Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, has announced new network procurement and consumption models to give enterprise customers more flexibility and choice in how they obtain and support their network infrastructure.

The rapid introduction of mobile technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT) have accelerated the requirements for IT network infrastructures. With refresh cycles measured in months instead of years, networks need to enable a new set of end user and line-of-business facing digital services requiring IT organisations to efficiently adapt and deliver enterprise grade security at the highest levels of reliability.

To remove unpredictability in IT operations and spending, Aruba is taking a software-based approach with its Mobile First Platform, enabling IT organisations to quickly respond to new requirements as they emerge, minimise capital expenditures, and maintain a competitive edge. Customers benefit from customised options for obtaining and managing their networks with Aruba’s portfolio of programmable IT networking products for Wi-Fi, BLE, wired and wide area network (WAN) connectivity, and consulting, support and technology services from its key alliances.

The Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) market, comprised of Software Defined Networking (SDN) and cloud-managed WLAN, is expected to grow significantly. IDC estimates that the global enterprise SDN market will grow to $8.7 billion and the global cloud-managed WLAN market is forecasted to reach $2.5 billion by 2018.

With major trends like increased automation, data analytics, IoT and a renewed emphasis on security affecting IT infrastructure plans, many organisations are trying to minimise workload on IT staff and shift spend from large capital to predictable operational expenses.

“The cloud paradigm has driven an expectation of being able to buy technology as a service on an as-needed basis,” said Peter Cellarius, vice president, Business & Corporate Development, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.

“Network-as-a-Service addresses this market shift with a fundamentally new way to acquire and consume communications services. Starting with an initial group of alliances today, we will be expanding our breadth of subscription offerings to make them available to an increasingly broad base of customers.”

In collaboration with HPE Financial Services, HPE Technology Services and leading alliances, including Accenture and Deloitte, organisations can dynamically react to changing needs by leveraging an OpEx-based NaaS model.

This model allows organisations to immediately adopt the most modern network infrastructure, designed for new business applications, with secure connectivity for IoT and improved user experiences via actionable, real-time insights.

Key benefits for enterprise customers include:

-    Better utilisation of technology and resources - With a NaaS model, enterprises can deploy and capitalise on the latest technology without burdening internal IT resources with additional training or tasks allowing them to focus on business priorities.

-    Ability to slash costs by moving to an operational expense model - Enterprises can reduce capital expenditures to simplify their budget process and better predict and manage network acquisition, administration and operational costs.

-    Improved management of network scalability, flexibility and technology cycles - With the network functioning like a utility, organisations can scale their network as it grows and easily add new services like BYOD, IoT, security, location-based services and proactive management. – TradeArabia News Service