Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is still working through the go-to-market plans for its Juniper Networks-boosted networking business, but that division’s leader touted clear delineation between how the various offerings now under his purview sit in the broader competitive environment.

Rami Rahim, who was Juniper CEO and is now president and GM of HPE’s Juniper-infused networking business, told analysts at HPE’s recent Securities Analyst Meeting that now that he has had a chance to look “under the covers” of HPE’s Aruba networking platform and his obvious extensive history with Juniper’s Mist offerings, “I’m, like, really impressed.”

“It’s a bit of an embarrassment of riches right now in terms of what we have under our portfolio,” Rahim added, before explaining how he sees the two seemingly similar platforms coexisting in the market.

“They both are AIOps platforms, but they both have unique strengths and capabilities,” Rahim said. “Mist is a public cloud-only AIOps platform, so as great as Mist was in AIOps capabilities, we were shut out of any opportunities that require different deployment models, like private cloud or virtual private cloud networking, or even [on-premises].”

In contrast, “when I looked at Aruba, they've actually made more progress in areas like security integration, agentic AI capabilities,” Rahim said, adding, “so they really have unique strengths.”

Cross-pollination and data centers

While “unique” now, Rahim noted that both architectures similarly use a microservices-based construct, which will allow for a “straightforward” cross-pollination upgrade opportunity, “so, that’s the plan.”

“Mist has done amazing work in the AI space,” Rahim humbly stated. “I can take that as a microservice and apply it to Aruba. Aruba has done great work in security integration that can be a microservice that can go and apply to Mist. In so doing, what have I done? I've accelerated the overall pace of innovation on both platforms. I've made my engineering more efficient because I don't need to develop something twice. … So that's the grand plan that we're working on right now.”

Rahim emphasized the “now” of that by pointing to rivals attempting to do similar integration work.

“I think the industry is sort of a little bit tainted right now because our peers in the industry have taken years to try to figure out how to integrate portfolios and we're showing our customers, much to their amazement, that we can do it in a much, much less period of time,” Rahim said.

While no names were named, that dig was most likely targeted at networking market heavyweight Cisco, which has been working through its own lengthy acquisition integration efforts.

Rahim did tease to “watch this space” in terms of the ongoing integration efforts within HPE Networking, a tease that HPE CEO Antonio Neri built on by telling attendees that one of HPE’s first moves is set to be the inclusion of Mist into HPE’s Greenlake platform of services. That platform has become an integral enterprise go-to-market avenue for HPE.

That integration aligns with Neri’s past comments on converging “our cloud product roadmaps and integrate our go-to-market coverage strategies.”

Rahim during the analyst briefing also said the networking division would look to integrate HPE’s background in data center liquid cooling technology to boost networking performance.

“Liquid cooling is going to become critical for AI data center networks in the near future, and we will be able to incorporate our industry leading direct liquid cooling technology from HPE Slingshot products into our AI switching portfolio,” Rahim said.

‘Thoughtful’ integration is taking time

Neri during HPE’s most recent earnings call was peppered with questions regarding integration plans, something that analysts have noted will be essential in order to garner maximum value from HPE’s $14 billion purchase. Neri danced around timing during that call, reiterating previous comments that no customer would be left behind as part of the integration process.

Interest in HPE’s in-progress integration was highlighted by the recent launch of AI networking updates tied to Juniper’s Mist and Marvis offerings. Jeff Aaron, VP of networking product and solution marketing at HPE, explained to SDxCentral that the updates had been in the works prior to the deal being approved, but that approval led to some reshuffling of product launch timelines.

Aaron explained that there was interest in finding any connection between these updates and HPE’s Aruba platform, but “it was a timing thing that it just didn’t make sense.”

“We were like, ‘all right, let's get this one out. It's important to our customers. It obviously shows that we're continuing innovation here,” Aaron said. “In the future you're going to see the announcements are going to be more correlated, and so that's on us. The timing of this one just didn't allow for that.”

This includes continued support for integrating Juniper’s Mist platform, “but obviously, now that we're one company, the goal is to figure out how to integrate that with the other side of the house and bring forward a solution that benefits all of our customers without leaving anyone behind.”

HPE’s Juniper integration is a critical task for the embiggened vendor, with analysts having noted that HPE’s integration success will be dependent on speed as it looks to build combined momentum.

A recent IDC report showed both HPE and Juniper out-growing Cisco in the enterprise WLAN market, however, Cisco remains the market’s most dominant player.

Cisco generated $904.5 million in enterprise WLAN revenues during the first quarter of this year. That number was 4.6% higher than what Cisco posted during the same quarter of 2024, and accounted for nearly 40% of the enterprise WLAN market’s total revenues in Q1.

HPE was the next closest rival, gobbling up nearly $364 million in revenues in Q1, which equated to 15.9% of the market. While a distant No. 2 to Cisco, HPE did manage to grow revenues 10.7% year over year, which is more impressive considering reported customers concerns over HPE’s WLAN portfolio pending the Juniper acquisition.

Juniper sat at a more distant No. 5 in the market overall but did manage to grow its business nearly 22% year over year in Q1, hitting nearly $121 million in sales and a 5.3% market share. That is growth that, similar to HPE, managed to debunk concerns over deal-related market uncertainty.