r/ArubaInstantOn

I was wondering since HPE has made Aruba Central such an unfriendly user experience with their convoluted New Central and unintuitive interface (the Classic left side menu was MUCH better), has anyone had any experience switching platforms with a much more friendly user interface?

I have a free license through Mearki CMNA for my MX67 that might be going away soon so I'm starting to look at other gateway devices. I already have an 8-port PoE and 24-port InstantOn switches, so going with the SG1004 made sense to stay in the same ecosystem. I just had a few questions and was seeing if anyone knows....

1. Pretty sure it supports VLANs
2. Does it include content filtering?
3. How good is the IDS/IPS?
4. Do the firewall rules have ACLs? (only allow incoming from certain IPs)
5. Does it do port forwarding? (incoming on port X - translate to port Y)

Appreciate any input anyone may have. I'm sure someone is going to suggest PFSense, but I'd rather not build something myself.

I picked up a Aruba 1960 switch to see how I like it, with intent to replace some Meraki switches (and ultimately the Meraki MX with TBD device). I didn't realize that the local and cloud modes were completely separate, and there seems to be a distinct lack of features in both.

Cloud mode

• Shows devices and mac addresses connected to the switch, as well as throughput details
• doesn't fully support ACLs, allowing only l2 isolation or allowing access to specific ips without a source
• doesn't have any logging, and visibility is pretty limited otherwise
• lack of settings

Local Mode

• Has logging, snmp, full ACL support, and a lot of expected settings.
• doesn't have any client information

Is that accurate? I was hoping to get a Meraki-like client list experience with typical switch settings and was considering the instant on gateway, but the lack of cloud features are bothersome. What is everyone else doing - cloud or local?