Antonio Neri: HPE Aruba Set To Make Data Center Switching Gambit

“We believe we have the right to play there, and customers are asking us to manage that with a consistent experience,” said HPE CEO Antonio Neri. “That is where the Aruba experience brings us to the table, because the way we manage those ports—whether it is in the branch, the campus or top of rack—is the same thing.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is poised to move into the core data center switching market and further into security as it expands its GreenLake pay-per-use footprint, said HPE CEO Antonio Neri at the company’s annual securities analyst meeting Wednesday.

The data center switching gambit, combined with increased security offerings, will increase HPE Aruba’s total addressable edge market opportunity from $48 billion to $91 billion by 2025, said Neri. “Yes, we are going to be in data center switching because we have an integrated experience now which will nearly double our [edge] opportunity,” he said.

The HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud architecture has opened the door for HPE to “build a modularized set of product offerings for the top of rack and eventually in the data center itself,” said Neri. “So we believe we have the right to play there, and customers are asking us to manage that with a consistent experience. That is where the Aruba experience brings us to the table, because the way we manage those ports—whether it is in the branch, the campus or top of rack—is the same thing.”

[Related: Antonio Neri: ‘The Entire Company Inside GreenLake’ Is HPE’s Future]

The switching additions would build out the HPE Aruba portfolio into the upper-most reaches of the data center to address even the most data-intensive hyperscaler and enterprise networking capabilities.

Neri told analysts that the data center switching expansion is a “natural extension” of HPE Aruba’s current switching portfolio. “We provide a very comprehensive portfolio in the campus and branch with switching WiFi [with Aruba],” he said. “As I think about the edge of the data center and then eventually the core data center, we have architected over the last few years an operating system that allows us to bring those features, capabilities and functionality into the same operating system.”

HPE Aruba Intelligent Edge President Phil Mottram, for his part, told analysts that the data center switching gambit is “not a big step” from the current Aruba product set. “If you take the portfolio that we already have today we are about 80 percent there from a starting perspective, so it is just adding more features and functionality that large enterprises would want in the data center space,” he said.

HPE Aruba already has some data center switching products, said Mottram, but the expanded portfolio will lead to “incremental sales” not just for Aruba but also for the HPE storage and compute business. “From a company investment perspective, it’s a good call,” he said.

The expanded HPE Aruba switching charge is an “18-month investment,” said Mottram, without detailing when the products are expected to hit the market. He said the new products could be used by both enterprises and hyperscalers, but that HPE would initially target enterprise customers.

Security, 5G Investments Under Consideration Too

HPE is also evaluating whether it should invest further in the SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) market with additional security capabilities, said Mottram.

“There is a convergence in the market between networking and security, so the market is more heading toward secure connectivity,” he said. “Today we partner there and have some of our own products. We are evaluating whether we should invest further there.”

Last but not least, HPE Aruba is also looking at making further investments in private 5G, said Mottram. “Some customers are considering private 5G for outdoor use cases,” he said. “Today we have a partnership relationship supporting our activities in private 5G and we are evaluating whether we should do more either on a build, buy or continued partner basis.”

Paul Cohen, vice president of sales for PKA, one of HPE’s top GreenLake and Aruba partners, said customers are anxious for an alternative to Cisco and Arista in the data center switching market.

“There are a lot of loyal Aruba customers that are excited to see an alternative to Cisco and Arista in the data center market,” he said. “We are super excited about the opportunity and look forward to general availability of those products.”