HPE Networking is stepping on the gas after completing its acquisition of Juniper Networks. It has already built the first integrations between Aruba and Mist. These integrations are intended to immediately improve and strengthen both portfolios. Cisco has been warned.
During the first joint interview with Juniper Networks CEO Rami Rahim and HPE CEO Antonio Neri, the latter was very clear about the plan for the network player that would emerge after the merger of Juniper and Aruba. “We want to be number one in everything we do,” Neri said at the time. Five months ago (when the acquisition was formally completed), HPE was able to put its money where its mouth is.
Read also: HPE and Juniper want to attack Cisco’s position with network fabric
During HPE Discover in Barcelona this week, it is showing the first steps towards a joint offering that should not only be able to compete with Cisco, but also win, according to the idea. Before the event, we spoke briefly with Jeff Aaron, Group VP Product Marketing at HPE Juniper Networking, and Alan Ni, Senior Director Edge Marketing at HPE Aruba Networking about the latest integrations, how important they are, and we also touched on how HPE compares to Cisco in particular in terms of sovereignty.
Why HPE vs. Cisco?
Before we continue with our analysis of today’s announcements, a disclaimer to followers of suppliers other than HPE and Cisco. We are well aware that there are more relevant players in this market than these two. Arista is certainly coming, and Extreme Networks, Huawei, and Fortinet also play an important role, not to mention the extremely interesting new players Nile and Meter. However, we are framing the discussion in this article as a battle between Cisco and HPE. We are doing this because these are by far the two largest players, with Cisco being by far the largest of the two. A second reason is that HPE is very explicitly going after Cisco and emphasizes this very often.
AIOps as a differentiator
AI naturally also plays an important role in the networking world. This statement can be interpreted in several ways. There is the idea that networks must be ready for the workloads that AI entails. With that in mind, the major players are releasing all kinds of new products. Think of the battle between HPE and Cisco earlier this year over who has the smartest switches. Or Cisco’s news about the latest SiliconOne P200 chip, which is supposed to better support scale across workloads.
As far as we are concerned, the hardware is undoubtedly important, but in addition to the ‘network for AI’ perspective, we must not lose sight of the ‘AI for the network’ approach. This mainly concerns AIOps, or the use of AI to make the general management and maintenance of networks as simple and effective as possible. In this area, Mist AI undoubtedly has a head start in the market (at least in terms of the emphasis it places on AIOps), while HPE Aruba Networking has also made strides in this area with GreenLake Intelligence, among other things. Cisco is also making a significant contribution with what it calls AgenticOps and AI Canvas.
“If you think about the acquisition [of Juniper Networks by HPE, ed.], it was about accelerating AI innovation,” Ni summarizes. “We want to be the leader in AIOps.”
AIOps integrations between Aruba and Mist
AIOps/AgenticOps is therefore undoubtedly an important factor to keep an eye on in the battle between HPE and Cisco. Today’s announcements by HPE regarding integrations between HPE Juniper Networking Mist and HPE Aruba Networking Central confirm this. These are integrations in both directions. From Mist, the Large Experience Model (LEM) and Marvis Actions are moving to Aruba. From Aruba, AI-based client profiling and Organizational Insight are coming to Mist.
During our conversation with Aaron and Ni, we note that the integrations from Mist to Aruba seem to be somewhat larger than vice versa. From Mist, it really seems to be about fundamental, relatively large concepts, while from Aruba, the components seem to be somewhat smaller. However, both Aaron and Ni immediately point out that we are mistaken. “The integrations in both directions are all fundamental,” Aaron summarizes.
Ni immediately follows up by pointing out that the components going from Aruba to Mist are part of the recent addition of AI mesh functionality to Aruba Central and GreenLake Intelligence. The latter is one of the main focus areas for HPE Aruba Networking. “The way Aruba does agentic mesh adds a lot to Mist,” Aaron confirms.
Underlying architecture is equal
One of the reasons HPE could build these integrations relatively quickly has to do with the underlying architecture, according to Aaron and Ni. Mist built its platform for the cloud, Aruba built its platform for the cloud, on-premises, and VPC environments. Aruba has made enormous strides in recent years and now also offers a micro-services-based solution. “In terms of underlying architecture, both platforms [Mist and Aruba Central, ed.] are on an equal footing,” says Ni.
This is a completely different story than what we heard from Juniper prior to the acquisition by HPE. At that time, the emphasis was always on how distinctive Mist’s underlying architecture was. Not only compared to players such as Cisco, but also HPE Aruba Networking. Times change, that’s for sure. Also, HPE Aruba Networking has really made huge strides with Aruba Central. This mainly concerns the major updates we discussed with Dobias van Ingen, EMEA CTO for HPE Aruba Networking, two years ago. “When we launched the new front-end, we also fundamentally rebuilt the back-end,” Ni now states.
