Analyst(s): Ron Westfall
Publication Date: August 9, 2024
The News: Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced the expansion of its security-first, AI-powered networking portfolio with the introduction of behavioral analytics-based network detection and response (NDR) capabilities, delivered by HPE Aruba Networking. Read the full press release on the HPE website.
Black Hat 2024: HPE Aruba Networking Enlists AI to Fortify Cyber Defenses
Analyst Take: HPE Aruba Networking is introducing behavioral analytics-based NDR capabilities delivered by HPE Aruba Networking Central. Moreover, HPE is enhancing the company’s cloud-based universal zero-trust network architecture (ZTNA) approach by extending its reach to campus-based local area networks. This new local edge capability is designed to bring the same access control policies defined for the cloud directly to campuses and data centers, delivering an improved user experience and consistent enforcement regardless of a user’s location or connection method.
The new NDR solution uses telemetry from HPE Aruba Networking Central’s data lake to train and deploy AI models to monitor and detect unusual activity in vulnerable IoT devices that play an increasingly important role in supporting mission-critical business processes. As the opportunity grows for IoT to provide organizations with data to train and activate Generative AI (GenAI) models, so too does the critical need to detect changes in network traffic patterns, connection status, or dynamic device attributes that are indicative of a successful compromise.
Moreover, to speed up threat response, HPE Aruba Networking Central combines attack detection with new policy recommendations to protect against threats by intercepting potential attacks. To ensure recommendations will not disrupt network operations, teams can also preview changes to their security policies before implementation as part of their enforcement and response workflow.
From my view, ZTNA is vital to providing secure remote access to services and applications based on access control policies. In contrast to VPNs that grant complete access to an organization’s network (i.e., local area network), ZTNA solutions default to denying, providing only the access to services and apps that the user is specifically granted. As a result, the identity-based authentication and access control found in ZTNA services provides a compelling alternative to IP-based access control usually implemented with most VPN configurations, thereby reducing an organization’s attack surface.
Aruba Networking Central: HPE’s Cyber Defense Advantage
HPE Aruba Networking Central provides customers with a streamlined view into the entire network infrastructure, including private cellular, Wi-Fi, wired, and SD-WAN applications, allowing administrators to monitor and manage devices, applications, and users from a unified interface. This centralized approach streamlines network operations and troubleshooting, enhancing overall NDR and ZTNA access control policy management agility. These new capabilities are augmented by the AI-powered security observability and monitoring capabilities within HPE Aruba Networking Central, and HPE’s SSE firewall-as-service unveiled at the 2024 RSA Conference.
The HPE Aruba Networking Central solution integrates advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities across its networking solutions, including providing proactive insights and predictive analytics. By analyzing data behavioral patterns and trends, the solution helps identify potential issues before they impact network performance, enabling administrators to take preemptive action and ensure optimal network operation. LLMs play a significant role in enhancing observability within HPE Aruba’s networking solutions.
Also, HPE Aruba Networking Central incorporates large language model (LLM) functionality substantially enhancing the network’s ability to analyze and understand vast amounts of data. LLMs excel in processing and interpreting natural language, which allows them to ingest, analyze, and interpret network telemetry, logs, and other data sources more effectively.
With the integration of LLMs, HPE Aruba’s networking solutions exercise the ability to understand complex queries and commands in natural language, improving the user experience for network administrators. This capability enables administrators to interact with the network more intuitively, facilitating faster troubleshooting, configuration, and optimization tasks.
Key Takeaways: HPE Aruba Networking Unifies Enterprise Wireless Vision and Capabilities
I believe that the new NDR capabilities and ZTNA enhancements bolster the overall cybersecurity credentials of the HPE Aruba Networking Central proposition. HPE shows that using AI is integral to making its HPE Aruba Networking solutions smarter in key areas such as integrating behavioral analytics-based NDR capabilities.
The move reinforces that HPE Aruba Networking ZTNA minimizes risk and complexity by securing private app access for any user and any device from anywhere. As a result, HPE Aruba Networking offers a unified access control policy for application resources, whether on-premises or off-premises, to minimize redundancy and potential conflicts meeting the swiftly growing demand across security teams to implement zero trust security solutions.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
