SolarWinds Access Rights Manager (ARM) is designed to assist IT and security admins to quickly and easily provision, deprovision, manage and audit user access rights to systems, data, and files. By analyzing user authorizations and access permission you get visualization of who has access to what and when they accessed it. Demonstrate compliance with most regulatory requirements with customized reports. Provision and deprovision users using…
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HPE Aruba Networking ClearPass Policy Manager
Score 9.1 out of 10
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The HPE Aruba Networking ClearPass Policy Manager provides role- and device-based network access control for employees, contractors and guests across multi-vendor wired, wireless and VPN infrastructures.
Overall, Solar Winds Access Rights Manager (ARM) is reliable and easy to use once you figure out how to get what you want from the tool. They have both a client and web version of the tool that can be used. Each one has different functionality so just have to remember where to go to do the task you want. We are still early in our usage, but so far it seems to be working well!
We have quite a few visitors to our campus and we don't want to have a set PSK for the wireless so we have configured a guest network where visitors can create an account and gain access to the internet and we don't have to "manage" it since the accounts will expire after a certain time. We have RF scanners in our warehouses and we want them to be allowed on the network and be put into its own VLAN. ClearPass can do this flawlessly by keying off of the MAC address when it comes online and putting it into the correct VLAN. This makes it so we don't have to add each device individually to the system. The only time ClearPass would not be appropriate is in a small deployment where the cost to value wouldn't make sense.
Licensing model when we changed over to SolarWinds was [I feel] a nightmare. It needs to be more streamlined and SolarWinds needs to understand what their customers require. When we changed over to SolarWinds we found it very hard to get answers to what modules we were still licensed for.
Our current system is not functioning. We can't login to the application with the accounts we created that were working. The error that appears doesn't help to resolve it. So at present we just renewed licenses for this year and we can't use the system.
Getting data out of ClearPass is difficult. You can get some with SNMP but he API is lacking. There is only a limited amount of info that you can get from it. Even some data that shows up in ClearPass Insight is not available to import into a 3rd party application.
In the past, if you have hardware/software issues you could troubleshoot them yourself through the CLI in a Linux type interface but now they have locked everything down and it makes troubleshooting difficult. You have to rely on them for everything. As a person who likes to understand the ins and outs of the systems I manage it is somewhat frustrating.
Steep learning curve, although support can assist and their forums like airheads can be helpful. This is a complex system and can take a while to grasp how everything works and integrates.
Though Aruba ClearPass offers a lot of insight and features, it is not the easiest to navigate. A lot of other systems can be figured out as you go, but Aruba ClearPass often requires a lot of research in order to set something up correctly. It's not always easy to find what you're looking for. Once you learn the basics, it becomes a lot more manageable, but it's definitely worth investing in some sort of training.
This product has consistently provided the results needed from it and when issues arose, Aruba TAC was able to provide support effectively. In the previous question, I stated that Aruba Wireless is used as well. With those systems in place with ClearPass troubleshooting becomes much easier. I am sure other issues may arise if calling support while using another vendor for wireless such as Cisco, Juniper, etc.
It was my first exposure to this type of product and I wasn’t given the time to figure out how best to implement it. I would say get a plan together of what you are tying to accomplish first
While the CatTools are used mainly by a colleague of mine, DameWare is only used periodically and definitely not on a daily base. We chose ARM (when we bought it, it was called 8Man) because it had a good and well fitting set of features for a reasonable price. In addition to that, we could quite easily configure some features for our needs. Other products didn't get even close to this feature list for this price.
Clearpass provides seamless protection to the enterprise network without the need of many licenses to be procured. Hardware LAN and Wireless are protected from unwanted or unknown visitors to the network. Unlike other vendors, you don't need multiple licenses, one device or cloud setup will get you going to manage and monitor your network
Because it's cut down on the mistakes and time lost creating new user accounts, this has meant there is a reduction in tickets relating to changes needing to be made to user accounts. Whether this was the incorrect spelling of the name, or the need to add/remove security groups. With ARM now doing the user creation along with the templates we've created, this has dramatically cut down the number of support tickets regarding user accounts, meaning our team now has more time to tend to other pending tickets.
Set and forget. It made a positive contribution in terms of labor and cost without needing much technical support. Since NAC and TACACS features come together, you can meet your needs with a single license.
The number of supporting companies may be limited in the country you are affiliated with. Therefore, agreements with third-party companies are expensive and your support requests may take a long time.
