CREATING CONNECTIONS

And that’s why together with our partners, Aruba as a company is really betting hard on NaaS. And we have some very interesting capabilities to offer to the market.

What is so unique about Aruba’s NaaS offering?

What do you see as the most important digital transformation trends today?

Morten: We have witnessed a lot of transformational topics over the last couple of years. Cloud computing has been a big trend which gathered momentum during the pandemic and is a cornerstone of a digital transformation strategy today. Security has become a top priority for CIOs today with the advent of the borderless enterprise. There is also a shift towards automation around processes, a big focus on AI and ML driven outcomes and the emergence of Software-as-a-Service IT consumption model.

But the most significant in my opinion is that of convergence – not just convergence of the network, but in general, the convergence of the whole IT estate –the operational environment, the sprawl, the reduction of administration tasks. All the things that are impacting companies as IT complexities increase. In this context, the network has started to become a transformational centre point.

Within HPE, we have multiple business units covering the IT estate - a server business, storage business, networking business, software business and financial services business. The vision we have as a company is the Edge-to-Cloud Platform as a Service. We are trying to help our customers on that convergence and transformation that they need to do on the digital side to create a new environment that serves as a platform for innovation. We see an increasing number of customers working with us to transform their networks from manually operated infrastructure to one that’s fully automated.

Can you explain the concept of Network as a Service (NaaS) and why is becoming increasingly popular in today’s context?

Morten: The simple answer is because our customers want to spend less time on operation and more time on innovation. As device counts grow, endpoints diversify, and connectivity demands increase, planning the network and keeping up with change can be overwhelming. What is needed is the flexibility of cloud agility, security, scale, compliance, automation and AI to help the business perform better. Network as-a-Service Brings Flexibility to the Edge. It includes data analytics, expanded telemetry, artificial intelligence, and automation – which combine to deliver critical efficiency gains in network operations. With network management increasingly complex in the new age of remote working, replacing manual interventions with advanced automation and analytics also provides increased visibility from a security perspective. Ultimately enterprises are increasingly favouring NaaS offerings as it allows them to outsource the hardware and software components of their networks to a partner to take on the more mundane tasks, enabling their employees to focus on mission-critical, business-enabling work. Overall, NaaS increases operational efficiencies which reducing costs.

Morten: We believe that the true value is the partner value chain that we have today. We don’t have an ‘Aruba only’ model. We deliver the framework as a foundation, and then depending on the customer’s unique requirements, our partners add bespoke services to our framework in order to deliver the required capabilities, working in close conjunction with Aruba and the customer. So, our NaaS solution is really about foundational NaaS capabilities. It is a framework coupled with the financial model and basic support and AI capabilities that we offer our partners who in turn deliver customised solutions to their end customers so that enterprises can consume the network as they consume the cloud - which is really what NaaS is.

HPE Aruba is positioned as a Leader in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure. What are the various factors that have contributed to Aruba’s leadership position?

Jacob: It’s a matter of pride that for 17 consecutive years, we have been recognised as a Leader by Gartner for Wired and Wireless LAN infrastructure. I believe the driver behind this is our world class end to end Edge-to-Cloud solution portfolio. Our WiFi technology is one of the best in the industry. There are certain unique capabilities in our WiFi solutions like inbuilt GPS for example that other vendors in the market do not provide. Our CX switching platforms provide a very strong campus network solution. Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform) is a nextgeneration, cloud-native architecture that enables you to accelerate digital business transformation through automated network management, Edge-to-Cloud security, and predictive AI-powered insights. All these market leading technologies, together with the right go-to-market strategy and a strong partner ecosystem across the globe have contributed to cementing our position as a Leader in the Magic Quadrant. And as Morten mentioned, we have yet another model to take to our customers – NaaS, where they can step away from the arduous operational tasks and focus on innovation.

The WAN Edge is the focal point for architecting a Secure Services Access Edge (SASE). Can you discuss Aruba’s strategy in this area?

Jacob: It all started with the acquisition of Silver Peak, the global SD-WAN leader, way back in September 2020. That today is the Aruba EdgeConnect solution which complements our Edge-to-Cloud portfolio. Our solution provides a secure network foundation for Zero Trust and SASE. It includes a best-of-breed SD-WAN solution paired with a next-generation firewall delivering unmatched quality of experience and advanced security. We have seen customers, including some of the MEA region’s top companies in transportation, education and public sector, react extremely positively to the technology. By empowering customers to use broadband connections to augment or replace their current MPLS networks, Aruba improves customer responsiveness, increases application performance, and significantly reduces capital and operational expenses by up to 90 percent. This value proposition resonates very strongly in the market.

One of our unique value propositions lies in our integration capabilities. Customers might already be on the cloud journey, working with cloud security vendors like Zscaler, Check Point, Palo Alto and others. Traditional SD-WAN vendors would suggest that they could do the security piece as well and advise the customer to rip and replace existing technologies. Aruba on the other hand integrates very strongly with other vendor’s technologies, so customers get the best of both worlds.

Morten: I think the SD-WAN market at the moment is hot. We acquired Silver Peak, because we thought it would complement our overall strategy. The fact that with the solution you are able to operate your connection to the cloud, to the user, at the edge, in a seamless way, with AI capabilities for a quicker and more efficient operational environment, is really a key differentiator.

In the Middle East and Africa there is a huge push towards digital transformation. And part of the digital transformation puzzle is the ‘security’ pillar, in which SDWAN plays a key role. So that’s a part of the whole SASE storm that is coming to us, where customers are really interested in understanding how we can help them do more with less, but in a secure way.

How is Aruba leveraging the power of AI in its solutions?

Jacob: If you look at the top digital transformation trends, besides the cloud journey and NaaS which we discussed earlier, another very important aspect is how do you get outcomes out of AI and ML? Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform) is layered around 3 building blocksConnect, Protect, and Act. The ‘Connect’ piece is the WiFi and the switching. ‘Protect’ is how you build security around it. In this age of IoT, you’re talking about thousands of sensors that get latched onto the network. On an average, they say it takes not more than five minutes for a hacker to crack into an IoT network because of the number of endpoints. There is the need to have a good security framework to onboard these sensors into your network and ensure that policies are aligned to those sensors. This is what is being done on Aruba ESP. Now we come to the final piece ‘Act’. Within the networking industry, managing operational aspects has always been very reactive in nature. With AI and ML, there is a distinct shift now towards being proactive. To give you an example, every mall has a WiFi infrastructure that shoppers and staff connect to. With the WiFi network responding to connection requests, there is less network capacity to support the store’s employees and guests, resulting in a poor user experience. Aruba AIOps has the ability to detect this anomaly and determines the difference between someone passing by and a legitimate user, offering prescriptive recommendations that prevent this from happening again. After incorporating the recommendations, retailers can get insights that eliminate 98% of the network traffic caused by people walking by the store. That’s the beauty of AI. And that’s what has been built into the Aruba ESP solution.