Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (00:02):
Network complexity continues to escalate as organizations manage multi-vendor environments across hybrid infrastructures. The need for unified observability has never been more critical. Guido Kragten from HPE Aruba networking joins us to demonstrate how its recent integration is transforming network monitoring and management. Guido, thank you for joining us today.

Guido Kragten, HPE (00:24):
Thank you very much. And you did a good job on my last name. Thank you. Thank you. It was really good job.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (00:30):
So tell us about this new integration and what customer challenges led to developing it.

Guido Kragten, HPE (00:35):
Yeah, so what we see with the customer challenges, especially in network operating, is that they need to have the right visibility. So the networks already gets are really complex. So you need to have the right tools to get the right visibility because what we see is that customers have around five or six different tools to operate their infrastructure or the network infrastructure. Second, if there are any issues or problems, you want to solve them as soon as possible and as quick as possible. And then again, you need to have the right tools and the right resources to do that. So what we have done, like you said with our recent integration, that we have two platforms that are hosted on our GreenLake Cloud platform. One is called Ops Ramp, which is an IT operations platform. And the other one is called HPE, Aruba Networking Central, which is a network management system platform. So they're both distinguished platforms. One is more focused on the network infrastructure, and the other one is more focused on the IT operations. So two distinguished platforms. And what we now have done is because of the power of GreenLake, we can share the data lake together. So now we can use the data of ops ramp and integrate that as an extension into our network management system.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (01:46):
So can you demonstrate how this cross network observability works?

Guido Kragten, HPE (01:50):
Yeah. So if you look at a demonstration, I will do the demonstration of course, live later. But first of all, if you look at the GreenLake, it's like a data lake. So what we do is we are using an extension or a gateway that extracts the data from the customer that goes into Ops ramp, and then we share that with New Central. And that's basically how it works. And then with the new central, you have to complete visibility of the third party devices.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (02:16):
So how does the shared data lake on HPE GreenLake enhance both platforms?

Guido Kragten, HPE (02:22):
So how that enhances is that, like I said, it's the visibility and the telemetry data that we get out of it. And like I said, we are on the GreenLake Cloud platform, which is, like I said, a shared data lake. So now we can use that data from upstream and then integrate that into Central. So to get the visibility of third party devices, because what network operators want and what they ask us, I want to have a single platform to operate my network, and we can always not choose when to change the infrastructure. Maybe there's a migration part or maybe there are certain applications that the customer has chosen to run on a certain platform. And what we say is, well, you choose, but we will help you manage that from a networking perspective. And that's why the power of the two combined so great. It's really a unique solution in the industry.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (03:17):
What makes this integration unique for enterprises with diverse networking needs?

Guido Kragten, HPE (03:23):
I think what makes it unique, and like I said, it always starts with GreenLake. I think GreenLake makes it really unique because on one side we have the IT operations platform. On the other side we have the network management system. And both platforms are of course unique or have unique capabilities in the market. So from a networking perspective or from an IT operation perspective. But when you combine the two and combine it with one data lake, that's really, really great because no other vendor has that intensive data lake that they can offer. And that's what we do. We can have that data lake and help our customers in that journey wide to operate their networks.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (04:03):
Well, I'm excited to see it in action. Let's actually show a demo.

Guido Kragten, HPE (04:07):
Okay, I will do that. So let me give you a quick demonstration. This is HB Aruba Networking Central, which is our network management platform for our customers, for configuration, for management, and of course artificial intelligence powered. And again, because we are using a data lake. So let me dive into a site. And as you can see in this area, I'm now in the ops ramp melody site, and I can look at the network and instantly what you can see is that I have different switches in there, but not just Aruba switches, H HP Aruba network switches, but also Arista or Cisco or Juniper switches. They're all part and now visible in the central H HP Aruba Network central platform. And because we are receiving the telemetry data, I can also see why are there issues and problems on the infrastructure. So if I click on alerts because I see I have four alerts, I can also see that there are some switches with memory utilization.

(05:03):
And that's not good because if there's a high memory utilization, the switch can have no performance anymore. So I can click on it and I can instantly see I have a threshold and I can see that there is indeed a high memory utilization. The other thing is, what I can see is that there's also, what is the impact of this high memory utilization on my clients or my access points on my switches or on my gateways. And last but not this, it'll also provide me a summary of the problem. And as you can see, there was a problem 90% for five minutes, a high memory utilization, which is a very high priority. I also want to know, okay, what about the network? What switch does it concern? So now you see the same view. And I'm now in this Arista switch, which gives me an overview of the health.

(05:49):
It gives me an overview of the properties, the connection performance. It'll give me an overview of the hardware. So what is the CPU utilization or the memory utilization? It'll give me a connectivity overview and all the events and telemetry data that the switch provides me. So you can get that overview. And last but not least, I also get an overview of how does the interfaces are looking at, and I can dive really into this area. So I see all the ports that are connected. I can dive into a certain port, I can see the description, I can see which VLAN it is, and I can also see the usage it. And then I can even go a step further and see, okay, what is the throughput? How many connected clients are there? And again, if I expand the details, multicast, uncast, broadcast, all the details will be available in HP Aruba Networking Central.

(06:42):
The last thing, and finally, I would like to show you that this switch is also part of our topology. So it'll give you an overview of how the topology is working and how this third party switch is also part of the topology so that the network operator has the complete view of not only the HP Aruba networking devices, but also the third party switches. And we will not stop at third party switches. We will do and add much more for help our customers and partners to get that complete visibility also for access points and also for firewalls that we will have that integrated in the near future.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (07:20):
So what is the overall value proposition for organizations?

Guido Kragten, HPE (07:25):
Yeah, I think what the company doesn't like or what IUT operators don't like, right, is to have those blind spots because they spend so much time on troubleshooting, they don't have the right resources. And if the network is down, the whole business is down. So the value proposition is it's a faster resolution in troubleshooting. It will help you save uptime, but also it'll help you save resources to operate your infrastructure. And we all know that resources and uptime are very important and deliver the right value to our customers and partners.

(07:59):
Guido, thank you for the demonstration and your insights. It was fun to do. Thank you very much.