SOLUTION OVERVIEW

Aruba ESP
(Edge Services
Platform)
HARNESSING THE
POWER OF THE
INTELLIGENT EDGE
Every decade or so, we’ve seen the technology
market undergo major shifts. Over the past
few decades, those shifts have been driven by
mobility and the cloud. Now we’re entering the
next big shift: the era of data—but we’re not
talking about data that’s generated in a cloud
or a data center. We’re talking about data that
is available where business is done—where
users, devices, and things all come together.
We call that the Edge.
 SOLUTION OVERVIEW
ARUBA ESP (EDGE SERVICES PLATFORM)

So where exactly is the Edge? It could be a workplace CHALLENGES AT THE INTELLIGENT EDGE
environment, a hospital, a large sports stadium, or a factory Like every technology transition that has happened in
floor. In these environments, massive amounts of data is the past, shifting to the Edge changes the role of your
generated by users, devices, and things, and that data is infrastructure and introduces new challenges. Corporate
analyzed and acted on in real-time at the Edge. Businesses networks play a pivotal role in moving data and connecting
that successfully harness that data and turn it into new people to their apps and services—just as they always have.
services to delight their customers or produce better However, with the Intelligent Edge, network requirements go
outcomes, will ultimately win. Those that are not able to far beyond standard connectivity and access technologies of
harness the data at the Edge, will likely lose. the past.

So, the stakes are high. And the question becomes—do you Consider the sheer quantity of things now connecting to
have the right foundation in place to successfully win at the corporate networks. According to IDC, 55 billion devices will
Edge? The network is critical in making use of all this data and be connected within the next two years and are expected to
will be what separates business leaders from the laggards. generate 79.4ZB of data by 2025. In this data-driven era, the
increased velocity and volume of data and actions occurring
at the Edge requires a network and IT organization that
can keep pace. Yet today’s networks are bound by human
capacity and experience—they are only as agile and secure
as the operators that manage them. With the huge volume of
data at the Edge, today’s networks can’t keep up.

BUSINESS OUTCOMES AT THE EDGE

Outcome Example

New revenue streams Retailers can create personalized experiences that make shoppers feel welcome and their unique
tastes understood. By using context-aware apps, retailers can present customers with special offers,
boosting revenue.
Improved customer experiences Imagine people at a large public venue like a sports stadium or a museum. Their mobile experience can be
via personalization improved with turn-by-turn navigation.
Business agility Businesses that are able to harness real-time data are able to adapt and change quickly with market
changes. The data is key because it can analyze and predict shifting customer needs and preferences.
Operational efficiency In Manufacturing, sensors detect potential malfunctions before workers or production are endangered.
This can also reduce equipment downtime and maintenance costs.
Employee productivity In the office environment, connected conference rooms allow for seamless employee collaboration via
voice and video—regardless of where everyone is located.
 SOLUTION OVERVIEW
ARUBA ESP (EDGE SERVICES PLATFORM)

IT leaders need to carefully assess their infrastructure Security threats are everywhere
and operational models to ensure the network, tools and New and advanced security threats are emerging every day.
operator experience and functional capacity are poised In 2019, security breaches increased over 11% from 2018
to support business success in this new era. They need to resulting in 33B records being stolen, which is expected to
consider the following challenges: cost businesses $6T annually by 2021.1 IoT devices aren’t
equipped with stringent security measures and are easy for
Siloed management
hackers to exploit. Meanwhile, workforce mobility continues
Independent management of WAN, wired, and wireless to expand the IT perimeter, as employees often access
networking domains across campus, branch, and data corporate resources on personal devices and from public
center locations create communications delays, and silos Wi-Fi networks that aren’t secure. Lastly, cloud-destined
of skills that include IT knowledge, as well as provisioning, traffic that goes directly over the Internet is more
monitoring, reporting and troubleshooting tools. Nearly half vulnerable—particularly those from shadow IT apps.
of organizations use 11 or more tools, which translates to a
greater likelihood of service problems or outages. ARUBA ESP: YOUR EDGE FOUNDATION

Lack of visibility and insights Given the importance of capitalizing on the opportunities
at the Edge, it’s critical for businesses to ensure that they
In these hyper-distributed environments, performance
have a solid network foundation. They need to prepare
issues can pop up anywhere. Unfortunately, IT’s visibility into
their IT infrastructure for today and future-proof it for the
existing or potential problems continues to diminish as more
next big technology shift.
infrastructure moves outside of their direct control. The
information that IT can gather from the network via third-party That’s where Aruba ESP comes in. It’s the industry’s first
monitoring and reporting tools is often notactionable—either platform with an AI-powered “sixth sense” that is designed
because data granularity is poor or because operators must for the new requirements of the Intelligent Edge. Aruba ESP
manually correlate it to possible root causes. This is particularly uses the principles of AIOps, Zero Trust security, and unified
problematic at the Edge, where there’s often no on-site IT infrastructure to help IT and the network cope with the:
personnel to troubleshoot issues.
• Velocity and volume of data generated and processed at

