Unifed SASE – Solution for Modern Work Environments

In today’s digital age, the traditional workplace is evolving. Remote work—at least to some degree—is here to stay. Despite the growing trend and many benefits of flexibility, improved work-life balance, and increased productivity, it has also introduced a slew of challenges and areas of opportunity for businesses—chief among them: ensuring secure, reliable, and efficient connectivity for dispersed teams. In response to this shift, businesses must prioritize innovative technologies and strategies that not only accommodate remote workers but also fortify the ever-expanding digital perimeter. Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) has emerged as a pivotal solution to address the intricate demands of modern work environments.

Unified SASE is not just another tech buzzword; it’s the answer to modern connectivity and security challenges. By combining Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) and Security Service Edge (SSE) into one cohesive platform, it gives businesses the best of both worlds: optimized network performance and leading security protocols.

 

How Does Unified SASE Address Remote Workforce Challenges?

From unstable internet connections to security vulnerabilities, remote work comes with its share of unique, and potentially crippling, challenges. Unified SASE addresses many of these concerns by offering:

• Improved Connectivity: With SASE, remote employees can reliably access company resources without the hiccups of traditional VPNs. Intelligent routing ensures traffic takes the most efficient path, minimizing latency, while the unified SASE approach integrates all components for both security and network performance under one umbrella.
• Enhanced Security: As the perimeter of the office expands to homes and coffee shops, so do security risks. Unified SASE solutions can centralize and bolster your defenses. By applying universal policies and streamlining security management across all traffic and locations, you get infinitely more robust protection for your dispersed teams.
• Scalability: As your business grows, so does your remote workforce. These solutions are inherently scalable, which makes it easy to onboard new employees and expand your network infrastructure without compromising on security or performance.
• Simplified Management: Juggling multiple solutions for connectivity and security presents a logistical recipe for disaster. With a this solution, your IT teams can easily configure, monitor, and adjust settings through a centralized dashboard, ensuring consistent policies and performance across the board.

Powering the Future of Remote Work

The remote workforce is here to stay, and your business needs to keep up with the growing trend to remain competitive. Unified SASE offers an integrated and adaptive framework that helps you ensure optimal performance while maintaining the integrity of your security posture.

Unified SASE represents the next step in the evolution of secure, efficient connectivity—and Aruba Networks is at the forefront of this revolution. Offering advanced expertise in Aruba Networks’ SASE technology, Zunesis can help you implement unified this solution to streamline your network management, bolster security across all remote endpoints, and guarantee a seamless, high-performance experience for your dispersed teams.

For more information about unified SASE, contact us here.

Education and Technology

I recently had the pleasure of attending the 2022 Colorado Association of Leaders in Education Technology (CALET) “Winter Leadership Conference” as a sponsor (on behalf of Aruba Networks and Zunesis.) This annual event brings together Information Technology leaders from primary education institutions all over the state of Colorado. They discuss new innovations, challenges, best practices, and ideas for the future.

Technology has helped aid education for decades. Its significance has increased substantially over the last few years, especially so after the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic. While manning the Aruba/Zunesis booth, I had great conversations with IT Directors, Network Admins, CTO’s and others, about technological challenges they face in today’s K-12 education landscape. I shared with attendees about the many ways that we are trying to help K-12 education customers navigate these challenge. I wanted to share with the rest of you some ways that we can help. Particularly with Aruba Networks.

 

High-Performance Wireless Networks for  K-12 Student Success

1. Aruba’s Wi-Fi 6 (802.11.ax) infrastructure is designed to support schools of any size with always-on secure connectivity. Seamless roaming allows network access on the move. While high-density capabilities support large classrooms, auditoriums, and outdoor facilities. Learning management and unified communications systems can be prioritized to deliver latency-sensitive data, voice, and video without delay, loss, or jitter.
2. Unified infrastructure: Aruba offers a unified infrastructure from edge to core with wired and wireless networks that work together to deliver a consistent and secure network experience. Aruba designs its own semiconductors so its switches can provide blazing fast and highly granular visibility into the performance of the switching fabric. SmartRate power-over-Ethernet (PoE) allows Wi-Fi 6 access points to operate at >1Gbps over existing cabling, eliminating the need to rip and replace cable plants to obtain multi-gigabit wireless performance.
3. The Network Analytics Engine (NAE), included with AOS-CX, provides a built-in framework for monitoring and troubleshooting networks. NAE detects problems in real-time and analyzes trends using the time-series database so IT can predict future performance and security issues.
4. With ClearPass Policy Manager, devices are profiled, authenticated, authorized, and tightly managed network access using granular, policy-based access controls once they are identified on the network. Users and devices have restricted access to only those network, IT, and application resources for which they have been approved. ClearPass also ensures that users and devices are compliant with regulations governing student privacy and personally identifiable information
5. Aruba Wi-Fi 6 access points include radios for wayfinding, geofencing, location tracking, sensor monitoring, door locking, and actuator control. These capabilities transform Aruba access points into secure, multi-purpose communication systems that are both network access on-ramps and full-fledged IoT platforms.
6. AI-based Maching Learning: Aruba delivers customized recommendations through AI-based machine learning to improve network and application performance based on anonymized comparison with peer environments. If a change could increase performance by 10%, it is recommended to the Network Admin who can then authorize the settings to change. Aruba User Experience Insight provides IT a real-time view of the end-user experience and clear action steps to resolve any issues before a service ticket is opened. These powerful tools bring much-needed help to enable already overwhelmed IT staff to take necessary action and stay ahead of issues.

