5 reasons to consider Aruba Instant On for simpler, smarter networking for your small business customers

By Greg Weaver

“Aruba Instant On is designed so that you don’t need to be a Wi-Fi geek to get it to work.” * “Easy setup. Online and configured in 5 minutes. Can easily recommend this as a solid AP that's easy to configure.” * “Very good performance and extremely easy to set up no matter how many access points you need!” *

Those are just a few of the comments we’ve heard from our customers and channel partners. The global pandemic has forced a rapid shift to remote workforces, digital workflows, optimized business operations, and innovation to meet unforeseen needs. Remote work accelerated the shift to cloud apps and services for businesses of all sizes, but even more so for small businesses that need to stay fast and nimble.

With increased reliance on technology, it’s more important than ever to provide your customers with simpler, smarter networking.

Smart and simple is the core value proposition of the Aruba Instant On cloud-managed network solution. You can set up your customers’ networks in minutes, and they’ll enjoy fast speeds inside and outside. Instant On wireless and wired networking saves time, headaches and cost.

At Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, we serve small businesses exclusively through our specialized channel partners. We strive to make the Instant On experience simpler and smarter for your customers and profitable for you, our partners.

Here are the top 5 Instant On features that channel partners can leverage to deliver a smarter networking solution to customers:

1. Easily set up networks at customer sites: Faster installations mean faster time to revenue—and more business value to your customers. Partners use the Instant On mobile app to rapidly set up wireless and wired networks at new customer locations. Just follow the steps recommended by Instant On’s intuitive installation wizard. The Instant On mobile app displays a list of the sites associated with your account. Partners can easily select a site, establish a remote access session, and manage your customer’s network remotely. You can support multiple customers this way, too. Every site is logically distinct, each with its own configuration, statistics, guest portal, and usage privileges.

2. Easily visualize your customers’ network topologies: You need to know how your customers’ networks are performing at all times. But the reality is unplanned downtime, limited resources and network performance issues can slow down day-to-day business operations. With the cloud-managed Instant On solution, issues can be identified and resolved quickly. Instant On will find the bottlenecks before your customers notice.

Topology View provides an intuitive map of all Instant On access points and switches, which enables your support team to identify and troubleshoot network issues more efficiently. This view quickly summarizes the network topology, state of network devices, number of connected clients, and status of links between network devices.

A graphical topology map in the app shows what’s connected to what, and a simple tap gives detailed information on a device’s MAC address, model, and location. Tapping a “Locate” button flashes an LED on the Instant On device in case you need to identify a specific device.

3. Stay informed with proactive notifications: Cloud management and automated trouble notifications allow solution partners to diagnose and even remedy network issues faster. But just receiving alerts is insufficient. Without a visual representation of the network’s topology, it’s difficult to quickly diagnose the cause and fix the issue.

Instant On can automatically send email and text alerts to notify your team of connection or device problems, when device capacity is exceeded, and when software updates are available. You and your customers can receive Email Notifications, Push Notifications—or both—to alert where there is an issue.

4. Manage your customers’ network from a single pane of glass: Remote management is even more important in an era of COVID-safe operations. With Instant On, you can manage your customers’ networks from anywhere and from the device of your choice. There’s no need to travel to customers’ sites, saving you time and money, and eliminating the need for trained IT staff at customer locations. The entire network can be managed from one central location.

You can easily toggle back and forth from the Instant On cloud-based web portal to mobile app at no extra cost and get full visibility into your customers’ access points, switches, and network status, including traffic type and volume.

5. Protect your customers’ networks with advanced security. Size does not protect small businesses from the onslaught of cyberattacks. With Aruba Instant On, you can provide advanced security with a tap of a finger:

• Application Control: Instant On actively safeguards your customers’ networks from viruses, spyware, hackers, malware, and other threats. Through secure browsing, Instant On helps block known malicious and risky sites and applications, keeping your customers’ staff and guests safe from phishing, fraud, and ransomware.
• Client Blocking: If you notice a device that shouldn’t be on your customer’s network, you can restrict it from accessing the internet by blocking it from the connected device list. Blocked devices will now appear in a “Blocked Clients” list that populates at the side of the “Connected Clients” tab. You can tap on any device on this list to remove it from the block list, which will re-enable network access.
• Bandwidth Control: Instant On has always allowed you to set bandwidth limits for individual clients on a wireless network to prevent bandwidth hogging. The result is a better Wi-Fi experience for people on business conference calls while keeping streaming videos from consuming large amounts of bandwidth. Instant On’s newest option allows you and your customers to configure a bandwidth limit per AP on the network, rather than limiting usage for each client.

Aruba Instant On is business networking made incredibly simple. At Aruba, we’re committed to delivering a consistently great network experience and giving you and your customers more value.

* Verified Amazon Review

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