TLDR: Then people need to be out of the office, missing important meetings and other work to do the new site setup. We had multiple remote office locations and then we had all of our construction sites. The SD-Branch makes a WAN setup so much easier, largely in part to Aruba Central. With Aruba Central, you don't have to wait for gear to arrive, much less ship, before you can start the configuration.With Aruba SD-Branch you can have the new remote office configured before the equipment even hits the doorstep.
WAN deployments can be a nightmare. You have to juggle so many moving parts and pieces—cable vendors, equipment, travel arrangements, ISP connections to the new location, and the list goes on. Then people need to be out of the office, missing important meetings and other work to do the new site setup. This can slow progress on other IT initiatives and create more problems.
The Old Way
One of my first jobs in IT was working for a construction company and, wow, do I wish we had SD-Branch back then. We had multiple remote office locations and then we had all of our construction sites. We always had jobs wrapping up and coming to a close, and new ones starting up. We each took turns going out to job sites to do the setup. For a while it seemed like someone from the team was always out of the office tending to a site setup.
Another company I worked for had retail stores, and rolling out a new store location was always a chore. We had an MPLS cloud and it was always a long lead time to get the circuits provisioned. Of course, we never knew about the new location in time to order the circuit so it would be ready.
The SD-Branch Way
SD-Branch makes a WAN setup so much easier, largely in part to Aruba Central. With Aruba Central, you don't have to wait for gear to arrive, much less ship, before you can start the configuration. With Aruba SD-Branch you can have the new remote office configured before the equipment even hits the doorstep. You also don't need expensive private circuits either. You can start with basic broadband internet and add in the MPLS circuits when it's provisioned and ready.
No more traveling for IT staff to do the setup either. They can all stay in the office focused on the work at hand. With SD-Branch you can easily designate a trusted installer to do the deployment for you. They don’t need to know anything about deploying routers, switches or access points either. All they need to know how to do is scan a barcode—that’s it.
In Aruba Central, there's an Install Manager and in there you can designate who is going to be installing the equipment on your behalf. By doing this you are limiting access to your equipment and securing the whole process. Your designated installers can only see site information for the sites they are installing. Have multiple installations going on at the same? No sweat. You can easily see the status of these in Aruba Central so you can report on the progress at any time.
It’s All in the App
The coolest part is the mobile app. The installers will unbox the gear, power it up, open the mobile app, Aruba Installer and scan away. That scan kicks of the Zero Touch Provisioning process. First, Aruba Central ensures that the gear is in the correct location, then as long the equipment has a connection to Aruba Central the configuration can begin.
The Aruba Installer app is available in the Google Play and Apple App stores. If you’re lucky enough to already be using Aruba Central you can go grab the app, sign in and start playing with it right now. Seriously right now—go.
Get Hands-on
If you haven't made the switch yet then go check out Aruba Central. You can test drive Aruba Central absolutely free for 90 days.
Want to learn more? You can also check out this solution brief explaining more benefits of Aruba Central.
Read My Other Blogs
SD-Branch Changes Your Perspective of Remote Offices
It’s in the UI: Cloud Network Management Like No Other