E-rate

I covered some key technological solutions that Aruba Networks is offering but I didn’t even get to the best part: E-rate. School districts across the country depend on E-rate funding to make infrastructure systems and telecommunication more affordable. Aruba not only has an entire catalog of E-rate eligible networking solutions but even provides an entire team of E-rate professionals to guide customers through the process and maximize their IT spend.

 

Contact Zunesis to find out how we can assist K-12 schools.

Additional Resources: 

Aruba Solutions for Primary Education  

Aruba Solutions Primary Education E-rate

 

Back in March which seems like ages ago, Aruba Networks announced the release of Aruba ESP. It’s the industry’s first cloud-native platform designed to automate, unify and secure the Edge. Why the need for this new platform in today’s world? What are its secret powers for your network?  And, how does it work?

 

Why the Need for Aruba ESP?

According to IDC, 55 billion devices will be connected within the next two years and are expected to generate 79.4ZB of data by 2025. Combine that with the shifts to work from home and distributed work forces, there is a definite need for the right tools to keep pace. With this large amount of data at the Edge, today’s networks and the teams that manage them are struggling to keep up.

Organizations need to ensure they have the right network foundation while being ready for the next big technology transition or event. This is where the need for Aruba ESP came in.  Aruba ESP combines AIOps, Zero Trust Security, and a Unified Infrastructure.

 

What can Aruba ESP do?

 

 

It helps IT with the following:

• Identify and resolve issues quickly, preempting problems before they impact the business.
• Protect against advanced threats from a vanishing security perimeter.
• Monitor and manage thousands of wired, wireless and WAN devices across campus, branch, data center, or remote worker locations.
• Quickly deploy network services at scale at support changing business needs.
• Allow continued infrastructure investment in the face of uncertain financial changes.

Aruba ESP offers services at the Edge that include onboarding, provisioning, orchestration, analytics, location and management. These are accessed through Aruba Central. The SaaS consumption model enables rapid deployment and provides unified management, AIOps, and security. Through Central, network admins can use AI insights to help quickly troubleshoot, identify, and resolve issues before issues occur.

 

Significant innovations within Aruba ESP

Several new innovations are within the Aruba ESP platform:

• Cloud-native management for any size enterprise: The industry’s only controller-less, cloud-based platform that provides full-stack management and operations for wired, wireless and SD-WAN infrastructure of any size campus, data center, branch, and remote worker locations to be consumed on-premises or in the cloud.
• Simplified daily operations with unified infrastructure: The latest version of Aruba Central has simplified navigation, advanced search, and contextual views.
• Reduced resolution time with AI and automation: Aruba’s new AI Insights reduces troubleshooting time by identifying hard-to-see network configuration issues and providing root-cause, prescriptive recommendations and automated remediation to continuously optimize network operations.
• AI-powered IT Efficiencies: AI Search enables IT Teams to eliminate “swivel chair” investigations. AI Assist uses event-driven automation to collect and post all relevant data for both the internal help desk and Aruba Technical Assistance Center (TAC)
• Granular visibility across applications, devices and the network: User-center analytics from User Experience Insight to identify client, application, and network performance issues faster.
• Extension of next-gen switching to distributed and mid-size enterprises: The Aruba CX6200 switch series brings built-in analytics and automation capabilities to every network edge where user and device connectivity occurs, generating insights that can be applied to informing better business outcomes.
• Ongoing innovation with new Developer Hub: A comprehensive resource for developers that includes Aruba APIs and documentation to streamline the development of innovative, next-generation edge applications leveraging the open Aruba ESP platform.

