Hewlett Packard Enterprise today introduced a significant expansion of its AI-powered Networking Central network management solution. The upgrades address prevalent trends and challenges facing network administrators, allowing MSPs and advisors to provide a more consultative approach and bring simplicity to the ongoing sprawl of network management while addressing demands for observability and data sovereignty.
The first of the three legs to the announcement is two new deployment options, including a virtual private cloud (VPC) environment for customers that demand the agility of cloud with specific data security, data control or regulatory requirements, as well as an on-premises option that can operate while being disconnected from the cloud. According to HPE, this represents the widest set of advanced network management capabilities available in the industry, with the vendor offering its cloud-native AI operations via dedicated customer VPC, on-prem, public SaaS or network as a service (NaaS).
Specifically, the new HPE Aruba Networking Central On-Premises for Government includes FIPS 140-2 certified server hardware to meet related government security requirements. This comprehensive network management solution boosts enterprise efficiency for emerging use cases such as AI data capture, training and inferencing, which require greater control via air-gapped on-premises and cloud-based VPC options, said HPE. The public cloud and VPC deployment choices leverage the global presence of HPE GreenLake cloud, which offers local cloud presence in many geographies.
While HPE fully expects cloud-delivered SaaS option the remain the most popular and often the mos cost-effective option, the company is seeing more and more request for regional and local options driven by data sovereignty needs, said Alan Ni, Aruba senior director of edge marketing.
Next among the updates, AI-powered Automated Network Assistant expands HPE Aruba Networking Central’s AIOps capabilities by flagging optimization alerts to help boost productivity when performance issues are discovered. This always-on, automated network AIOps capability continuously monitors critical wired and wireless network operations to optimize network operations and detect performance issues and problems, including hard-to-detect wired looping conditions. A fabric of AI assistants acts as network architects, monitoring and gathering data, providing diagnostics and recommendations to extend existing capacity and performance, close security gaps, and identify configuration errors before they impact network operations, said the company.
HPE Aruba Networking Central has also expanded full-stack network observability and data lake telemetry for both heterogenous network environments and critical IT applications with enhanced IT monitoring solutions. With one of the industry’s largest data lakes, this expansion provides unique and anonymized telemetry data that powers HPE Aruba Networking Central’s advanced AI capabilities and models for predictive analytics and recommendations. This expansion includes the previously-announced AIOps capabilities that securely integrate multiple generative AI (GenAI) Large Language Models (LLMs).
New additions include a one-year subscription powered by OpsRamp, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, for monitoring capabilities of third-party devices, and deeper visibility into real time apps such as Microsoft Teams for significantly improved voice and video call support.
“Organizations are increasingly prioritizing data sovereignty, requiring regional and local presence for mission-critical IT solutions. With these innovations, HPE now uniquely addresses the most pressing enterprise challenges for corporate, nonprofit and government entities with unprecedented network management deployment flexibility,” said Phil Mottram, EVP and general manager, HPE Aruba Networking. “Combined with our continued innovation across AI, security and connectivity, HPE Aruba Networking Central continues to offer the most powerful and versatile network management application on the market, helping organizations meet their security, privacy and control requirements.”
