Announcements include new HPE Aruba Networking CX switches, integration with Juniper Mist AIOps to optimize connectivity across distributed store environments, and upgrades to HPE Nonstop Compute to improve system availability.
The latest additions to HPE’s product portfolio are aimed at helping retailers, branch operators and edge customers to quickly set up and more easily manage remote operations.
The new and enhanced products, which were announced at the National Retail Federation’s annual show, include: a new HPE Aruba Networking CX 6000 Switch; integration of the AI-based Marvis virtual network assistant with HPE Juniper Networking analytics; a new network sensor that supports Wi-Fi 7 and offers customers a view of end-user activities; and upgrades to HPE’s Nonstop Compute fault-tolerant technology, such as greater capacity and data encryption capabilities.
The 8-port, Layer 2 CX 6000 series supports up to 104 Gbps in nonblocking bandwidth and up to 77.3 Mpps for forwarding. It’s based on the HPE Aruba Networking ASIC architecture and runs the programmable HPE Aruba Networking CX Operating System.
The CX 6000 family includes five fixed 1U models that support 24 and 48 access ports of IEEE 802.3 1GbE with four built-in 1GbE uplink SFP ports. The 24-port PoE models support up to 370W, and the 48-port PoE models support up to 740W IEEE 802.3at Class 4 Power over Ethernet for up to 30W per port. It includes support for Power over Ethernet (PoE) and non-PoE models to link point-of-sale (POS) terminals, IoT devices, cameras and staff systems to the network, according to Gayle Levin, product marketing, HPE Networking.
HPE Aruba is seeing greater demand among retailers with smart stores that need the small form factor of the CX 6000 to support point of sale, digital signage, and other devices, Levin said. “The new form factor makes it easy for even the smallest retailers to do that cost effectively,” Levin said.
On the AI side, HPE is integrating its natural-language network assistant Marvis with its Retail Insights package and HPE Juniper Networking Premium Analytics. The HPE Retail Insights package lets retailer customers understand in-store customer behavior and location intelligence using Wi-Fi and sensor data to improve layout, staffing, and sales performance, according to HPE. The Juniper Networking Premium Analytics package brings real-time visibility into network performance and application performance as well as user behavior metrics across wired, wireless, WAN and cloud environments.
The package also integrates information from HPE Aruba Networking User Experience Insight sensors and agents, which now include support for WiFi 7 networks. The combination can measure end-user activity and allow IT teams to baseline network performance, continuously test network health, track trends, and plan for device growth and AI-native use cases, according to Levin.
By integrating all of this information, retailers— as well as customers with lots of branch office and remote operations— move from reactive troubleshooting to proactive decision-making, Levin said. In addition, it makes it easier for those customers to automate and simplify their IT operations.
“Ultimately, our objective is to get to self-driving network operations, where there is automated remediation, and that will allow retailers to power those immersive experiences [and] have all the information they need at their fingertips to support AI initiatives,” Levin said.
For its retail and other customers that utilize its Nonstop server system, the company has expanded the number of nodes it supports from 255 clustered nodes to 4,000.
In addition, the Nonstop OS also now supports multifactor authentication (MFA) and data encryption technology, which are increasingly important factors in retail operations as regulations, such as GDPR and PCI compliance, continue to evolve, according to HPE.
HPE Nonstop systems include compute, software, storage, networking and database resources as well as full-system clustering and HPE’s specialized Nonstop operating system which promise 24×7, fault tolerant connectivity for attached resources. Last year the company expanded the Nonstop server line with a new top-end 8TB, Intel Xeon-based Nonstop Compute NS9 X5 and entry level Nonstop Compute NS5 X5.
The flagship NS9 X5 features support for dual-fabric HDR200 InfiniBand interconnect, which effectively doubles the interconnect bandwidth between it and other servers compared to the current NS8 X4, according to an HPE blog detailing the new servers. It supports up to 270 networking ports per NS9 X system, can be clustered with up to 16 other NS9 X5s, and can support 25 GbE network connectivity for modern data center integration and high-throughput applications, according to HPE.
HPE added that a software-based version of its Nonstop technology is available to run on standard infrastructure or cloud environments.
The HPE Nonstop enhancements and HPE Aruba Networking CX 6000 Switch Series are available now.
