Multiple regional instances of Aruba Central allow the organization to deploy separate Central instances in different geographic regions (e.g., one for EU stores, one for APAC stores). This provides the desired centralized management and visibility for each region while ensuring that management data and, critically, the configuration of policies that keep user traffic local, comply with specific regional data sovereignty laws. A global instance would risk routing management data across borders, violating sovereignty. An on-prem instance loses cloud scalability, and Activate is for provisioning, not ongoing policy management.

On ArubaOS-CX switches, the SSH server and HTTP/HTTPS server for the WebUI are disabled in the default configuration for security reasons. While the management interface is reachable via ICMP (ping), the higher-layer services required for CLI and GUI access are not running. The administrator must first console into the switch and enable these services using commands like `ssh server enable` and `https-server enable`.

Aruba’s User-Based Tunneling (UBT) with dynamic segmentation allows for the creation of a single role (e.g., ‘Guest-Role’) that contains a firewall rule denying traffic between users assigned that same role. This policy is defined once in ClearPass or the Mobility Master and is dynamically applied to users regardless of their access method (wired or wireless) or point of attachment. It is far more scalable and manageable than manual ACLs per port or per-VLAN solutions.

In the Aruba ESP architecture, Aruba Central acts as the cloud-based network management hub and the ‘single source of truth’. It holds the defined templates, group configurations, and global policies. It then orchestrates the network by distributing this intended state to all devices (gateways, switches, APs) and ensures they remain in compliance, providing a unified management plane for the entire wired and wireless infrastructure.

To prioritize voice traffic, you must enable WMM (Wi-Fi Multimedia) on the WLAN. WMM implements QoS mechanisms at the MAC layer, allowing traffic from voice applications to be tagged with higher priority access categories (e.g., Voice). Additionally, disabling Airtime Fairness for that WLAN can be beneficial, as Airtime Fairness can inadvertently penalize slower voice devices, whereas voice traffic benefits from consistent, low-latency access to the medium.

When ClearPass OnGuard is configured for persistent or periodic agent-based monitoring, the agent running on the endpoint continuously or periodically assesses the device’s health. If a compliance violation is detected (like AV being disabled), the OnGuard agent communicates this to the ClearPass server. ClearPass then issues a RADIUS Change of Authorization (CoA) request to the network access device (switch or controller), forcing the user’s session to be re-authenticated, which will now fail the health check and result in access being quarantined or revoked.

A VSX LAG (Multi-Chassis LAG or MC-LAG) allows you to configure a Link Aggregation Group where the member ports are physically located on two separate switches that are paired together via VSX. To the downstream device (like a server or another switch), this appears as a single logical LAG connection, providing active-active forwarding and high availability. A standard static LAG is confined to ports on a single physical switch.

RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) is the standard protocol used for network access authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA). The switch acts as the RADIUS client (NAD), forwarding user credentials to the ClearPass RADIUS server. ClearPass authenticates the user, makes a policy decision, and returns a RADIUS Access-Accept message containing authorization attributes (like Filter-ID, Tunnel-Private-Group-ID for VLAN) that the switch applies to the user’s session.

VPNC stands for VPN Concentrator mode. When an Aruba Gateway is configured in VPNC mode, its primary function is to establish secure IPsec tunnels (using IKEv2) to other gateways, typically in a hub-and-spoke or mesh topology. It concentrates VPN traffic from the branch, providing secure connectivity back to corporate resources in a data center or hub site. While it may perform other functions, tunneling is its core purpose in this mode.

Multiple regional instances of Aruba Central allow the organization to deploy separate Central instances in different geographic regions (e.g., one for EU stores, one for APAC stores). This provides the desired centralized management and visibility for each region while ensuring that management data and, critically, the configuration of policies that keep user traffic local, comply with specific regional data sovereignty laws. A global instance would risk routing management data across borders, violating sovereignty. An on-prem instance loses cloud scalability, and Activate is for provisioning, not ongoing policy management.0