Everything You Need to Know About Aruba Central 2.5.5

Everything You Need to Know About Aruba Central 2.5.5

In the past, we’ve explored the opportunities made available through the adoption of a cloud-like consumption and management model whilst maintaining on-premise infrastructure. Such a system enables businesses to enjoy the flexibility of cloud with the security and resilience of on-premise. This carefully orchestrated hybrid can be achieved through Greenlake.

A key feature of Greenlake is the provision of a unified platform for viewing and managing compute, storage, and networking infrastructure from HPE and Aruba. Aruba Central’s recently launched SaaS subscription model (2.5.5) is a significant development in cloud-based management solutions, and businesses don’t need to be a Greenlake customer to benefit.

What is Aruba Central?

Aruba Central is a cloud-native management console for all Aruba network infrastructure. As the single point of visibility and control for Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform), Aruba Central delivers AIOps, workflow automation, and advanced security features to unify operations across campuses, branches, data centres, and remote work environments. Aruba Central is built with enterprise-grade resiliency and security, while simple enough for small businesses to manage with limited IT staff. The single-pane-of-glass system saves time and reduces the training that IT teams need to effectively use the solution.

What does Aruba Central 2.5.5 Deliver?

  • Higher IT efficiency with a single place to view and manage network infrastructure alongside HPE data and compute services.
  • Tighter security via the HPE GreenLake single sign-on and embedded audit trail.
  • Improved cost controls with consumption analytics across all infrastructure to help optimise spend and ensure investments are used as intended.
  • A better IT experience through a more responsive Aruba Central user interface.

The new Aruba Central SaaS subscription model provides more flexibility and choice when consuming Aruba Central licenses and its network management capabilities. The SaaS subscription model includes the following features for the Aruba Central Foundation and Advanced Licenses:

1. Co-Termination of Licenses

Aruba Central allows customers to align license expiry to a common end date, thereby helping them to better manage device renewals and inventories. Co-termination of licenses is ideal for customers who:

  • Have staggered purchases of device subscriptions across multiple dates
  • Want to avoid processing multiple renewal notices manually, to save on administrative and procurement time
  • Are looking to renew licenses or buy additional licenses.

2. Delayed Activation

Device licenses can be activated up to 90 days after purchase, thereby assisting with the alignment of licenses with new deployments or expansions. If a business doesn’t activate their licenses until 90 days after purchase, all the license keys will be activated automatically on the 91st day.

For example, a business buys 100 AP license keys and adds them to Aruba Central. On the twentieth day, the business onboards 25 APs to Aruba Central and assigns licenses to manage these devices. All 100 AP licenses will be activated on the twentieth day. If the business does not assign any licenses for 90 days, then all the 100 AP licenses will be automatically activated on the 91st day.

3. Tier Upgrades

Users can now upgrade from Foundation to Advanced tier anytime during the contract period, giving users the option of unlocking the additional features available. Tier upgrades can be performed without any new contracts during the contract period, however tiers cannot be downgraded during this time.

4. License Renewals without New Purchase

Businesses can renew all licenses simultaneously with the same license IDs to ensure operational continuity and simplify administrative tasks. An existing contract can also be broken into multiple new contracts to simplify maintenance.

For example, your business may have a license key that is due for renewal, but you prefer to renew the license on the existing contract, rather than create a new contract with a new license key. This is possible in the new subscription model, where you can renew the license with the existing license ID and indicate the new expiration date.

Conclusion

HPE and Aruba’s vision of an edge to cloud world continues to evolve to provide better insights and improve the management of your business’s IT estate. As your IT partner, contact us to discuss how to take advantage of these and other HPE developments to help you meet your business’s vision.