Mist is also moving towards on-prem
In fact, following the acquisition by HPE, we are even hearing positive noises from Mist about on-prem. Who would have dared to predict that a few years ago? On-prem is an important market for HPE Aruba Networking. Not only for historical reasons and installed base, but especially now for sovereignty considerations. One of the next paragraphs gets into this a bit more. “We treat Central on-prem the same as the cloud version,” according to Ni. “We can even bring all the AI goodness to air-gapped environments.” That is potentially very interesting. Although HPE trains the models in the cloud, all the necessary inferencing can take place on-prem.
Please note that when it comes to HPE Aruba Networking Central On-Premises 3.0, as HPE calls the latest version of on-prem Aruba Central, there is no integration with the Mist components yet. However, that will happen, Aaron indicates. “At the moment, it is mostly Aruba IP, but there are already some Mist primitives in it,” Ni adds.
Aruba plus Juniper/Mist versus Cisco
When it comes to HPE’s head-on battle with Cisco, Aaron and Ni are clear. Once HPE has fully integrated the platforms, the joint platform will be better than Cisco’s. Ni points out that Cisco’s platform is not a single platform anyway, but a combination of Meraki and Catalyst. According to Ni, Cisco is completely rebuilding Meraki to enable integration with Catalyst. “That will take years,” he says.
It is also true that the integration of Meraki and Catalyst is not happening very quickly. A lot has to be integrated into platforms that have been around for so long. The fact that Cisco is doing this step by step may be an indication that it is a lot of work and that it is being rebuilt bit by bit.
However, it’s not all about rebuilding the architecture. The underlying Meraki architecture was already being steadily brought up to date even before the official merger of Meraki and Catalyst was announced. Underneath and for the most part, it has not been based on monolithic design principles for quite some time, as far as we know. The impact of merging two platforms of that size on the market and on customers should certainly not be underestimated. In any case, it is another good reason why Cisco needs to take a step-by-step approach. Call it the law of the inhibiting lead.
Sovereignty
We already mentioned it briefly above. Sovereignty is an important topic within HPE. Earlier this year, in an interview with HPE CEO Antonio Neri, we asked what impact it has on a supplier such as HPE. According to him, it was mainly a matter of offering air-gapped versions of the product range. He cited air-gapped GreenLake as the main example. The latest on-prem version of Aruba Central follows in the same vein.
Here, too, Ni discusses the difference between how Cisco approaches sovereignty and how HPE views it. “Cisco takes old technology and says it’s sovereign,” he says. He is referring to Cisco’s September announcement of Cisco Sovereign Critical Infrastructure. This is a portfolio of existing products that Cisco has made sovereign, among other things by making external access from Cisco impossible. During Cisco’s recent Partner Summit, people at that company told us that this offering was very popular immediately after launch. Customers had really asked for it and were very happy with it.
HPE has clearly opted for a different strategy, one in which it is primarily the management layers that must guarantee sovereignty. This underscores something we have already realized: the discussion surrounding sovereignty is largely an emotional one. Technically, it is possible to make things sovereign in all kinds of ways.
You could say that a complete portfolio of sovereign products (which are actually no different from the non-sovereign variants in terms of hardware) is not necessary at all. Why not just make it possible to make a non-sovereign product sovereign with the flick of a switch? In that respect, Cisco’s portfolio seems unnecessary to us, even though doing it hard-coded makes it impossible to revert such a decision. On the other hand, it does provide clarity to customers. That is also valuable. Cisco can take it take it to market relatively quickly too. That is, of course, also an important consideration for Cisco. However, it is important to ensure that sovereign products and services do not spring up everywhere. Otherwise, you run the risk of the whole thing becoming confusing.
Aruba and Mist want to take Cisco’s crown together
The future for HPE Aruba Networking and the Mist division of HPE Juniper Networking is clear. HPE is working towards a complete merger of the functionality of both platforms. The advance announcement of the first Wi-Fi 7 access point (available this summer) that can run both HPE Aruba Networking Central and HPE Juniper Networking Mist is a first step in that direction. Ultimately, the two management environments will undoubtedly merge. However, Aaron does not see that happening in the near future. “From Wi-Fi 8 onwards, it will probably be one line,” he says. Based on the speed with which HPE has made the first integrations, that sounds realistic.
Whether the combined strength of HPE Aruba Networking and HPE Juniper Networking will be enough to knock Cisco off its throne remains to be seen. Of course, it’s about more than just Aruba Central and Mist together against Meraki and Catalyst. Even after HPE’s acquisition of Juniper, Cisco is still by far the largest network player in the world. Add to that the fact that they are certainly not sitting still, and the battle is far from over or decided. With the merger of Aruba and Juniper, things are set to get a lot more interesting.