Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Aruba Networks has unveiled a series of significant enhancements to its cloud-based management platform, Networking Central. These upgrades are designed to streamline enterprise network management and optimization, particularly in environments featuring devices from multiple vendors. Reflecting HPE Aruba’s commitment to providing comprehensive visibility, simplified network configuration, and AI-driven optimization, these improvements mark a significant evolution in how enterprises can manage their extensive and diverse network resources.
Simplified Network Configuration
One of the standout enhancements to Networking Central is the revamping of the network device configuration engine. The new common configuration model allows enterprises to manage Aruba’s wired, wireless, and gateway devices more efficiently, reducing the complexity traditionally associated with these tasks. This model accommodates various tools like Python, Ansible, and Terraform, thereby enabling network administrators to streamline their workflows. As a result, customers experience a significantly simplified setup process, reducing the time and effort required for initial configuration and ongoing updates.
This unified approach to device configuration also helps to minimize the risk of errors, improving overall network reliability and performance. Incorporating a single consolidated API push for updates and provisioning further enhances this streamlined process. Alan Ni, HPE Aruba’s Senior Director of Edge Marketing, emphasizes that these upgrades will empower users to handle their diverse network infrastructures more effectively. This promotes easier management and reduced operational overhead while allowing administrators to focus on more strategic tasks.
Expanded API Availability and Integration
HPE Aruba has significantly expanded the range of APIs available within Networking Central, introducing over 90 new APIs that customers can manage through a single console. This extensive API suite provides users with robust tools to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of their network management activities. By consolidating these APIs into a single interface, HPE Aruba simplifies the often complex processes of configuring and updating different types of network devices, making network management more cohesive and less error-prone.
This integration allows for a more cohesive management experience, reducing the workload for network administrators, and helping to prevent configuration errors. This enhancement aligns with a broader industry trend towards integrating and simplifying network management solutions. Enterprises can now more easily manage diverse device families such as switches, routers, and gateways, leveraging the consolidated API management to streamline operations across their network infrastructure.
Enhanced Observability Across Multi-Vendor Environments
A key highlight of the Networking Central upgrades is the extension of network observability to include third-party devices from vendors such as Cisco, Juniper, and Palo Alto. This expanded capability is primarily powered by technology from OpsRamp, a company acquired by HPE in 2023. OpsRamp specializes in monitoring, automating, and managing IT infrastructure across hybrid and multicloud environments, making it an ideal addition to HPE Aruba’s toolkit.
By integrating OpsRamp’s capabilities into Networking Central, HPE Aruba can now provide customers with comprehensive visibility into heterogeneous network environments. This broader observability eliminates blind spots, enabling more effective monitoring, troubleshooting, and management of mixed-vendor networks. The inclusion of OpsRamp’s technology also enhances the platform’s ability to support digital experience monitoring (DEM) capabilities. This ensures continuous oversight of service level agreement (SLA) adherence, delivering a unified interface for monitoring network performance and reliability, ultimately improving the quality of service provided to end-users.
AI-Driven Optimization and Support
In the realm of Artificial Intelligence, HPE Aruba has tripled the number of AI models integrated into Networking Central over the past six months. This substantial increase is bolstered by an extensive data lake comprising telemetry from over 4.6 million managed network devices and more than 1.6 billion unique customer endpoints. These advancements in AI-driven support enable more sophisticated and finely tuned optimization models that network administrators can leverage to reduce the time and effort involved in planning, deploying, managing, troubleshooting, and optimizing their networks.
The AI enhancements aim to improve overall network performance, predictive maintenance, and proactive issue resolution, reflecting an industry-wide shift towards utilizing machine learning and AI technologies for network management. The increased reliance on these technologies underscores their value in driving operational efficiency and proactive network optimization, making it easier for administrators to maintain high performance and reliability even in complex network environments.
Public Preview and Accessibility
Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Aruba Networks has announced a range of substantial improvements to its cloud-based management platform, Networking Central. These upgrades aim to make managing and optimizing enterprise networks more efficient, particularly in settings that utilize devices from multiple vendors. The enhancements demonstrate HPE Aruba’s dedication to delivering comprehensive visibility, simplified network settings, and AI-driven optimization. With these upgrades, enterprises can better manage their extensive and varied network resources.
Networking Central’s new features offer IT teams better tools for monitoring, diagnosing, and configuring their network environments. The platform now includes more robust analytics, which leverages AI to predict potential issues and suggest proactive solutions. This evolution underscores HPE Aruba’s focus on making network management more intuitive and less cumbersome.
Moreover, the platform supports a more streamlined integration process for third-party devices, easing the complexity of multi-vendor environments. These improvements signify a milestone in enterprise network management, aimed at delivering higher performance, better security, and enhanced user experiences across diverse network settings.
