Aruba today announced new switches along with updates to its programmable operating system and analytics software. The vendor says the move gives network operators a single switching platform with embedded analytics and automation across the enterprise campus, branch, and data center.

The Aruba CX Switching Portfolio now includes the CX 6300 Series fixed configuration and CX 6400 Series modular access, aggregation, and core switches. These switches use Aruba ASICs and come in both stackable and modular forms. Both will begin shipping next month.

The CX 6300 is the stackable family of switches. They use a 10-member virtual switching framework and built-in 10-, 25-, and 50-gigabit uplinks to meet growing bandwidth needs now and in the future.

Additionally, the CX 6400 Series modular switches offer both a five-slot chassis and a 10-slot chassis with a non-blocking fabric that scales from Gigabit Power over Ethernet (POE) access to 100G core.

The new switches, “when complimented with our next-gen operating system CX, really extend cloud-native characteristics from the edge and access layer all the way to the data center,” said William Choe, VP of product and operations for Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.

Aruba calls this operating system “cloud native,” but as Choe explains it’s “not cloud native in terms of where it is deployed. It’s really the design and architecture that matters in terms of what network operators care about. At its heart is a microservices-based architecture.”

This gives it programmability, which supports provisioning and management via APIs and policies, Choe explained. It’s also elastic so it can be scaled up and down dynamically, and modular, providing abstractions for independent packaging of services such as containers or serverless functions.

AOS-CX 10.4, which is the updated operating system, brings features that were previously only available in Aruba’s data center switches to the access layer of the network. These include segmentation to provide security and unified policy across wired and wireless networks down to to every connected user and IoT device. It also extends Ethernet VPN over VxLAN for secure connectivity, and Virtual Switching Extension (VSX) live upgrades with no downtime during maintenance cycles.

These live upgrades are especially important to several key industries that Aruba works with including healthcare and manufacturing, Choe said. This is because their IoT devices need to maintain power even during network switch upgrades.

“And NetEdit bring that all together,” Choe said. He’s referring to the vendor’s NetEdit software. The updated 2.0 version now integrates with Aruba’s with Network Analytics Engine (NAE). This enables centralized visualization of network health using NAE’s distributed analytics across every switch in the network.

“You have complete visibility down to the network device, down to the application layer, or even the network service,” Choe said, adding that this helps reduce troubleshooting and remediation time from days to minutes

Additionally, new automation capabilities simplify tasks such as implementing configuration changes or initial system set-up, which can now be done via the CX Mobile app.