With restrictions imposed by governments, businesses worldwide are adapting to a new normal, which is a shifting picture of working from home and office-based in combination. Digital transformation is accelerated with measures taken to contain the covid-19 virus. Social distancing means more workers work remotely, and room capacity is restricted to prevent close contact between occupants.
Cloud systems, data centers, and departmental servers connecting remote employees and the company’s data have become even more vital. With the technology demands, organizations have to adapt quickly to changing requirements to ensure business continuity.
This results in a more distributed organization and IT network, and even when COVID can be contained, 53% of newly remote workers want to stay remote.
Network infrastructure and operations teams have become more stretched. Operational complexity has increased with the complications from a remote workforce, the need to provide secure connectivity to services hosted in the cloud and data centres, and the rapid growth of IoT connected devices.
Companies are continuing to increase cloud, IoT, and other technologies to accelerate their digital strategies. One of the ways to reduce IT complexity is to deploy a unified network infrastructure that is centrally managed via a single point of control.
Specifically designed to simplify the network management lifecycle and address fragmented network operations is the Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform).
Aruba ESP’s key component — Aruba Unified Infrastructure embraces a single operational model across the infrastructure. This unifies and improves IT operations with a cloud-native single point of control for WLAN, LAN, and SD-WAN across campus, branch, remote worker, and data center locations.
Aruba Central orchestrates Aruba’s Unified Infrastructure by providing the scalability and resilience needed for mission-critical environments across the distributed edge.
Being the command center, Aruba Central delivers management through a single-pane-of-glass, allowing IT to provide a full range of intelligent edge services, including:
- AIOps to ensure the best user experience at all times, irrespective of location.
- Automation and orchestration to accelerate deployments and simplify ongoing change windows.
- Software-defined policies to streamline and reinforce security postures.
Aruba strengthens security postures without disrupting the performance of networks by providing operators with the ability to balance security and access requirements for users, devices, and applications. At the same time, embedded AIOps enables IT to continuously monitor and proactively resolve issues before end users are impacted, eliminating network downtime by immensely reducing the need to plan for any scheduled network maintenance or resolve unplanned outages.
The key benefits of Aruba’s Unified Infrastructure are:
- Improve IT efficiency with a cloud-native single pane of glass for WLAN, LAN, and SD-WAN operations across campus, branch, remote worker, and data center locations.
- Optimize user experience with AI-powered insights that find and fix issues before the business is impacted.
- Simplify and strengthen security with policies that are easily deployed and enforced across all network domains.
- Right-size costs with flexible deployment models that supplement existing IT resources and preserve budgets.
- Gain extensibility and accelerate innovation by easily integrating with existing Aruba and third-party infrastructure.
Understanding the need to become one of the most connected organizations in operation is Singapore Press Holdings Limited (SPH). The company made the decision to modernize by deploying ClearPass as a single management tool providing full visibility over many types of endpoints. ClearPass also extended role-based access control with granular policies, replacing multiple authentication servers that presented configuration challenges to the detriment of security Aruba was selected to create a better-connected and future-proof workplace providing connectivity, speed and — especially — security at scale for SPH’s employees.
“We are moving into the new digital future, not only through the way we deliver the news but through constant innovation to build the workplace of the future”, said Glen Francis, Chief Technology Officer at SPH.
“The pandemic accelerated the agenda to strengthen our technological foundations, so we can improve work quality and streamline processes with an enhanced network infrastructure. Mobility and agility will be key driving forces in the evolving ‘anywhere’ office,” he added.
Meanwhile, Walt Disney World Resort, also known as the “happiest place on Earth”, has already deployed Aruba Wi-Fi infrastructure and IoT solutions at five of its resorts, with plans to add to its remaining 24 hotels by 2021.
Seoul Dragon City, a large-scale hotel-plex, also partnered with Aruba for networking solutions. Young Sok Choi, IT Director of Seoul Dragon City, explained that Aruba CX switches deliver extra security and speed, and its solutions help fulfill the hotel’s current needs and plans.
“As South Korea’s largest hotel, we needed a reliable network solution to support a number of mobile devices and users. We also needed to build a network infrastructure to support customer service through loT and cloud. Aruba state-of-the-art network provides reliable, fast networking to deliver seamless connectivity to our employees and customers visiting Seoul Dragon City,” Young said.
Aruba Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 5 access points (APs) are ideal for both midsize and large enterprises. They are certified to deliver secure and reliable connectivity to mobile users, IoT devices, and latency-sensitive applications – even in crowded areas.
Its technology is guaranteed to deliver complete feature availability and device interoperability with customers gaining unmatched technical capabilities engineered for the most demanding environments.
Furthermore, Aruba CX switches utilize a cloud-native design to provide the performance, scale, and intelligence needed by modern enterprise networks. A distributed, non-blocking architecture delivers the performance and reliability required to meet growing network demands that end-users expect.
The unique benefits of Aruba ESP across wired, wireless, SD-WAN and remote work environments help simplify IT operations and deliver the performance and security needed today. To experience Aruba Central the best way possible and discover the difference a unified infrastructure can make for your business, please visit Aruba ESP.