Recently, new enhancements were announced that help unify IoT, IT and Operational Technology networks to enable customers to quickly adapt to changing environments and user requirements. Unifying these networks, enables hyper-aware facilities that are safer, more adaptive, and enhance productivity. This is a big leap forward over what can be achieved with basic connectivity and machine learning-based monitoring.

These enhancements are integral to sensing, analyzing, and reacting to device data and contextual information. Virtually every subsystem spanning machine inputs and outputs (I/O) on a manufacturing floor through multimedia devices in the CEO suite can be accommodated. Solutions are available for education, enterprise, healthcare, hospitality, industrial, manufacturing, retail, transportation and government applications.

 

Some Use Cases

Some use cases with Aruba ESP-based hyper-awareness include smart buildings, industrial/manufacturing facilities and the broader Intelligent Edge.

Hyper-aware smart buildings for enterprises, education, healthcare, hospitality, retail, and government:

1. Building control and digital twin enablement: Identify sub-optimized processes, recommend operational enhancements, and monitor the trajectory of energy usage needed for proactive interventions.
2. Context- Aware, real-time integrated emergency response and notification.: It actively communicates with tenants, visitors and staff. The use of 4D Graphics for first responders enables them to quickly see where people are within buildings.
3. Seamless extension of the 5G Footprint with Wi-Fi: Mobile operators can extend 5G footprint into the building. It seamlessly powers Wi-Fi calling using Aruba Air Slice Technology.

Hyper-aware industrial facilities:

1. Migrating from break/fix to proactive maintenance: Enables machinery sensors to monitor equipment to identify points of failure. Notifies before they happen, improve productivity, reliability, and efficiency.
2. Reducing mean time to repair with location services: Provides site occupants with turn-by-turn navigation to a destination without human assistance.
3. Monitoring personnel and asset safety: Can deliver real-time 3D situational awareness by tracking the location of people and assets.  It can integrate with automated ventilation, geofencing, and vehicular navigation systems.

Aruba ESP produces AI- powered insights with greater than 95% accuracy.  It helps automatically improve communications and visibility across and among IoT, IT and OT Networks.

Have more questions about Aruba ESP? Attend our webinar on September 30^th or reach out to one of our account reps to learn more.

In this post, I want to take a look at Aruba’s latest addition to their switching portfolio – the 2930m.

 

The 2930m is the modular brother to the 2930f (fixed) switch, which been selling for a number of months. The 2930m is the long-awaited replacement for the older 2920 switch, one of the best-selling switches ever for HPE networking, and includes some configurable options that are not available on the 2930f.

 

The new 2930m has configurable redundant power supplies, modular backplane stacking, higher stacking density, extremely high PoE capabilities, and a more advanced (but still not complete) layer 3 feature set for the modern edge network. The uplinks are also configurable on the 2930m, allowing for 1x 40G QSFP+ port, 4x 10G SFP+ ports, or 4x 10G SmartRate ports (1, 2.5, 5, or 10G copper ports depending on the capabilities of the device plugged into each port).

 

In addition to the data sheet below, I wanted to supply you with some information for quick reference. The best way to depict this information will be in table format, so we can compare the older 2920, the fixed configuration 2930f, and the new 2930m:

 

 

For more detailed information on this new switch, please download the data sheet here.

Deploying an enterprise wireless solution can be a challenging task,

especially for IT administrators tasked with supporting multiple sites. In order to ensure good performance, network administrators would often have to perform a site survey at each location to discover areas of RF coverage and interference, and then manually configure each AP according to the results of this survey.

 

Static site surveys can help you choose channel and power assignments for AP’s. However, these surveys are often time-consuming and expensive, and they only reflect the state of the network at a single point in time. RF environments are always changing, and new sources of interference pop up all the time – whether it’s the microwave in the break room that only gets used around lunch time or a new tenant down the hall who put in a new access point. If your wireless solution is not able to adapt to these changes on the fly, then users will have a poor experience. This means your IT department will experience higher call volumes.

 

Aruba Networks has developed a feature within their operating system to address these ever-changing wireless environments: Adaptive Radio Management (ARM).

 

ARM maximizes WLAN performance even in the highest traffic networks by dynamically and intelligently choosing the best 802.11 wireless channel and transmit power for each Aruba Access Point in its current RF environment. ARM solves wireless networking challenges such as large deployments, dense deployments, and installations that must support VoIP or mobile users.

 

Deployments with dozens of users per access point can cause network contention and interference, but ARM dynamically monitors and adjusts the network to ensure that all users are allowed ready access. ARM provides the best voice call quality with voice-aware spectrum scanning and call admission control.

