LAS VEGAS, June 05, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company (NYSE:HPE), today announced a new enterprise core and aggregation switch and the industry’s most advanced operating system, ArubaOS-CX, designed for modern mobility, cloud, and IoT requirements. Taking a leap beyond today’s antiquated switching platforms, the Aruba 8400 Core Switch Series and ArubaOS-CX are purpose-built for emerging mobile-cloud business applications and changing traffic patterns that are being driven by the massive flood of data sources and growth in IoT.
Gartner estimates that by 2020, there will be 20.4 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices connected to enterprise networks1. Despite this rapidly changing technology and business landscape, network core switches have seen very little design and software innovation over the past few decades. Organizations are rapidly moving to mobile and cloud-based networks to accommodate these new applications and “things.” However, incumbent core switch technology has not kept up with the resulting surge in network traffic, the added complexity of the environment, and the increasing need for visibility, insights, and quick remediation.
The Aruba 8400 Switch Series delivers a breakthrough in campus core and aggregation, extending intelligence from the edge to the core and allowing CIOs to derive better business outcomes from their networks. While the Aruba 8400 provides the carrier-class availability and performance that organizations need in a core switch, the innovation goes beyond table stakes to address the need for immediate visibility, greater security, better insights into troubleshooting, and easier automation, giving enterprises true business agility as they move to mobile-first, cloud, and IoT-enabled businesses.
Bringing Intelligence to the Network Core: ArubaOS-CX
Setting it apart from other core aggregation switches on the market, the Aruba 8400’s most unique innovation is the new ArubaOS-CX, a modern software foundation that is a departure from today’s static, inflexible operating system design. ArubaOS-CX acts as the brains of the switch to automate and simplify many critical and complex network tasks. Key benefits of the new operating system for IT include:
- Automated Visibility for Early Detection: The innovative Aruba Network Analytics Engine allows IT professionals to easily monitor network, system, application, and security-related activities with simple rules-based monitoring and automatic correlation of network activities. This engine comes with a native time-series database combined with event correlation to enable operators to instantly detect problems, analyze trends to quickly gain insight, and predict or avoid issues that often lead to scale, security, and performance bottlenecks.
- Faster Resolution with Network Insights: With legacy switches, IT must not only troubleshoot problems after the fact, but also remediate problems using traditional tools such as CLI and SNMP, which can be time-consuming and expensive to the business. The Aruba 8400 can provide immediate resolution via its programmability and its intelligent policy-based integration with network monitoring, performance, and security management tools.
- Programmability Simplified to Help IT Scale: The Aruba 8400 is fully programmable with a built-in Python interpreter and REST-based APIs for every function. This allows for easy integration and ongoing flexibility with infrastructure and applications, including the Aruba Mobile First Platform, for end-to-end network monitoring, detection, troubleshooting, and closed-loop remediation of network performance or security-related issues.
Built for Scalability and High Availability from the Ground up
Although the Aruba 8400’s intelligence and programmable software make the solution unique, the switch is also designed from the ground up with the performance, reliability, and scalability of today’s modern networks in mind. The Aruba 8400’s fully extensible fabric design enables seamless upgrades so enterprises can scale as their bandwidth needs increase. The Virtual Switching Framework (VSF) with two chassis scales up to 512 10GbE, 128 40Gbe or 96 100 Gigabit Ethernet ports.
Improved Visibility, Insights, and Remediation Deliver Agility for Better Business Outcomes
With the Aruba 8400’s unique ArubaOS-CX software, IT can finally derive better business insights and remediation, and therefore outcomes, from their network infrastructure, demonstrating increased value for the organization. By gaining early visibility and insights into network connectivity and traffic patterns, and using network analytics and policy to predict and resolve problems before they result in significant network downtime, organizations can save valuable time and resources while greatly reducing costs. These benefits can be extended further with Aruba AirWave Network Management and the ClearPass Policy Manager, both of which can be easily integrated with the Aruba 8400.
In addition to the Aruba 8400 Switch Series and ArubaOS-CX, Aruba continues to innovate on the campus edge with the Aruba 2930M Switch Series. The 2930M Switch Series is optimized for wireless LAN and IoT integration with unified security, PoE+ power, flexibility of on-premises Aruba AirWave or cloud-based Aruba Central management, and industry-leading performance for campus, branch, and SMB networks. New software innovations include policy-based dynamic micro segmentation for unified functionality and policy enforcement between wired and wireless, as well as support of the new IEEE 802.3bz standard for multi-gigabit Ethernet.
The new Aruba 8400 Core Switch Series is one of the intelligent edge innovations that Aruba unveiled this week at HPE Discover. Aruba also introduced its asset tracking solution, which expands upon the company’s location services and mobile engagement portfolio to allow organizations – particularly those in retail and healthcare – to track critical assets, saving time and resources, as well as cutting costs. Both the Aruba 8400 Core Switch Series and the Aruba asset tracking solution are part of a broader set of HPE solutions announced at Discover.
Availability
The Aruba 8400 Core Switch Series and the Aruba 2930M Switch Series are available now.
Customer Quote
“In K-12 districts like ours, greater network automation and programmability means less need for us to devote time and valuable resources to maintenance and management,” said Thomas Brawley, Director of Technology Services for Tomball Independent School District in Texas, which operates 20 K-12 schools in the area. “With the new Aruba 8400 core switch’s monitoring and analytics capabilities, we can automate troubleshooting to resolve issues quickly and ensure a reliable, secure network experience for our users. The Aruba 8400 allows us to reduce manual ‘touches’, so our IT team can focus on other critical activities.”
Partner Quotes
“As a leading IT solutions provider, we are always looking for ways to expand our offerings to better architect and deliver solutions and services that best support our clients’ goals,” said Chris Saso, CTO, Dasher Technologies, Inc. “To address the demands put on the network by IoT and enterprise apps, the Aruba 8400 core switch will allow IT staff to better support its users by enabling automation of configuration while speeding up network troubleshooting with its Network Analytics Engine. IT will free up time for strategic tasks such as accelerating the digitization of their business.”
Serving more than 1,000 clients in a dozen different industries, Matrix Integration is focused on helping clients achieve their goals through the use of technology. “As we continue to respond to our clients’ evolving IoT, mobile and cloud requirements, the new Aruba 8400 core switch with ArubaOS-CX will provide enterprises a flexible and modern solution to secure expanding mobile, cloud and IoT requirements with programmability to automate manual tasks that currently drain valuable resources,” said James Aldridge, VP of Technology, Matrix Integration. “We see the Aruba switching and software advancements as a strategic continuation that will benefit our clients.”
Additional Resources
- Blog: Revolutionized Switching for Modern Mobility, Cloud and IoT https://news.hpe.com/revolutionized-switching-for-modern-mobility-cloud-and-iot/
- Aruba 8400 Core Switch Series Product Page: http://www.arubanetworks.com/8400/
- Aruba 8400 Core Switch Series Data Sheet: http://www.arubanetworks.com/assets/ds/DS_8400XSeries.pdf
About Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, is a leading provider of next-generation networking solutions for enterprises of all sizes worldwide. The company delivers IT solutions that empower organizations to serve the latest generation of mobile-savvy users who rely on cloud-based business apps for every aspect of their work and personal lives.
1 Gartner, Forecast Analysis: Internet of Things — Endpoints, Worldwide, 2016 Update, 10 February 2017