HPE Networking Unveils First Combined Juniper-Aruba Networking Products

‘Dual platform design lets our customers choose their preferred control point, whether it is Mist or Aruba Central, and switch seamlessly between platforms as their needs evolve with no new hardware involved in that decision,’ said HPE Networking President and General Manager Rami Rahim.

HPE Networking is combining what it is calling the “best” of both Juniper Mist and HPE Aruba Networking in its first new networking products since HPE acquired Juniper Networks for $13.4 billion five months ago.

Among the biggest breakthroughs is the new HPE Aruba-Juniper dual platform Wi-Fi 7 Access Point that will be delivered in the third quarter of next year, providing “massive advantages” for HPE Networking customers, said HPE Networking President and General Manager Rami Rahim.

“Dual platform design lets our customers choose their preferred control point, whether it is Mist or Aruba Central, and switch seamlessly between platforms as their needs evolve with no new hardware involved in that decision,” said Rahim in a press briefing on the new HPE Networking product blitz, which was unveiled Wednesday at the HPE Discover conference Barcelona. “It gives customers the ultimate peace of mind with the investment protection that this provides them.”

The new combined HPE Aruba and Juniper product barrage moves key AI networking capabilities from Juniper Mist to HPE Aruba Networking Central and at the same time moves HPE Aruba AI technology to Mist.

Under the cross-pollination strategy, HPE Juniper Networking’s renowned Mist AI Large Experience Model (LEM) and Marvis AI virtual assistant will be available in the first quarter of next year on HPE Networking Central.

In addition, HPE Aruba’s AI-based client profiling capabilities and AI organizational insight functionality in the first quarter of next year will move to HPE Juniper Mist.

HPE is also making Aruba Networking’s Agentic Mesh Technology available for Juniper Mist, bringing AI-based anomaly detection and root cause analysis with autonomous networking capabilities to the popular Mist AI networking platform.

“We’re going to continue to do this cross-pollination, and as we do this, we’re going to bring the best of both platforms to all users,” said Rahim. “Nobody gets left behind. Everybody gets to participate in the rapid pace of innovation that we will achieve through this build-once and deploy-twice model. And, honestly, I’m just delighted at the speed at which the team has been able to execute on this strategy and to demonstrate for our customers that they can have the best of both worlds.”

Rahim said the new products are a testament to the “great progress” that the HPE Networking team has made unifying its portfolio. “I assure you we are just getting started here,” he said.

Here is a look at the first combined new networking products since HPE acquired Juniper Networks.

New Robust AI Capabilities For HPE Aruba Networking Central And Juniper Mist

In the first move to raise the ante in the AI networking battle with rival Cisco Systems, HPE Networking is moving the Mist LEM and Marvis AI virtual assistant capability to HPE Aruba Networking Central.

Rahim said the Juniper Mist LEM and Marvis AI capabilities moving to HPE Aruba Networking Central deliver “industry-leading AIOps” that gets HPE “closer to a true self-driving network with the fewest trouble tickets and fastest time to deployment.” The Mist LEM and Marvis AI capabilities on HPE Aruba Networking Central will be available in the first quarter.

To boost Juniper Mist, HPE Aruba Networking is moving AI-based client profiling capabilities and AI based organizational insight technology in the first quarter to the highly regarded Mist AI platform.

“Together these two features bring the power of AIOps all the way to the client with a sleek user interface,” said Rahim.

“This is just the beginning,” said Rahim. “We are going to continue to do this cross-pollination and, as we do this, we are going to bring the best of both platforms to all users. Nobody gets left behind.”

HPE Launches First-Ever Aruba Juniper Dual Platform Wi-Fi 7 Access Point

HPE Networking unveiled the first-ever combined Aruba-Juniper Wi-Fi 7 Access Point to be delivered in the third quarter of next year.

The new product—which cross-pollinates HPE Aruba and Juniper access points—is a “huge breakthrough,” said Rahim.

