Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, has unveiled the Aruba Mobile First Platform, a software layer that uses application programming interfaces (APIs) to provide third-party developers and business leaders with network insights to improve applications and services.
The platform accelerates integration and innovation of mobile and IoT at the speed of the developer ecosystem, rather than the pace of a single vendor.
To support today’s mobile first and rapidly developing IoT environment, networks must deliver more than connectivity. The days of one-dimensional networks designed for static functions are over. Modern networks must be able to easily adapt to new application requirements on-demand.
With actionable insights about the use of specific mobile apps and the operational technologies powered by IoT, networks can help organizations justify future digital technology investments.
The Aruba Mobile First Platform unlocks the ability for an ecosystem of developers and technology vendors to freely innovate, utilizing the rich contextual information the Aruba infrastructure collects from mobile and IoT devices, and customize networking functions dynamically in real-time. As a result, customers can improve existing applications and create new ones to enhance the customer experience, improve business operations, and drive new revenue opportunities.
Advanced Network Controls and Policy Enforcement for Pervasive Mobility
The foundation of the Aruba Mobile First Platform is built on ArubaOS 8, a new operating system that allows developers to leverage contextual information from the infrastructure via its northbound API. Deployed as a virtual machine (VM) on a server appliance, ArubaOS 8 significantly simplifies changes within the infrastructure and enables customers to instantly scale their networks.
ArubaOS 8 also enables greater programmability in the Aruba infrastructure with the ability to upload custom app signatures in real-time. Developers and ecosystem partners can easily enable policy management and quality control for new, business critical applications without network upgrades or downtime.
Ecosystem partner, Skyfii, harnesses the power of the Aruba Mobile First Platform to help businesses analyze and visualize customer behavior data. Leveraging contextual data about users, devices, applications and location from the Aruba Analytics and Location Engine (ALE), Skyfii gives retailers a better understanding of behavior and lets them engage shoppers with targeted advertising and marketing calls to actions.
“ClearPass Extensions and the Aruba Mobile First Platform provide a simplified, open model for us to rapidly integrate and extend our offering,” said D.J. Long, Head of Intel Security Innovation Alliance. “The McAfee ePO integration with ClearPass provides customers unified visibility of security posture regardless of network, device type or user location, and automates access policy to safeguard enterprise networks.”
To automate access to Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) attributes from the cloud, the Microsoft Intune integration via ClearPass Extensions enables greater control for organizations that want to provide employees with secure access to corporate applications, data, and resources on almost any device. The Intune integration with Aruba will be available in Q4 CY2016.
“Delivered from the cloud and designed to address the needs of today’s mobile-first cloud-first world, Microsoft Intune delivers a comprehensive set of mobile device management and mobile application management capabilities that help you manage your diverse mobile environment in a secure and unified way” said Andrew Conway, General Manager of Product Marketing for Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security. “Our integration with Aruba ClearPass will allow you to make sure only managed and compliant devices are able to connect to your corporate network.”
Opening the doors to a wide variety of use cases, technology partners like Kasada can be integrated easily for multi-factor authentication (MFA) workflows. Envoy and Sine are examples of partners that automate a guest Wi-Fi access request through ClearPass, via their visitor registration services. Customers can leverage existing solutions, improve user experience and quickly utilize automation to offload IT resources.
“The ease of network deployment and added visibility provided by Aruba Central is ideal for our District,” said Stephen Young, Manager, Information Technology Services, Thames Valley District School Board. “By extending network management capabilities with a mobile app and managed services options, and additional visibility via the AppRF dashboard, we not only gain valuable insights into network behavior, but also flexibility and control for our local technicians. These new tools will be extremely helpful given we have 160 schools and a lean IT staff.”
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) is one of the nation’s first engineering and technology universities. Located in the heart of New England, WPI has 14 academic departments offering more than 50 undergraduate and graduate degree programs.
“As a leading technological university, we are continuously evaluating ways to optimize and upgrade our network without disruption to our students, faculty and staff,” said Sean O’Connor, Chief Information Security Officer and Assistant CIO, WPI. “ArubaOS 8 and the Aruba Mobile First Platform allow us to centrally manage and push network configurations without the need for new hardware appliances. As we roll out the new operating system across the university, we look forward to its advanced scalability and virtualization features that will provide much needed flexibility for our environment.”
Businesses globally are using Envoy’s visitor registration system to provide a seamless, digital visitor sign-in experience in the workplace.
“To make Envoy even better, our customers have been asking for an easy way to provide Wi-Fi access to visitors at the time of registration,” said Larry Gadea, CEO of Envoy. “By integrating our solution with Aruba’s ClearPass Extensions framework, we have created a unique, one-step process that makes visitor registration and Wi-Fi access hassle-free.”
Software security company, Kasada leads a new paradigm in enterprise digital security by augmenting multifactor authentication (MFA) using and eliminating the need for tokens and passwords.
“Combining the Kasada photograph-centric, cloud-based MFA platform with simplified integration via Aruba’s ClearPass Extensions enables enterprise MFA to provide additional automated digital security solutions based on custom factors such as time or suspicious behaviors,” said Sam Crowther, CTO and co-founder of Kasada. “Together we are essentially replacing weak passwords with an easier, more secure solution.”
Intelligent visitor and contractor registration software company, Sine, has thousands of customers worldwide.
“Using Aruba’s ClearPass Extensions to integrate, we are now able to streamline check-in and Wi-Fi registration functions into a single, seamless process which saves enterprises time and results in faster productivity for end users,” said Antony Ceravolo, CEO and Founder of Sine. “We’ve also added a mobile app option which simplifies and expedites the process even more for frequent visitors.”
Skyfii is a data-driven marketing software company pioneering guest WiFi and analytics tools. Powered by a unique technology and commercial solution, Skyfii provides a sophisticated data platform that enables organizations to map consumer and visitor interest, turning WiFi into a smart analytics and marketing opportunity to attract, engage and understand customers better.
“Integrating Skyfii’s IO platform with ClearPass Extensions enables businesses to combine network access authentication and customer analytics into a single, uniform and adaptable process,” said Charlie Clemmer, Senior Director for Skyfii. “By combining the custom branding developed within the ClearPass portal and capitalizing on the valuable information ClearPass already collects, customers can turn big data into smart data without the impractical chore of building custom Skyfii integrations for ClearPass.”
Comm Solutions Company is an end-to-end technology and security solutions provider, specializing in the design, development, deployment, and support of enterprise-level solutions.
“We see a number of interesting elements with Aruba’s new partner program and software innovations,” said Bill Buckalew, COO, Comm Solutions Company. “We’re most excited about the ability to expedite and streamline business processes with the new single system. Additionally, the new business opportunities that come with the added capabilities in Aruba Central, including the mobile app and managed service provider offering, will not only allow us to better support our customers’ shift to mobile and cloud, but also provide us with recurring revenue options.”
As a leading information technology consultancy and systems integrator, Structured Communication Systems, Inc. has partnered with hundreds of clients throughout the U.S. to maximize the value of IT.
“Aruba’s Partner Ready for Networking program, coupled with the Aruba Mobile First Platform and new managed service offerings, allow us to create recurring revenue streams and drive measurable improvements for our customers,” said Bill Tracy, Director of Solution Architecture, Structured Communication Systems, Inc. “The rate at which Aruba continues to innovate while improving the ease of doing business continues to separate them from the competition.”
