoH at no cost both in terms of licensing and customers’ privacy.
- In this release, Instant On uses Cloudflare’s DNS as the primary server and adds the DNS obtained by your ISP as a fallback. With Cloudflare’s integration into Instant On, you gain faster browsing and a more private internet experience.
- PoE Scheduling: Configure a specific day/time of the week (such as business hours) during which Instant On switches will supply power to connected devices like surveillance cameras and access points. PoE Scheduler provides the flexibility to select individual days of a week as well as weekly recurrences with start and end times.
- PoE Priority: Instant On switches automatically detect and apply the highest (critical) PoE priority to Instant On Access Points for uninterrupted power delivery and wireless network access. When you have a power shortage in the PoE pool, you can configure PoE Port Priority to define which PoE ports should be provided with power while disabling power on other ports until enough power is available for all PoE ports.
- Static IPv4 Routing: Instant On switches support manual or DHCP IP address assignments to individual VLANs, thereby improving routing efficiency of the network through easy, intuitive steps. Static IPv4 routing is allowed on one switch at a site and if the switch is offline, the routing can’t be configured or modified.
- Lots More Cool Enhancements: Instant On 2.2 includes other great enhancements, including support for shared services, choices for notifications, more administrative accounts, and improved video streaming.
With Shared Services, mobile devices can discover and access shared services like Chromecast, Apple Services and Google Home on the same or different networks on the site.
You can receive Email Notifications, Push Notifications—or both—to alert you where there is an issue. We also added a new notification category to alert you when a new software is available.
Instant On now comes with three administrative accounts per site, which you can provide to your customer so you and your customer don’t have to share same login credentials. And all admins can manage their networks from the Instant On mobile app/web portal.
The latest software enhances the quality of video streaming by converting multicast traffic into unicast traffic on a wireless network. This optimizes video streaming.
Green Port Management (EEE) reduces power consumption on switch ports when data activity is low or idle. This feature runs in the background, and the status is not visible or configurable via the mobile app/web portal.
Currently, Instant On connects authenticated users to all networks on a given port or wireless network. Now with Dynamic VLAN Assignment, you can restrict users to the VLAN(s) specified in the attributes of the RADIUS profile.
At Aruba, we are committed to adding continually capabilities to Aruba Instant On based on your feedback and giving you and your small business customers more value for their money while delivering a consistently great network experience.
Getting started with Aruba Instant On is as easy as 1-2-3. Really.