“The most important thing about this access point is it is just proof that we can execute and execute with speed,” said Rahim. “So you are going to be able to see this in action at HPE Discover in Las Vegas in the middle of the year. This is only a few short months after the close [of the acquisition].”

Over time, practically all Access Points will become shared HPE Aruba-Juniper access points, said Rahim.

As to the official name for the new combined Wi-Fi 7 dual access point, Rahim said: “Stay tuned.”

Stepping Up Data Center Offensive With New Smaller, More Efficient Edge Router

HPE is stepping up its AI data center networking charge with a new smaller, more efficient HPE Juniper Networking MX301 multiservice edge router,

Billed as the on-ramp to the AI data center, the new product— available starting this month—provides 1.6-terabits-per-second data transfer throughput in a one-rack unit.

“It packs all the performance—1.6 terabits per second—and all the flexibility that our customers have come to love about the MX in a small one-rack unit power-optimized package, making it absolutely ideal as an on-ramp for the distributed inference cluster opportunity,” said Rahim.

“When it comes to edge routers, the MX is in a league of its own,” said Rahim. “It is extremely popular for cloud on-ramp use cases. It is almost a de facto standard right now that is being used by cloud providers worldwide.”

Rahim said the Trio chip set powering the MX301 provides “near- infinite flexibility” with unmatched investment protection.

“As inference moves closer to where data is at the edge, a smaller more power-space-efficient MX becomes extremely desirable,” he said.

New Breakthrough Juniper Networking AI Data Center Switch

HPE is launching what it is calling the “world’s highest- performance Ultra Ethernet Transport Ready” network switch: the 100 percent liquid-cooled HPE Juniper Networking QFX5250.

Available in the first quarter next year, the new switch is the first built on Broadcom’s Tomahawk 6 silicon with a mind-boggling 102.4 terabits-per-second performance.

“This combines HPE Juniper Networking’s Junos software innovation, HPE’s liquid-cooling leadership and AIOps intelligence to deliver a truly high-performance, power-efficient and simplified operations for next-generation AI inference specifically in the scale-out opportunity,” said Rahim (pictured).

Rahim said HPE has the technology and scale to deliver for customers as they build out AI data centers.

“HPE’s experience and market leadership in building AI data centers around the world are opening up new opportunities for HPE Networking technology,” he said.

An Update On HPE Aruba-Juniper Networking Integration

The HPE Aruba and Juniper Network integration is going “exceptionally well,” said Rahim, providing an update on the HPE Aruba-Juniper cross-pollination strategy.

“I could not be more pleased with how the teams are coming together, the cultural alignment and most importantly the way that we are innovating and satisfying our customers,” he said. “We are already demonstrating proof points of the portfolios coming together with key new technologies, cross-pollination of capabilities both with software microservices and hardware.”

Rahim said the pace of innovation in the data center segment is “truly stunning.”

HPE has strengthened its data center partnership with Nvidia by adding a routing solution to the HPE AI Factory and added support for AMD’s Helios rack with an Ethernet scale-up AI solution based on Juniper networking.

“The Ethernet opportunity is a huge and growing opportunity,” said Rahim.

A Look Into the Future of HPE Aruba Networking Central And Juniper Mist

Over time with the increasing cross-pollination of HPE Aruba Networking Central and HPE Juniper Mist, the “distinction” between the two platforms is going to “diminish,” said Rahim.

“It is going to disappear because the experience to the end customer is going to be identical irrespective of which platform that you are on,” he said.

As the two networking platforms come together, the only difference is going to be the “deployment model,” whether it is a cloud-based solution with Juniper Mist or a virtual private cloud on-premises solution with HPE Aruba Networking Central, said Rahim.

“At the end of the day, success means that we bring the two businesses together without in any way disrupting our customers,” said Rahim. “Every customer will benefit from the accelerated pace of innovation that comes with the combined business.”

Ultimately, the measure of success for HPE Networking over the 12 months comes down to market-share growth, said Rahim. “We want to grow faster than anybody else in the markets that we are pursuing across campus and branch, routing infrastructure solutions, the data center and SASE and security,” he said.