Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) linked its Mist and Aruba Central management platforms to its EdgeConnect secure access service edge (SASE) offering, tying together its vast – and variedly acquired – wired and wireless portfolio under a unified agentic operations framework to bolster the vendor’s self-driving network agenda for end users and to better gird against rivals.

The integration provides HPE’s “full stack” wired, wireless, and SASE users with end-to-end visibility and management across on-premises, cloud, and virtual private cloud (VPC) deployments. The move also provides existing Mist and Aruba Central users with integrated access to EdgeConnect’s long-standing unified SASE services, including SD-WAN, application-aware routing, WAN optimization, security, and secure service edge (SSE) integration.

Mist is set to gain EdgeConnect connectivity by the end of this calendar year, with Aruba Central gaining access during the first half of next year.

Jeff Aaron, VP of product and solutions marketing at HPE Networking, explained in an interview with SDxCentral that central to the integration is that Mist and Aruba Central users will benefit from access to its Marvis AI engine.

“It's got the conversational assistant, it's got the digital experience twins, it's got the large experience model (LEM) for bringing in Zoom and Teams information, all the things that we've been leading the industry on is now coming to our EdgeConnect and our SASE platform,” Aaron said.

Aaron noted that while this integration does add several new features, the key is to provide those services in a unified manner.

“We have lots of customers that say ‘I want to unify them. I want to get the telemetry from one into the same mechanism as the telemetry for the others and make decisions and be able to act on them,’” Aaron said. “This lets us do that, and again, to reiterate, it lets us do it with our premier platforms.”

Aaron did add that Aruba Central Orchestrator will continue to be used for some day-one configurations, but that the “goal is to get [EdgeConnect] fully into Myst and Aruba Central for management.”

“Right now, it's primarily for the day two … it actually was standalone,” but “now after the acquisition, we're really bringing it into the fold and driving it, and a key reason for that is the agentic ops. Now we need to use that as a key differentiator,” Aaron explained.

HPE’s been busy

HPE’s EdgeConnect platform originated with its $925 million Silver Peak acquisition in mid-2020, a deal that fed into HPE’s former parent Hewlett Packard (HP) acquiring Aruba for $2.7 billion in 2015, and is now being integrated into Mist, which HPE got as part of its $14 billion Juniper Networks acquisition last year.

The latest update follows a steady stream of enhancements HPE Networking has ladled across its portfolio following the close of that Juniper Networks purchase. This includes plusses to Mist and Aruba Central, and channel-focused efforts to help partners sell those systems.

“We're about solving real customer problems and doing it with solutions that are available today, and so these are some of the steps that were key to getting there,” Aaron said of this update flow, adding that, “the other thing this shows is after this acquisition, we're not slowing down with the innovation. If anything, we're using our proven track record of bringing things into an agentic ops engine and we've expanded that portfolio even more and keep adding on both platforms for it, so this is just yet another sign that we're innovating like mad post-acquisition.”

Aaron also explained that the paced update timing backs HPE Networking’s self-driving network roadmap that has been core to how the vendor views its differentiation in the market against “the Cisco’s and others that are still at the data collection stage. … We’re higher above that.”

“And … it shows that different products are in different stages of the journey. It's real … we have roadmaps. We're not pulling the wool over your eyes and saying, ‘hey, look over here,’” Aaron said. “We know that things are going to come based on customer priorities at different rates and we're open about that and how we deliver that and I think that builds trust with our customer base.”

That trust is increasingly important as vendors in the space tussle to maintain their own customer base and – if possible – steal customers from those rivals, a pointed repeatedly tied to a Wi-Fi 7-related refresh cycle.

Millions toward more aggressive marketing

Aaron noted that HPE has bestowed “x-millions of dollars” on its Networking division to “go do stuff … and that was a commitment because things are going well. We’re winning deals … having great quarters and year, and the self-driving network is sticking.”

HPE Networking is indeed posting strong numbers, including its most recent third-fiscal quarter that included a 75% year-over-year increase in segment revenues to $2.9 billion – though a more modest 10% increase on a normalized basis. HPE CFO Marie Myers during that earnings call did note networking-related orders increased 36%, which was 3.5-times faster than revenues, with its data center networking, routing, and security operations all posting outsized segment growth.

Aaron did note that HPE’s “go do stuff” mandate will see it continue to be aggressive in the market, though he did not specifically think that meant just going after segment heavyweight Cisco, explaining that while, “yes, I agree, has gotten more aggressive lately now that they've finally gotten a legitimate story after 13-plus years with Meraki … we need to figure out how to stay ahead of them with things like self-driving and autonomous and trusted and some other things that we're announcing.”

Instead, HPE plans to make sure it has the right message for the right market segments.

“Oftentimes we kind of bifurcate the market: AI for networks and networks for AI,” Aaron added. “I think that AI for networks is primarily Cisco. I mean that's the lion-share folks there. Network for AI eye … you're getting into some different vendors … the Aristas of the world and different messaging. But again, they all benefit from you know self-driving and the things that we put in place. So yeah, there's different messaging and different competitors in each of those areas.”