Aruba ESP Campus Reference Architectures

This section describes the components and features of an Aruba ESP campus, with reference designs for small, medium, and large campus networks. Each design includes a sample bill-of-materials.

Select the reference design that most closely aligns with specific production requirements as a starting point for building the required campus solution.

Table of contents

• Aruba ESP Campus Reference Architectures
  • HPE GreenLake for Aruba
  • Campus Components
    • Switches
    • Access Points
    • UXI Sensors
    • Cables and Transceivers
  • Campus Features
    • Switching
    • Wireless
    • Services
  • Small Campus
    • Example Design
    • Example Bill-of-Materials
  • Medium Campus
    • Example Design
    • Example Bill-of-Materials
  • Large Campus
    • Example Design
      • Example Bill-of-Materials
      • MultiZone
  • NetConductor
    • Platform Support
    • Platform Collocation
    • Routed Access Validated Scale
    • Licensing

HPE GreenLake for Aruba

HPE GreenLake for Aruba Networking offers an experience leveraging the breadth of HPE Aruba solutions with a flexible way to consume network infrastructure via monthly subscription versus an up-front capital expenditure.

HPE GreenLake for Aruba networking solutions are enabled using modular “Service Packs”. Each Service Pack consists of the required Aruba hardware (“Systems”), software, and service components for the specific use case. Service Packs are delivered as a monthly subscription invoiced in advance and can include options for customers to flex their subscription to Service Pack quantities up or down as their needs change.

Where available, a service pack is listed for each product in the reference architecture tables.

Campus Components

The following products and features provide the foundation for the campus architecture. Use the tables below for guidance on designing a properly sized campus network.

Switches

Access Points

UXI Sensors

Cables and Transceivers

Refer to the following document to ensure proper selection of supported cables and transceivers when planning for physical connectivity within the campus:

ArubaOS-Switch and ArubaOS-CX Transceiver Guide

Campus Features

Additional design consideration should be given to enabling the following features within the campus network.

Switching

Wireless

Services

Small Campus

The small campus typically supports up to 5000 users with 2-3 devices per user. The network can be a single building, several floors in a larger building, or a group of small buildings located near one another.

The illustration below depicts a small campus consisting of three IDFs in a single location connected to a VSX collapsed core.

Example Design

The example small campus design includes one combined server room/MDF, and three intermediate IDFs that connect to the MDF using multimode fiber. This small campus reference design supports 750 employees and requires 75 APs to provide 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz coverage.

Building characteristics:

• 3 floors, 75,000 square feet total size
• 10 wiring closets (IDFs)
• 750 employees with up to 2500 concurrent IPv4 clients
• 75 APs
• 1 combined server room/MDF

Example Bill-of-Materials

The example small campus bill-of-materials includes redundancy and bandwidth suitable for a highly reliable LAN and WLAN for a US based, small campus.

Medium Campus

The medium campus architecture is targeted for organizations supporting 5,000–15,000 users with multiple devices per user. The network can be a group of buildings located near one another, one large building, or several large or high-density floors in a building. This architecture uses access aggregation switches to consolidate traffic onto higher bandwidth uplinks toward the core and to provide layer 3 services to the access layer.

The illustration below depicts a medium campus consisting of six IDFs connecting to two, VSX access aggregation points that are further connected to a VSX core with directly connected gateways.

Example Design

The example medium campus design includes a VSX redundant core with directly connected gateway cluster and WAN services. Each floor includes two IDFs that connect to the MDF. This medium campus reference design supports 5,000 employees and requires 500 APs to provide full 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz coverage.

Campus characteristics:

• 3 buildings of 5 floors each and 500,000 square feet total size
• 2 IDFs per floor
• 1 aggregation point per building
• 5,000 employees with up to 18,000 concurrent IPv4 clients
• 500 APs
• 2 gateways
• 1 MDF/computer room

Example Bill-of-Materials

The example medium campus bill-of-materials includes redundancy and bandwidth suitable for a highly reliable LAN and WLAN for a US-based, medium campus.

Large Campus

The large campus architecture is targeted for organizations supporting more than 15,000 users with multiple devices per user. The network would typically be a group of large buildings located near one another. This architecture uses a standalone, layer 3 core and services aggregation points connecting to gateways and WAN services.

The illustration below depicts a large campus comprising six IDFs connecting to two access aggregation points that are further connected to a standalone, layer 3-only core with gateways connected to a services aggregation VSX pair.

Example Design

The example large campus design includes a standalone, layer 3 redundant core and services aggregation points for WLAN and WAN. Each floor includes two IDFs that connect to the MDF. This large campus reference design supports 15,000 employees and requires 1500 APs to provide full 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz coverage.

Building characteristics:

• 10 buildings of 3 floors each and 1.8 million square feet total size
• 2 IDFs per floor
• 1 aggregation point per building
• 15,000 employees with up to 50,000 concurrent IPv4 clients
• 1,500 APs
• 6 gateways (2 for optional MultiZone cluster)
• 1 MDF/on-prem data center

Optional

• 2 gateways in DMZ

Example Bill-of-Materials

The example large campus bill-of-materials includes redundancy and bandwidth suitable for a highly reliable LAN and WLAN for a US based, large campus.

*Optional for MultiZone support

MultiZone

If an organization’s security policy mandates wireless guest traffic to be tunneled to the DMZ, ArubaOS 10’s MultiZone feature can be configured to send Wi-Fi client traffic from a campus AP or switch to other gateway clusters through IPsec and GRE tunnels. It is supported by the following:

• Campus APs using profiles configured for mixed or tunnel forwarding
• Microbranch APs with profiles configured for Centralized Layer 2 (CL2) forwarding
• CX switches configured for User-Based Tunneling (UBT).

For more information, visit the MultiZone section on the WLAN Features page.

NetConductor

The NetConductor section provides guidance on selecting the correct topology and platforms in a campus network when deploying a NetConductor overlay network.

Platform Support

The table below lists the switch models appropriate for each persona required in a NetConductor overlay design. Bold model numbers are the preferred options for each persona.

Platform Collocation

For small and medium campuses, it is more cost effective to collocate multiple fabric personas on the same switch. The following options are supported in NetConductor. Bold model numbers are the preferred options for each persona collocation.

Routed Access Validated Scale

The below scale validation was conducted on a large campus topology with each persona located on dedicated devices. More scaling information can be found in the NetConductor Architecture Guide. To achieve the scale below all switches must be running AOS-CX 10.14 or higher.

Licensing

All switches, gateways, and APs that participate in the NetConductor fabric require Central Advanced subscriptions. Advanced licenses are sold for CX switches but are not required when a Central Advanced subscription is assigned to the switch. Unique switch and gateway subscriptions are available to cover models with different capabilities and capacities. For example, a subscription for a CX6200 switch is not interchangeable with one for a CX8360, and, likewise, 9004 and 9240 gateways use different subscriptions. Subscriptions can be purchased in 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10 year increments.

SKUs and pricing for these subscriptions can be found in this ordering guide. SKUs with a suffix of “AAS” are flexible and allow delayed activation (up to 90 days), license co-termination, mid-cycle tier upgrade, and seamless license renewals. “AAE” suffix subscriptions are activated immediately.

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Table of contents

• Capacity Planning

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