Prakash Krishnamoorthy
Director 
Aruba India

PROMISING 2020 

Aruba started the year by recently launching globally the ArubaEdge Services Platform (ESP), networks with AI-powered sixth sense. This is the culmination of a multi-year journey focused to Unify, Automate and Secure the network for customers across wired and wireless domains. Aruba ESP is designed to deliver a cloud experience at the edge and can be consumed either as a service in the cloud or on-premises, as a managed service delivered through Aruba partners, or via network as a service through HPE GreenLake. 

In an effort to continue to help its customers navigate challenging times in 2020, with the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, Aruba ESP is helping to architect the hybrid workplace, Re-imagine workplace. 

Since connecting from any device and from anywhere is the new norm, Aruba’s Zero Trust Framework to the security architecture provides Simple and Secure connectivity.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AGENDA 

The technology market undergoes a major transition about once every decade. The last two decades were centered on delivering ubiquitous mobility followed by the move to cloud-based applications. Aruba ESP is now entering an era of data analytics driven by IoT, AI and automation supported by compute and modern networking to power a new breed of applications and workloads that work in concert with the cloud but that operate at the edge. 

Enterprises are generating massive amounts of unstructured data at the edge which, if analyzed and acted upon properly, can be used to improve efficiencies, enhance experiences and enable new business outcomes. Digital is past, smart is present and autonomous is the future. Aruba Edge Services Platform (ESP), networks with AI-powered sixth sense is a step towards this.

CYBER SECURITY A PRIORITY 

The pandemic has changed the global cybersecurity landscape to all new unimagined vulnerability. There’s no question that the new state of work will be much different from business and office life prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Network is the best line of defence against any cyber attack. As organizations of all types embrace cloud, mobility and IoT, security has become an increasingly important consideration. 

Network security challenges have evolved significantly over the years as users have become increasingly decentralized and attacks have become more sophisticated and persistent. Traditional security approaches that focused primarily on the perimeter of the network have become ineffective as standalone security strategies. 

Zero Trust has emerged as an effective model to better address the changing security requirements for the modern enterprise. Aruba ESP with Zero Trust Security improves the overall network security posture by applying a more rigorous set of security best practices and controls to previously trusted network resources.  

DIGITAL INDIA MAKING STRIDES 

Aruba R&D efforts have focussed on solving problems for customers. It has remained focussed on listening to customers and using technology to solve their problems. Additionally Aruba has looked at all the learning, insights and data that it gathers to perfect models using machine learning technologies and incorporate them in products like the Analytics engine built in its Data Centre Switches. Thirdly Aruba looks at converging technologies to create new efficiencies and compelling alternatives like combining the emerging technologies of Mobility, Cloud and IoT to create compelling technologies. 

Aruba has been actively participating in all the Digital India initiatives across the country and has been a partner to the Government in several Smart City Initiatives, City WiFi Initiatives, Rural WiFi Initiatives, Digital Campus Initiatives both at Centre and the states and been part of several transformative initiatives outlined by the government. 

In the Covid scenario, Aruba joined hands with the government to collectively fight the pandemic. HPE has completed deployment of four COVID-19 Test Labs and four Outpatient Department (OPD) Centres across the country to assist the Government of India and state governments in their efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. These Test Labs are run and managed by the concerned government agency and the IT infrastructure at the Test Labs and OPD centres are equipped with Aruba Cloud Managed Wireless solution along with Aruba User Experience Insight (UXI) Sensor. The initiatives of the Government both under the Digital India framework and outside will always be priority avenues for Aruba to partner with and develop solutions.