The Aruba networking unit of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. today is making what it calls its biggest switching announcement in two years, introducing new hardware, software and analytics that are designed for campus-wide deployment in far-flung networks.

The Aruba CX 6300 Series fixed-configuration and CX 6400 Series modular access, aggregation and core switches feature custom application-specific integrated circuit and an updated AOS-CX operating system. The updated OS is based on the cloud-native principles of high scalability and programmability via application program interfaces.

Also new is Network Analytics Engine, an embedded analytics and automated processor that’s intended to speed troubleshooting a performance issues and solve common network problems

“The idea that the branch is different from the campus is different from the data center is breaking down,” said Michael Dickman, vice president of product management. Aruba said its switching portfolio is now based on a single operating model from the enterprise campus and branch access layer to the data center.

“This is the most modular operating system you can have in a campus, with a full microservices architecture and programmable at every level,” Dickman said. “Network upgrades can be made without downtime or maintenance windows.”

Not all customers will see dramatic results out of the box, since the new features are available only to users of Aruba switches. The company is hoping to entice customers of competitive products to switch to Aruba as they upgrade their infrastructure.

Best-known as a wireless networking provider, HPE Aruba entered the switching market in 2017 and was named a “niche player” by Gartner Inc. in its 2018 Magic Quadrant for data center networking. The company differentiates itself by scalability, cross-product compatibility and simplified licensing.

“We literally don’t have licenses,” Dickman said. “You’ll never have to pay us in the future if you want to upgrade your network.”

The CX 6300 and CX 6400 Series stackable switches come with a 10-member virtual switching framework, which virtualizes two physical devices in the same layer into one virtual fabric for availability and scalability. The CX 6400 Series come in both five-slot and 10-slot configurations that scale from gigabit speeds with power over Ethernet to 100 gigabits. “Those are numbers you’d normally see in the core and we’re offering it at the access point,” Dickman said.

AOS-CX 10.4 offers dynamic segmentation supporting a unified security policy across wired and wireless infrastructure that can be specified down to the user and device level. The new Network Analytics Engine (pictured) is what the company called a significantly enhanced version of its NetEdit switch configuration software that enables automation and visibility into every switch with centralized control.

“Customers say 90% of the time they spend is in identifying problems,” Dickman said. With the built-in software, “you might run analytics that predicts a transceiver failure or identifies a negative network effect to understand the reason things went wrong.”

The API-enabled architecture supports easy data import and export to external applications like log analyzers, he added. “You can also program down into the switch so it’s part of your analytics footprint.”

The new products will begin shipping next month with list pricing for the CX 6300 and CX 6400 starting at $5,899 and $13,499, respectively.

Photo: HPE Aruba