Two of the hottest terms in enterprise networking today are SD-WAN, or software-defined wide-area network, and SASE, or secure access service edge. Because enterprises want to connect users to applications securely, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. has made strategic moves last year to strengthen its hand in both realms.

In September, HPE completed its $925 million acquisition of Silver Peak Inc., considered a highflier in the SD-WAN world. At the time of the acquisition, HPE announced that Silver Peak would become part of its Aruba networking-as-a-service platform, strengthening that product’s edge services capabilities in an edge to cloud model.

“The strategy to integrate the Silver Peak SD-WAN assets will play well for SASE and building the secure, digital edge,” Scott Raynovich, founder and principal analyst at Futuriom, said in an interview with theCUBE. “Its Intelligent Edge division is well-positioned to take part in growing enterprise networking and security needs.”

HPE executives, customers, technology partners and industry analysts will discuss news and announcements surrounding the next wave of digital transformation during theCUBE’s coverage of “HPE Discover 2021: The Future Is Edge To Cloud,” June 22-24. TheCUBE is SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio.

TheCUBE’s coverage will include interviews with Antonio Neri, chief executive officer of HPE; Rashmi Kumar, chief information officer at HPE; Arwa Kaddoura, vice president of worldwide sales and GTM Lead, HPE GreenLake Cloud Services; David Logan, VP, CTO Office Aruba; David Harvey, VP of strategic alliances at Veeam; Scott Buchanan, VP of marketing at VMware; and Umashankar Lakshmipathy, senior VP and regional head, EMEA, for Infosys Inc. (* Disclosure below.)

Competitive networking climate

The SD-WAN/SASE market has skyrocketed during the pandemic. Results from a recent survey of more than 500 information technology decision makers by Versa Networks and Sapio Research found that 64% of businesses are adopting or plan to adopt SASE in the next year. The research also showed that 90% conducted a review of their remote connectivity strategy during the previous year.

HPE’s moves in the SD-WAN/SASE space underscore the expanding competitive climate around networking. Offering a complete edge solution will require network, storage and high-performance computing, in addition to edge capabilities, delivered as-as-service in a cloudlike experience.

Dell Technologies Inc. released its APEX as-a-service IT infrastructure solution across private, public and edge cloud operating models approximately one month after HPE closed its acquisition of Silver Peak. Cisco Systems Inc. has been expanding its own capabilities in SD-WAN over the last several months with its converged networking, security and IoT services on the Meraki platform as a unified SASE offering.

Analysts have noted that HPE’s strategic approach with its offerings for the SaaS world have placed it squarely in the competitive picture.

“The company has been a leader, with Dell a fast follower with its recent APEX announcement,” Will Townsend, senior analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, said in an interview with theCUBE. “Cisco has been transitioning much of its business to subscription over the last few years. It is the right strategy to offer SaaS as it provides customers flexibility in treating infrastructure as either a capital or operational expense.”

Edge AI modeling

As data and compute move en masse to the edge, there is the potential for a digital traffic jam leading to poor results. IDC has predicted that global data collection will reach 175 zettabytes by 2025 and much of that will be at the edge.

To address this issue, the research team at HPE has developed a technique called swarm learning to facilitate AI modeling completely by edge devices. The concept behind swarm is to create a network of AI equipped edge devices and reduce the need to send collected data back to a central server for computing.

Much in the way that a flock of birds can move intelligently in response to happenings around them, so too can smart devices react in a similar way.

“Swarm learning is one of the most powerful concepts to share insights from data without having to share the data itself,” said Johannes Koch, managing director, Germany and senior vice president, DACH at HPE, in a recent Twitter post. “Cars, robots or diagnostic models learn from each other – without middlemen and without compromising sovereignty and privacy.”

Improving healthcare

One of the most promising areas for the application of swarm learning is in healthcare. This may be a surprise to some given the highly regulated nature of the patient care industry, but that is precisely why the technology has appeal.

Many hospitals today perform machine learning on outpatient data that could be biased by demographics or the prevalence of a certain type of case. Privacy restrictions limit the sharing of patient data across healthcare organizations which might fix this problem.

However, swarm learning allows healthcare providers to learn locally and then share those results across the broader organizational network. Patient data can’t be shared, but the insights from that information can.

“After a few cycles of doing this, all the hospitals would have learned from each other, removing biases without having to share any private patient data,” said Eng Lim Goh, senior vice president and chief technology officer for AI at HPE, in a CUBE interview with SiliconANGLE. “That’s the key. So, the ability to allow you to learn from everybody without having to share your private patients, that’s swarm learning.”

Livestream of HPE Discover

HPE Discover is a livestream event, with additional interviews to be broadcasted on theCUBE. You can register for free here to access the live event. Plus, you can watch theCUBE interviews here live and on demand after the live event.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch theCUBE’s live coverage of HPE Discover, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube channel. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, which you can enjoy while on the go.

Guests

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE during HPE Discover include Guido Appenzeller, chief technology officer of Data Platforms Group at Intel; Jason Abrahamson, director of infrastructure engineering at The Walt Disney Co.; Terry Richardson, North American channel chief for AMD; and David Harvey, vice president of strategic alliances at Veeam.

TheCUBE will also speak with HPE’s Antonio Neri, CEO; Rashmi Kumar, senior VP and chief information officer; Omer Asad, VP and general manager of primary storage and data management services; Sandeep Singh, VP of storage marketing; Dr. Eng Lim Goh, VP and CTO of high-performance computing and AI; and Kirk Bresniker, chief architect, fellow and VP.

Stay tuned for a complete list of speakers.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for HPE Discover. Neither HPE, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Image: SiliconANGLE