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HPE Injects New Innovations Across HPE Aruba Switching and Connectivity Portfolio
HPE enhances its portfolio with new distributed services switches and expanded wired and wireless solutions to address the growing demands of AI and high-performance computing.
Key Highlights
- HPE unveils new distributed services switches and expands wired and wireless portfolio to fulfill fast evolving AI and high-performance computing demands.
- HPE Aruba Networking doubles performance capabilities of widely-deployed data center distributed services switches.
- The HPE Aruba Networking CX 10040 is HPE's latest distributed services switch doubling the scale and performance of the previous networking and security solution.
- Four new HPE Aruba Networking CX 6300M campus networking switches unveiled, aimed at accelerating IoT, AI, and HPC workloads with a more compact footprint.
- New Wi-Fi 7 APs and capabilities for AI-driven indoor and outdoor connectivity that aim to deliver the highest quality of service for data, voice, and video communications.
The News
Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced expansions of its HPE Aruba Networking wired and wireless portfolio, along with new HPE Aruba Networking CX 10K distributed services switches, which feature built-in programmable data processing units (DPU) from AMD Pensando to offload security and network services to free up resources for complex AI workload processing. Find out more by clicking here to read the press release.
Analyst Take
HPE's latest networking innovations include the HPE Aruba Networking CX 10040, a distributed services "smart switch" that doubles the scale and performance of its predecessor for enhanced networking and security, alongside four new CX 6300M campus switches that deliver faster data speeds for enterprise IoT, AI, and high-performance (HPC) computing in a compact form factor. The new switches are complemented by new Wi-Fi 7 access points with advanced AI-driven capabilities designed to optimize indoor and outdoor connectivity and ensure top-quality service for data, voice, and video communications.
The new distributed services smart switch offerings can transform the foundation of campus networking by moving beyond traditional three-tier architectures to adopt distributed, service-enriched network fabrics. This approach simplifies operations while significantly enhancing security and visibility. By embedding advanced features like L4 stateful inspection, DDoS mitigation, TCP anomaly detection, and precision telemetry directly into the switching infrastructure, the CX 10040 eliminates the reliance on separate security middleboxes and complex monitoring overlays, creating a more streamlined and efficient network fabric.
This intelligent architecture secures east-west traffic, detects anomalies at line speed, and provides native operational insights without requiring add-on solutions. Whether used as Top-of-Rack (TOR) switches in high-density cloud data centers, secure border leaf nodes for multi-cloud connectivity, or aggregation switches in collapsed-core enterprise campuses, the switch delivers consistent performance, robust control, and enhanced agility across diverse, distributed environments.
One key takeaway is that HPE Aruba Networking continues to demonstrate its commitment to empowering enterprises of all sizes and industries as the demands of AI, IoT, and high-performance computing grow, delivering solutions that are built to exceed industry standards with advantageous performance, security, and intelligence, in tandem with all-inclusive licensing for significant cost savings.
Why the DPU Factor Provide HPE Aruba Networking Competitive Advantages
Key advancements include the HPE Aruba Networking CX 10040 smart switch, which leverages an AMD Pensando DPU (Data Processing Unit) to double the scale and performance of the CX 10000 distributed services switch, supporting AI-driven computing with built-in firewalling, in-line encryption, and precision telemetry for enhanced security and server efficiency, alongside four new CX 6300 series campus switches that offer encryption protocols, precision timing, and application recognition and control (ARC) in a compact footprint to meet diverse data security, volume, and bandwidth SLAs.
From my perspective, Pesando DPUs are proving integral to the data center industry as they boost performance and efficiency by offloading tasks such as networking, security, and storage from conventional CPUs and GPUs. This results in better resource use, lower latency, and enhanced scalability for demanding applications such as AI, machine learning, and cloud computing.
Acquired by AMD in 2022 for $1.9 billion, Pensando DPUs combine programmable processors with sophisticated software, and shown it can deliver up to 8x to 13x performance improvements over competitors, enabling robust, secure, and high-performance infrastructure for hyperscale and enterprise data centers. They are used by major cloud providers, including Microsoft Azure and IBM Cloud, highlighting their importance in modernizing data centers in meeting the rising demands for speed, security, and efficiency.
Additionally, application-aware networking on the CX 5420 and 6200 series switches enables granular policy application to support AI, IoT, and high-performance computing data based on predefined SLAs, while the latest HPE Aruba Networking Central release provides secure, AI-powered network management across campus and data center environments, and the integration of HPE Morpheus VM Essentials with the CX 10000 Switch Series simplifies orchestration of virtualized and physical network and security services, including distributed firewall and microsegmentation across ESXi, KVM, and bare metal hosts, facilitating a transition to open virtualization without requiring a forklift upgrade.
Enterprises and cloud service providers are increasingly adopting the CX 10000 series' DPUs to secure AI agents. This early uptake highlights the DPUs' role in enhancing security for AI-driven applications.
HPE Shows Why ARC Matters
I find that HPE Aruba’s ARC support aligns with the ARC’s increasing importance across campus switching environments due to the evolving demands of enterprise networks. For instance, campuses host a wide range of applications, including VoIP, video conferencing, cloud-based tools, and IoT devices, each with unique bandwidth, latency, and security needs. ARC identifies and prioritizes these applications to ensure optimal performance.
Moreover, ARC enables Quality of Service (QoS) policies to prioritize critical applications (e.g., Zoom or ERP systems) over less urgent traffic (e.g., streaming or social media), reducing latency and improving user experience. With rising cyber threats, ARC helps identify unauthorized or malicious applications, enabling real-time control to block or restrict suspicious traffic, enhancing campus network security.
