Enhancements to AIOps for HPE Aruba Networking Central

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has expanded AIOps network management capabilities for HPE Aruba Networking Central, HPE’s cloud- native network management solution, hosted on the HPE GreenLake Cloud Platform, through integrating multiple generative AI (gen AI) large language models (LLMs) within it.

Unlike other gen AI networking approaches that simply send API calls to public LLMs, HPE Aruba Networking Central’s new self-contained set of LLM models was designed with pre- processing and guardrails to improve user experience and operational efficiency, with a focus on search response times, accuracy, and data privacy. With one of the largest data lakes in the industry, HPE Aruba Networking has collected telemetry from nearly 4 million network- managed devices and more than 1 billion unique customer endpoints, which power HPE Aruba Networking Central’s machine learning models for predictive analytics and recommendations. The new gen AI LLM functionality will be incorporated into HPE Aruba Networking Central’s AI Search feature, complementing existing machine learning (ML)-based AI throughout HPE Networking Central to provide deeper insights, better analytics, and more proactive capabilities.

“Modern networking customers demand security-first, AI-powered insights into their critical infrastructure, and that’s what we’re delivering,” said David Hughes, Chief Product Officer, HPE Aruba Networking.

“HPE continues its strong history of AI innovation with this bold move and HPE Aruba Networking Central’s new approach of deploying multiple LLM models to embrace the capabilities of gen AI.”

HPE Aruba Networking continues its commitment to leveraging AI safely with a security-first approach to personal and customer-identifiable information (PII/CII), as the LLMs are “sandboxed” within HPE Aruba Networking Central, running on the HPE GreenLake Cloud Platform. HPE Aruba Networking Central also ensures customer data security with proprietary, purpose-built LLMs which remove PII/CII data and improve search accuracy, all while delivering sub-second response to network operations questions.

As part of its expanded capabilities, HPE Aruba Networking Central’s training sets for the gen AI models are up to 10x larger than other cloud-based platforms and include tens of thousands of HPE Aruba Networking-sourced documents in the public domain, as well as more than 3 million questions that have been captured from the customer base over many years of operations.

"In today’s data-first world, enterprises increasingly seek AI-powered insights and analytics to fortify their critical infrastructure,” said Mark Ablett, VP, Asia Pacific and Japan, HPE Aruba Networking.

“With the newly expanded AIOps network management capabilities within HPE Aruba Networking Central Platform, HPE reaffirms its unwavering commitment to furnishing customers with pioneering networking solutions powered by AI and meticulously crafted with a paramount focus on security.”

In related news, HPE announced that Verizon Business is expanding its managed services portfolio to include HPE Aruba Networking Central. With more than 30 years of experience managing more than 4,500 customer networks in more than 150 countries worldwide, Verizon’s managed services now include HPE Aruba Networking Central, enabling organisations to improve their network and application performance without burdening in-house IT resources.

“When evaluating network management solutions, we looked for a platform that offers scalability, security, and overall superior operator experience,” said Scott Lawrence, Senior VP, Global Solutions, Verizon Business. “The addition of HPE Aruba Networking Central’s gen AI LLM features demonstrate its continued focus on innovation and solidified our decision to offer it as a managed service to our customers.”

HPE Aruba Networking Central is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering that is primarily sold as an annual subscription with a two-tier licensing model (Foundation and Advanced). Since its introduction in 2014, HPE Aruba Networking Central has helped to configure, manage, monitor and troubleshoot networks across wired and wireless local area networks (LAN), wide-area networks (WAN) and the Internet of Things (IoT), integrating functions throughout the lifecycle of network operations. The new gen AI LLM- based search engine will be available in HPE’s Q2FY24 and is included with all tiers of licensing.

In addition to being a standalone SaaS offering, HPE Aruba Networking Central is also included as part of an HPE GreenLake for Networking (NaaS) subscription and is available through the HPE GreenLake platform.

“Today, customers are searching for practical AI applications that can make meaningful improvements to their business,” said Will Townsend, VP & Principal Analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy.

“When it comes to effective network management, data and models matter. AI is not new to networking and security operations, but generative AI is given its natural language interface. The challenge lies in tightly aligning queries with AI algorithms to deliver relevant and meaningful business outcomes. A set of purpose-built LLMs delivered in a self-contained sandbox delivers the best of both privacy and performance. With this HPE Aruba Networking Central announcement, HPE is launching compelling generative AI functionality that doesn't sacrifice performance for the sake of hardened security.”