Aruba Addresses Digital Workplace Post-HPE Acquisition

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Networking solutions provider Aruba is updating its product line to address what it calls the “digital workplace.”

The new product line includes a predictive Wi-Fi monitoring tool, secure network access product and new multi-gigabit series ­­­– each intended to help business adapt to increased mobility in their workforces.

“There [are] certain challenges for networking around security, operations and just pure speed,” Ozer Dondurmacioglu, Aruba’s senior director of product and solutions marketing, told Channel Partners “So our new set of innovations are trying to address those three areas that IT networking teams need to pay attention to.”

The new suite of integrated software and hardware comes on the heels of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) acquisition of Aruba a year ago.

“Since the acquisition, we have been relatively busy,” Dondurmacioglu said.

Integration has been one of the names of the game for the newly acquired company. Aruba traditionally has focused on enterprise mobility and wireless LAN, while the “wired network and portfolio,” has been HPE’s bread and butter, Dondurmacioglu noted.

Aruba ultimately maintains its independence from “the mother ship,” but Dondurmacioglu said the company wants to take advantage of HPE’s global presence.

“Let’s unify the sales teams,” he said. “Let’s figure out the channel go-to-market. Let’s figure out product road map for the campus locations … integrate R&D, engineering, marketing teams, etc.”{ad}

One goal for Aruba was product rationalization — not being like other vendors that have overlapping product lines.

“We felt that it’s critical for us to provide a very clear, simple picture in front of our customers and channel partners and sales guys, so that they can go and use the technology to their benefit,” he said.

Aruba introduced its ClearPass Policy Manager 6.6 for IT teams dealing with BYOD growth. The company said the addition “enables custom device profiling for any uncategorized connected device, multi-factor authentication on mobile devices for network usage, and deeper forensics into security incidents.”

The company also added …

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… Aruba Clarity, a predictive Wi-Fi monitoring tool, to the Airwave network-management product.

Dondurmacioglu said the demand for Clarity came from the increased presence of the Internet of Things (IoT) causing IT departments to lose control over software updates. Airwave provides troubleshooting and monitoring.

“[What IT’s] saying is, since that stuff’s happening without my knowledge, I can never be up to speed about solving, troubleshooting issues if I only react after the fact,” he said. “I need you to give me forensics that tell me what happens in the future before things happen.”

Bill Carr of Aruba partner Comm Solutions called the update to Airwave a significant addition.

“That’s actually a feature that’s been asked for, for a while by some of our individual vertical markets,” he said.

Dondurmacioglu said the additions will help partners of both Aruba and HPE. Aruba partners no longer have to “piecemeal a solution,” and HPE partners have the opportunity to access a wireless network portfolio.

“We may not have the leading market share because we started a little bit late compared to our No. 1 competitor, but we certainly have the best technology in the market,” he said.

Carr praised the “cohesiveness” between Aruba and HPE since the acquisition, particularly between the wired and wireless elements of each company.

“I think when we see acquisitions in the marketplace, a lot of times we’re afraid that the actual exercise of acquisition will slow down progress. In this case, it actually seems to have accelerated,” he said.

Dondurmacioglu said Aruba’s customers and the industry are looking to his company to be a leader in its market. And one of the ways to lead is to deliver more than just “point products.”

“There needs to be a reason. There needs to be a value that we create for the network operations teams, security operations teams, and the networking engineers who actually deploy this stuff,” he said.