Aruba CX Next-Generation Switching Platform Launches to Provide New Network Experience from Edge to Cloud

On December 18, 2019, Aruba, a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE), announced in China that the company is changing the rules of the network by introducing a new generation of switching products and software innovations to meet the unique needs of today's modern enterprise campuses, branches and data centers. The Aruba CX next-generation switching platform adds the Aruba CX 6300 series fixed configuration and CX 6400 series modular access, aggregation and core switches, while providing new improvements to the AOS-CX operating system. This provides network operations and management personnel with a simple, end-to-end switching platform that can significantly improve current and future business results.

Chris Kozup, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Aruba

From edge to the core of cloud architecture, new trends in enterprise networks

“AI-powered automation must be at the core of modern edge-to-cloud architectures. To be truly effective, it requires an intelligent infrastructure as its foundation,” said Keerti Melkote, founder and president of Aruba. “We believe AI is the key to analyzing data, providing actionable insights, and automating at scale. It can help network operators quickly troubleshoot, remediate defects, and proactively address the most pressing issues facing IT departments. Our vision for the future is to deliver a true cloud-native architecture with business agility and new digital experiences, and today’s announcement is an important step in that direction.”

From edge to cloud, networks are becoming more flexible and resilient. Mobile, cloud and IoT are converging. On the other hand, enterprises cannot rely solely on improving network performance and increasing bandwidth to remain competitive, but need advanced networks that can self-verify and self-adjust by building closed-loop automation to intelligently support mission-critical applications, avoid emerging security attack vectors, and have the necessary agility. Aruba believes that to date, network operations and management personnel still have to face inflexible and fragmented architectures, especially when managing branch offices, enterprise campuses and data centers. These architectures require manual processing across multiple operating systems, resulting in fragmented operating models, the inability of the network to implement modern functions, and the inability to process large amounts of unstructured data.

Aruba is rated as a leader by multiple authoritative organizations for promoting wired and wireless integration

In addition to winning numerous awards in the wireless field, Aruba's achievements in the wired network field and the field of wired and wireless convergence have also been widely recognized. In 2019, Aruba was placed in the Leaders Quadrant by Gartner Magic Quadrant for the 14th consecutive year, and occupied 5 of the 6 leading cases in Critical Capabilities. Forrester New Wave ranked Aruba as the only supplier placed in the Leaders Quadrant, and IDC MarketScape also ranked Aruba as a "Leader" in the global enterprise-class wireless LAN supplier evaluation. Aruba replicates its successful experience in wireless to the wired field, providing effective and intelligent solutions to the challenges faced by traditional IT of enterprises and the difficulties faced by IT operations and maintenance personnel in the era of intelligent edge.

Modern enterprises need networks from edge to cloud that run on a common platform, benefiting from automation and improved operational efficiency, allowing network operators to focus on critical business activities. Aruba's forward-looking solution came into being - the Aruba CX next-generation switching platform.

Chris Kozup, Aruba's global chief marketing officer, said that switches are still the foundation of modern networks, but their role is no longer just to provide high-performance wired connections. Now, switches must provide high-performance Wi-Fi aggregation and act as a guarantee for all IoT devices from surveillance cameras to medical equipment, providing uninterrupted all-weather network availability. Therefore, Aruba has launched a powerful antidote to the pain points of traditional IT in today's enterprises - the Aruba CX switching platform. The Aruba CX switching platform helps enterprises achieve higher operational efficiency and elasticity, provides the foundation for high-performance networks, and supports today's growing IoT, mobile and cloud needs.

Unified operating system, unified ASIC architecture, unified operation model

Aruba CX next-generation switching platform is cloud-native and has the characteristics of modularity (abstracting independent service packages such as containers or serverless functions), programmability (providing provisioning and management functions through declarative APIs and policies), flexibility (resources can be dynamically expanded and reduced in an automated and policy-driven manner through coordinators), and resilience (services are independent and fault-tolerant loosely coupled units). It can effectively help enterprises overcome the obstacles brought by manual processes and limitations on innovation capabilities faced by current and future networks, and achieve a higher degree of automation and intelligence.

The Aruba CX next-generation switching platform portfolio released this time includes: Aruba CX 6300 and CX 6400 series switches using Aruba's 7th-generation ASIC architecture and Aruba AOS-CX10.4 latest switch operating system, one-click deployment Aruba CX automated installation and configuration mobile APP and Aruba NetEdit 2.0 automated network operation and maintenance platform.

Aruba CX 6300 and CX 6400 Series switches feature Aruba's 7th Generation ASIC architecture: The Aruba CX 6300 Series is a stackable switch series that offers flexible capacity expansion through a 10-member Virtual Switching Framework (VSF) and built-in 10/25/50 GB uplinks to meet today's and tomorrow's bandwidth needs. The Aruba CX 6400 Series modular switches are available in 5-slot and 10-slot chassis and feature a non-blocking fabric that scales from Gigabit POE access to a 100G core, enabling customers to standardize on a single platform across the enterprise, including hybrid use cases.

Aruba CX 6300 and CX 6400 Series Switches

Aruba AOS-CX10.4 switch operating system: a single operating system for edge access to the data center, which simplifies and automates critical and complex network tasks without the need for software licenses or subscriptions. It can effectively solve the pain points of enterprise IT in the edge era and is a cost-effective one-stop solution for enterprise networks. Combined with NAE, Aruba dynamic isolation can identify the identity category of traffic and assign different security policies to it. AOS-CX10.4 ensures that the switch or wireless network traffic of any user or device is independent and secure regardless of the application or service used, reducing the risks posed by known and unknown IoT devices and their traffic. In addition, AOS-CX10.4 also includes real-time upgrades of Virtual Switching Extensions (VSX), ensuring that system updates and upgrades can be achieved without downtime during the maintenance cycle.

Aruba NetEdit 2.0 with Aruba Network Analysis Engine (NAE): Tight integration with NAE means that NetEdit can leverage the distributed analysis capabilities of the network analysis engine of each switch in the network to achieve centralized visualization of network health. By quickly visualizing, analyzing, and operating monitoring and troubleshooting data from the entire network, operations can be greatly simplified and accelerated. At the same time, Aruba NetEdit introduces automation capabilities to simplify common tasks and easily coordinate the launch of end-to-end services. It can safely and quickly automate and quickly change problems across the entire network, as well as verify consistency after updates to eliminate errors.

Aruba CX automated installation and configuration mobile app: Users can connect Aruba CX switches to the network and create virtual stacks with a tap of the screen, making it easy for operators to configure, view and manage configurations from mobile devices. The use of built-in templates can greatly help operators save time and reduce errors.