Highly manual processes the Edge

• Advanced threats from a vanishing security perimeter
IT must tackle day-to-day network operations and attempt
• Operational challenges from an increasingly complex
to ward off performance issues using personal experience,
network architecture
outdated tools and tedious workflows. According to Gartner,
more than 65% of network operations activities in enterprises Aruba ESP offers services at the Edge that include
are manual, leading to human errors and downtime. Gartner onboarding, provisioning, orchestration, analytics, location,
also found that “automation reduces manual errors by more and management, which can all be accessed using Aruba
than 75% while increasing operational efficiencies.” So in the Central—the cloud-native single-pane-of-glass console for
data era, with an explosion of devices and things connecting to Aruba ESP. Central provides unified management, AIOps,
the network, it becomes challenging for IT to keep up with it all. and security for wired, wireless and SD-WAN operations
across campus, branch, and data center locations. Through
Central, network admins can use AI Insights to reveal and
troubleshoot issues before users complain or the business
suffers. Central can also help network asdmins accomplish
tasks quickly with intuitive workflow-centric navigation, and
provision and manage infrastructure remotely (with very little
technical knowledge needed).
 SOLUTION OVERVIEW
ARUBA ESP (EDGE SERVICES PLATFORM)

Aruba ESP focuses on three areas to build your In an era where IoT devices are proliferating rapidly,
network foundation: managing security policies with static VLANs, ACLs, and
subnets are slow, error-prone, and only increase the
1. AIOps likelihood of issues down the road. With Aruba ESP and our
Aruba ESP uses AI, machine learning (ML), and network- networking and security portfolio, organizations can now
and user-centric telemetry data capabilities that focus on virtually eliminate the need for VLANs and control traffic
revealing network issues before users notice them, helping using centralized policies that are based on device and role.
the IT professional to move faster, and ensuring that service
level expectations of users and devices on the network are 3. Unified Infrastructure
met. For example, in a single glance, network operators can Aruba ESP is managed using Aruba Central. Compared
see a list of all the users, devices and APs experiencing high to competitor’s solutions that require up to five different
DHCP issues that will prevent users from connecting. Clicking platforms and interfaces, Aruba Central and Aruba ESP
on these insights will reveal likely causes and, in many cases, unify all network operations across wired, wireless, and
will recommend or automatically take prescriptive action. WAN; branch, campus and data center under a single
cloud-native pane-of-glass and platform. This capability
This use of AI, analytics, and automation helps IT keep up
allows administrators to eliminate the time-consuming
with the massive amount of data and traffic on the network,
manual process of moving information from place to place or
by surfacing these hard-to-see issues and in many cases,
trying to correlate information across multiple views.
taking action automatically. By making all of these capabilities
available via APIs, Aruba ESP also allows for extensibility to And by using a common data lake in the Aruba ESP platform,
3rd party solutions, which means organizations can further Aruba Central correlates and displays multiple dimensions
their automation goals within other business processes. of information in context, unlocks powerful capabilities
around automated root cause analysis, and provides more
2. Zero Trust Security robust analytics. This means faster deployments, shorter
Zero Trust is a broad industry term that describes a security time-to-resolution, contextual presentation of information,
framework based on the concept that organizations should and more efficient operations.
not trust any entity inside or outside of their network
perimeter. Aruba ESP embraces the principles of Zero CONCLUSION
Trust by ensuring the identity of an endpoint, enforcing the In this era of data at the Edge, it’s clear that today’s network
policies applied to those endpoints with an application aware architecture needs to be AI-powered and predictive—to
firewall, and being able to adapt to new threats by sharing cope with the massive amounts of data and decisions
information with other security platforms and dynamically required in near real-time. By architecting an Intelligent
adjusting policies to endpoints on the network. By using Edge infrastructure with security, connectivity, insight, and
“role-based policy,” network administrators can embrace automation, Aruba ESP can help you improve business
Zero Trust without adding to the complexity of their network. agility, build new revenue streams, and create compelling
experiences that delight customers and employees, while
achieving new business outcomes. To learn more, visit
arubanetworks.com/ArubaESP.

© Copyright 2020 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP. The information contained herein is subject to change without
notice. The only warranties for Hewlett Packard Enterprise products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements
accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. Hewlett
Packard Enterprise shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
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