Aruba is adding AIOps capabilities to its Edge Services Platform (ESP) to help customers automate daily tasks, reduce the time it takes to find and fix problems, and increase perimeter security controls.
Launched in 2020, Aruba ESP analysis telemetry data generated from Aruba Wifi or network switching equipment and uses it to automatically optimize connectivity, discover network problems, and protect the whole edge ambient. ESP creates a data lake of the data center, campus, and SD WAN change information and combines that data with statistics from billions of data points generated daily by Aruba devices around the world.
ESP can then apply its AI and machine learning algorithms to fix problems before they become problems, said Larry Lunetta, vice president of marketing for security solutions at Aruba, the network subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. ESP is also part of Aruba’s core network infrastructure management console, Aruba Central.
With this update to ESP, Aruba is adding more AI-powered features, now available, that are designed to help IT teams more easily manage some of the mundane tasks they face every day.
The recently added Aruba Client Insights feature, for example, will allow customers to discover which devices (switches, servers, or endpoints) are on their corporate network. You can then automate access privileges and monitor device behavior. Customers can see traffic flows and fix problems faster, Lunetta said.
“Client Insights is especially important for organizations that have many internet of things edge devices that they may or may not know about,” Lunetta said. “We discovered telemetry-based components that we have integrated into the infrastructure: there is no separate collector, no separate agent is required. Device information comes natively into Aruba Central and ESP, and we then build profiles based on static and active attributes like duty cycles, amount of traffic produced, and details about what else the device talked to.”
Customers can then tag, define access control and securely assign a role to a device, allowing IT to feel much more comfortable controlling that device, Lunetta said.
Another new feature, Firmware Recommender, can determine if an organization’s wireless network is running the latest versions of software and can quickly recommend software solutions and update solutions.
Customers have multiple generations of equipment, Lunetta said, and it’s hard to keep up with everything. The firmware recommender removes that complexity. It takes the guesswork out of updating or changing device software and helps ensure that new features and fixes are rolled out quickly.
Another new feature that reduces the load on network teams is automated infrastructure predictions. Use Aruba’s AI Assist feature to identify potential hardware and software failures and recommend or automate firmware upgrades or hardware replacement before a problem occurs.
Lastly, Aruba added support in Spanish. The same natural language search feature built into Aruba Central now supports queries and answers in Spanish, Lunetta said.
While adoption of AIOps technology is in the early stages, experts say it will play a key role in how complex enterprise environments are managed for years to come, with many Aruba competitors such as Cisco, Extreme and Juniper, they’re working too. in AIOps offers. (Read more: Edge computing moves towards full autonomy)
Organizations need to leverage AIOps to effectively manage complex and highly distributed network environments, wrote Bob Laliberte, principal analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group, in a new AIOps research note.
AIOps offers simplified troubleshooting; In an always-on world, it’s imperative to fix any issues that arise as quickly as possible and not waste precious time trying to find the root cause, according to Laliberte.
“AIOps identifies root causes, provides recommendations, and even automates remediation, depending on the issue or severity,” Laliberte said. “Ideally, this would eventually lead to an environment that is proactive, continually self-analyzing and providing optimization feedback when needed, focusing on avoiding problems, not just finding them. The goal is to reduce the volume of trouble tickets and the time spent responding to them.”
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