 

When ARM is enabled it will continuously scan the air on all 802.11 channels and report back what it sees to the controller. You can retrieve this information from the controller or push the data to Airwave to get a quick health check of your WLAN deployment. You can do all of this without having to walk around every part of a building with a network analyzer tool.

 

In addition to all this, there are some exciting changes coming to the ARM technology and the Aruba Operating System in general with the 8.0 update, make sure you engage your local Aruba resources for more information.

 

Mobility Challenge

As Mobility trends continue to transform the way we communicate, collaborate, and access information, enterprises are taking a wireless-first approach to connectivity. They need mobile networking solutions that allow enterprises to easily accommodate smartphones, tablets, and other personal devices on internal networks, while keeping them safe with the most robust security features available.
 
While “bring your own device” is great for the user, CIOs are faced with the challenge of transitioning legacy systems to the wireless edge while providing enterprise-class security and an optimized mobile application experience.
 
At the same time, the industry is about to go through the next major wave of wireless protocol roll-out with 802.11ac, ushering in another significant change in wireless performance. Over the next 3-5 years, we believe this wave will drive a massive network refresh not just to customers’ wireless access points, but to their campus switches as well.

Answering the Need

 
All of this creates a tremendous opportunity in the industry – and that’s where HPE comes in. About a year ago, HPE acquired Aruba Networks, a leading provider of next-generation network access solutions for mobile enterprise. Aruba designs and delivers best-of-breed mobility solutions and WLAN products and employs a software approach that extends mobility intelligence across wired and wireless networks all the way to users through devices and apps.
 
Combining Aruba and HPE will create a leader in enterprise mobility, positioning HPE to enable and accelerate customers’ transition to a converged campus network. The two companies are highly complementary – Aruba brings best-of-breed mobility software and WLAN hardware, and HPE has a leading networking portfolio. This potent combination will enable enterprises to easily, quickly, and securely deploy end-to-end mobile solutions, including the latest multi-gigabit wireless technology, across their campus. Together, HPE and Aruba will offer a unified solution with value-added software features, including policy management, security, and orchestration.
 
According to Antonio Neri, Executive Vice President and General Manager – Hewlett Packard Enterprise Group, “Ultimately, with Aruba’s leading wireless LAN technology and differentiated software solutions, coupled with HPE’s robust switching portfolio, HPE Networking will have market leadership in the $18 billion and growing campus networking market. HPE will be an innovative, agile vendor ideally positioned to solve customers’ toughest challenges in mobility, security and networking.”
 
 
 
 

Mobility Challenge

As Mobility trends continue to transform the way we communicate, collaborate, and access information, enterprises are taking a wireless-first approach to connectivity. They need mobile networking solutions that allow enterprises to easily accommodate smartphones, tablets, and other personal devices on internal networks, while keeping them safe with the most robust security features available.

 

While “bring your own device” is great for the user, CIOs are faced with the challenge of transitioning legacy systems to the wireless edge while providing enterprise-class security and an optimized mobile application experience.

 

At the same time, the industry is about to go through the next major wave of wireless protocol roll-out with 802.11ac, ushering in another significant change in wireless performance. Over the next 3-5 years, we believe this wave will drive a massive network refresh not just to customers’ wireless access points, but to their campus switches as well.

Answering the Need

 

All of this creates a tremendous opportunity in the industry – and that’s where HPE comes in. About a year ago, HPE acquired Aruba Networks, a leading provider of next-generation network access solutions for mobile enterprise. Aruba designs and delivers best-of-breed mobility solutions and WLAN products and employs a software approach that extends mobility intelligence across wired and wireless networks all the way to users through devices and apps.

 

Combining Aruba and HPE will create a leader in enterprise mobility, positioning HPE to enable and accelerate customers’ transition to a converged campus network. The two companies are highly complementary – Aruba brings best-of-breed mobility software and WLAN hardware, and HPE has a leading networking portfolio. This potent combination will enable enterprises to easily, quickly, and securely deploy end-to-end mobile solutions, including the latest multi-gigabit wireless technology, across their campus. Together, HPE and Aruba will offer a unified solution with value-added software features, including policy management, security, and orchestration.

 

According to Antonio Neri, Executive Vice President and General Manager – Hewlett Packard Enterprise Group, “Ultimately, with Aruba’s leading wireless LAN technology and differentiated software solutions, coupled with HPE’s robust switching portfolio, HPE Networking will have market leadership in the $18 billion and growing campus networking market. HPE will be an innovative, agile vendor ideally positioned to solve customers’ toughest challenges in mobility, security and networking.”