Aruba unveils new solutions to streamline IT deployment

IT organisations are not prepared to meet the rapidly changing demands of network connectivity in handling data, according to Aruba.
 
"The distributed workforce of today generates data closer to the edge - anywhere people, devices, and things connect to the digital world," it says.

"In the next few years, most enterprises will integrate data delivery options not only from the edge, but across on-premises, co-location, and cloud platforms.

"Workloads will increasingly be processed across many interconnected centres of data to enable the agility and speed that organisations need in the cloud era.

"However, most enterprise IT organisations are not prepared to meet the rapidly changing demands of network connectivity in handling data.

"Today, edges of siloed compute and storage are connected via disjointed network architectures, with operating models that hinder centralised management, orchestration, security, and visibility across the extended enterprise."

Aruba says that while interconnection across edges is increasingly solved with technologies like SD-WAN and SASE, data maintenance at the edge remains a challenge, especially now that any single employee may need to manage workloads across multiple locations and devices.

Pat Devlin, director, Aruba South-Pacific (ANZ), says the traditional data center network is reimagined every time an employee checks emails on their smartphone, smartwatch, or smart TV.

"Networks will only become more distributed with the proliferation of IoT, especially as businesses continue to examine and improve on hybrid workplace arrangements in adapting to the pandemic," he says.

"The ability for unlocking business value from data increasingly depends on the capacity to collect, process, store and analyse it at the edge," Devlin says.

"This will not be possible without the necessary infrastructure to support it and we are seeing a better connection between networking and storage than ever before."

Devlin says a new architectural approach is needed, one that is edge-centric, cloud-enabled, and data-driven.

"Ultimately, IT operators require a new cloud experience - whether it be across traditional data centers, co-location sites, or the new digital edges with simplicity, speed, and security packaged into flexible consumption models."

New networking solutions to power edge-to-cloud centres of data

Aruba is announcing new solutions that help simplify IT operations, accelerate service delivery, and streamline IT deployment with three components:

• New orchestration software for Aruba CX switches that bring a cloud-like-operational experience to the data center edge, simplifying and speeding service delivery.
• New Aruba CX switch models designed for flexible, right-sized, cloud-managed switch options from edge to traditional data centers.
• New pre-engineered HPE and partner solutions that integrate compute, storage, and networking infrastructure that in turn will reduce the time, risk, and cost of standing up IT elements across emerging centres of data.

Software-defined automation and orchestration
 
The new Aruba Fabric Composer software orchestrates a discrete set of switches as a single entity in a fabric topology which simplifies day-to-day operations and troubleshooting. It is designed to seamlessly work with Aruba CX switches, optimising fabric provisioning and application performance, across a wide variety of virtualised, hyper-converged, HPE compute and storage environments.

This is ideal for IT administrators who often struggle with manual and siloed IT service provisioning across compute, virtualisation, storage, and networking. IT generalists who may not have deep network expertise (e.g., server or VM admins) can now provision and manage fabric operations all from a single console providing a very powerful and simplified operating model that has not been available until today.

Unified, flexible connectivity across emerging edge use cases

The Aruba CX 8360 switch series helps organisations extend a unified, cloud-managed infrastructure and operating model across campuses, branches, as well as traditional and emerging centres of data. Built on Arubas powerful cloud-native AOS-CX network operating system, it includes advanced data center features, along with an embedded Network Analytics Engine (NAE), at no additional licensing cost.

Offered in five different flexible switch models, the CX 8360 Series delivers high-performance 1/10/25/40/100 GbE switching, designed both for data centers requiring high-performance spine-and-leaf architectures, or lower port density/cost switching for edge centres of data.

Aruba CX 8360 Switch Series configurations:

               12P 40/100G

               32P 10/25G w/ 4P 40/100G (w/MACsec)

               16P 10/25G w/ 2P 40/100G

               48P 1G/10G Base-T w/ 4P 40/100G

               24P 1G/10G w/ 2P 40/100G

 
Complete integration stacks

Finally, Aruba offers a highly differentiated advantage over traditional network-only vendors by offering HPE GreenLake hybrid cloud services and infrastructure-as-a-service to support customer workloads on-premises, fully managed in a pay-per-use model at the edge, in co-locations, and in the data center.

Aruba networking technology underpins an increasing array of these new service offerings including: VM-as-a-Service, Container-as-a-Service, and SAP HANA-as-a-Service. Customers who have deployed HPE GreenLake have reported up to 75 per cent faster time to market while deploying complicated global IT projects.

In addition to these cloud and as-a-service options, customers also have the option to leverage a host of pre-engineered and tested HPE and Aruba integrations for more traditional on-premises, customer-managed options.  These ready-to-deploy, custom IT data center solutions help simplify and speed IT service delivery while, reducing the time, risk, and expertise needed to deploy complex solutions.

These new integrations span a wide range of compute, storage, HCI, HPC, virtualisation, and cloud offerings, including HPE ProLiant DL/DX servers, HPE Apollo servers, HPE SimpliVity, HPE Nimble Storage dHCI, HPE Synergy, HPE Flex Superdome, HPE Cray EX supercomputers, Cray ClusterStor storage systems, as well as partner solutions with SAP HANA, VMware, and Nutanix.

Accelerating your Digital Transformation

Innovation, progress, and out-of-the-box thinking will continue as enterprises make the shift from how it used to be to an edge-to-cloud world where interconnected centres of data will power emerging applications and solutions that contribute to better business outcomes.