Enterprise campus networks often face bandwidth constraints due to high user density. ARC provides visibility into application usage, allowing administrators to allocate bandwidth efficiently and prevent congestion. The shift to hybrid and provide cloud-based services and remote/hybrid learning or work increases reliance on SaaS applications. ARC ensures these applications perform reliably by managing traffic and mitigating bottlenecks.
Enterprises are increasingly deploying IoT devices (smart lighting, sensors, etc.), which generate diverse traffic patterns. ARC helps classify and manage IoT traffic to maintain network stability and security. ARC’s ability to provide visibility, control, and optimization of application traffic is critical for managing the complexity, security, and performance demands of modern campus networks.
HPE Aruba Invigorates Wi-Fi Portfolio
Further innovations include new Wi-Fi 7 access points (APs), such as the indoor 720 and 740 Series and the indoor/outdoor 760 Series, which introduce dynamic application prioritization through unique network slicing to ensure optimal performance for AI and cloud-delivered applications, with the 760 Series designed for versatile indoor/outdoor and industrial environments.
As such, the HPE Aruba Networking Wi-Fi 7 APs harness the Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) standard to provide faster speeds, greater capacity, and reduced latency, which are essential for supporting real-time, data-heavy applications such as AI, IoT, and HPC. By implementing network slicing, these APs can enable precise policy management, ensuring that critical data meets predefined service level agreements (SLAs) for prioritized transmission, thereby boosting efficiency and reliability across myriad enterprise environments.
The 760 Series is uniquely engineered for flexible deployment in indoor, outdoor, and industrial settings, equipped with adaptable radio and antenna configurations, comprehensive IoT protocol support (including Bluetooth and Zigbee), and certifications like Class 1 Division 2 and ATEX Zone 2 for safe operation in hazardous locations such as warehouses, stadiums, and industrial sites. Managed through HPE Aruba Networking Central, these APs offer AI-driven management, unified visibility, and robust security features, to provide seamless, high-performance connectivity tailored to the demands of modern enterprise environments.
HPE Aruba Alters the Competitive Landscape
HPE's CX 10K series, including the CX 10000 and 10040 switches, offers enterprise customers a family of distributed services switches that can replace the VMware ESXi hypervisor with HPE's Morpheus VM Essentials (VME), a variant of the open-source KVM hypervisor, while leveraging the switches' distributed firewall, microsegmentation, encryption, and telemetry capabilities to substitute for VMware NSX virtual networking functions.
HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software provides a cohesive platform that streamlines VMware deployments while enabling workload transitions to KVM, reducing costs, complexity, and vendor lock-in. When integrated with HPE Aruba Networking CX 10000, VM Essentials unifies the orchestration of VMware NSX-like network and security services, including distributed firewalls and microsegmentation across ESXi, VM Essentials, and bare-metal hosts, delivering up to tenfold the scale and performance at demonstrably lower licensing costs.
I find that its portfolio development of DPU-switch hybrids in its CX 10K series is gaining market attention as a cost-effective alternative to equipping numerous servers with individual DPUs. Specifically, integrating two, four, or eight Pensando DPUs - programmed in P4 - into a switch can prove significantly cheaper and enables acceleration of various offloads and functions, including collective operations commonly used in AI and HPC applications.
Also, I see that HPE Aruba’s new offering reinforces the time to market advantage it has in relation to key rival Cisco in meeting the rapidly evolving distributed switching demands of enterprises as well as cloud service providers. In February, Cisco Systems followed a similar strategy by integrating its Silicon One E100 Ethernet ASIC with Pensando DPUs in its Nexus N9300 switches. The configuration pairs the ASIC with either four Pensando “Elba” Gen 2 DPUs or two “Giglio” Gen 2+ DPUs to enhance performance. Now the new CX 10K series offerings enable HPE to show it has advanced its Pensando DPU integration capabilities that both counter Cisco’s Nexus N9300 offering and spotlight the competitive advantages gained through AMD’s advanced, programmable DPU and software technology capabilities.
Looking Ahead
Overall, I believe the HPE AMD partnership that enables HPE Aruba Networking CX 10040 platform to leverage AMD’s advanced, programmable Data Processing Unit (DPU) and software technology alongside HPE’s robust data center networking capabilities can deliver the secure, scalable services in top demand across data center and colocation environments. This meets the ongoing surge in AI and data-driven applications across industries has heightened the demand for scalable, compliant, and high-performance networking solutions.
As such, this collaboration can play an integral role in assuring the world’s largest enterprises to achieve cutting-edge performance at a significantly lower cost compared to traditional legacy solutions. I also expect that the addressable market for HPE Aruba Networking CX 10K platform will increasingly appeal to cloud service providers who are prioritizing optimization of their own data center implementations, including the expanded targeting of gaining more enterprise business.
The rapid growth of data-intensive applications such as AI and IoT is creating significant demands for enterprises to deliver cost-effective, high-performance connectivity across diverse devices and user locations. From my viewpoint, HPE is setting a new standard by introducing innovations that streamline data center and server connectivity, offering ten times the scale and performance of traditional enterprise solutions at just one-third the cost.
Ron Westfall | Analyst In Residence
Ron Westfall is a prominent analyst figure in technology and business transformation. Recognized as a Top 20 Analyst by AR Insights and a Tech Target contributor, his insights are featured in major media such as CNBC, Schwab Network, and NMG Media.
His expertise covers transformative fields such as Hybrid Cloud, AI Networking, Security Infrastructure, Edge Cloud Computing, Wireline/Wireless Connectivity, and 5G-IoT. Ron bridges the gap between C-suite strategic goals and the practical needs of end users and partners, driving technology ROI for leading organizations.