Guest post by Ken Rich, Federal CTO, HPE Aruba Networking
Today’s realities have reshaped the security and network landscape for Federal IT leaders. The traditional network perimeter has dissolved. Pervasive hybrid work models have left data and applications exposed. People’s expectations for the quality and effectiveness of government digital services have been shaped by their consumer experiences. Government agencies and their critical infrastructure face surging attacks fueled by political and financial motives. Gen AI is booming, carving new pathways for economic growth and American innovation, but that innovation and growth is only useful if it is also safe, secure, and trustworthy.
Government IT leaders are acutely aware of these challenges. Federal agencies are mandated to meet key requirements of the Zero Trust Maturity Model 2.0 by the end of FY2024 as an effort to reinforce the defense of Federal IT infrastructure against sophisticated campaigns that threaten American public safety and privacy, damage the economy, and weaken the people’s trust in our government institutions.
Activating Zero Trust strategies with HPE Aruba Networking
As Federal IT leaders mature their agencies’ Zero Trust strategies, they can rely on HPE Aruba Networking solutions. Zero Trust principles are at the foundation of security-first, AI-powered networking from HPE Aruba Networking, providing a common foundation for networking and security teams to power distinctive experiences for staff and citizens and support agencies’ missions and outcomes—without sacrificing cybersecurity protection.
With HPE Aruba Networking solutions, the network provides advanced visibility, insights, centralized policy management, data protection, threat defense, and access control in a single platform. Intelligent automation reduces manual effort, improves visibility and anomaly detection, and enhances monitoring and diagnostics to mitigate risk. The infrastructure provides alerts, insights, and early attack detection, which breaks down networking and security silos and streamlines operations. Network and security teams can work from a single source of data that allows for greater accountability, faster action, and less finger pointing.
Security-first, AI-powered networking eliminates the need for painstaking access controls and reduces the risks of security gaps. Instead, network operators define identity-based policies once and apply them everywhere, no matter where users or devices are, what apps they’re using, or where they’re located. Policies are expressed using business intent, which abstracts the complexity of the underlying physical network.
AI and machine learning empower Federal IT teams to manage and protect at scale. Mundane onboarding, provisioning, and policy orchestration tasks are automated. Issues can be identified and resolved before the user or device is impacted. Ultimately, network teams are freed to spend more time on strategic outcomes.
The security-first, AI-powered network in action
HPE Aruba Networking solutions enable Federal organizations to infuse Zero Trust principles within:
- Unified SASE – Enable faster and more secure connectivity for users and devices anywhere—whether in agency offices, workers’ homes, or in the field. The organization is protected across a connectivity fabric that is consists of a Security Service Edge (SSE) and SD-WAN in a single, unified solution. With HPE Aruba Networking solutions, agencies can migrate at their own pace to build a modern Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture that connects and protects all locations, devices, and applications.
- Secure SD-WAN – HPE Aruba Networking offers a complete secure edge portfolio that spans campus, branch, WAN, and remote workers. HPE Aruba Networking EdgeConnect SD-WAN provides a security-first foundation for Zero Trust and SASE, delivering an exceptional quality of experience, multicloud networking, and advanced security. With EdgeConnect’s next-generation firewall and DDoS protection, agencies can replace their legacy branch office firewalls and reduce their hardware footprint.
- Campus – Agencies can deploy security-first, AI-powered, cloud-native campus and branch networks that provide built-in protection at scale with cloud-native visibility and integrated network access control. Agencies can build a secure foundation with HPE Networking Aruba Central, the first FedRAMP Authorized, AI-powered cloud-native networking platform.
- Cloud – With HPE Aruba Networking solutions, any digital resource can be delivered anywhere—with simplicity, reliability, and security. Staff can work from anywhere with cloud-delivered security services that use adaptive trust and continuous monitoring to increase security and protect the organization from threats. Agencies can replace risky VPNs with zero trust network access, protect staff, contractors, and guests from web-based threats, prevent data loss and secure SaaS access, and enhance digital experience productivity.
- Data center – Agencies can modernize and scale their data center fabrics with HPE Aruba Networking switches. Organizations can apply policies consistently across users and workloads in a data center. Visibility into east-west data center traffic can pinpoint malicious actors hiding in the network traffic, mitigating the risk of surveillance, damage, or theft.
HPE Aruba Networking is committed to Zero Trust
HPE Aruba Networking provides a secure, trusted network foundation that provides built-in Zero Trust Security to simplify compliance to security standards and regulations. Aruba HPE Networking solutions are certified or validated with rigorous U.S. government standards, including Common Criteria, FIPS-140, DoDIN APL, FedRAMP, and USGv6r9. CSfC, HPE Aruba Networking Central was the industry’s first “all in one” cloud-native network management system to achieve FedRAMP Authorization, with the Authorization covering wireless, wired, and remote.
Our products are secure by design. Our solutions are built using only TAA-compliant SKUs using secure supply chain practices, eliminating the possibility of hardware and software components being counterfeited or manipulated by an adversary. Products are delivered with a software bill of materials to enhance transparency and risk management for our customers. Our wired and wireless networking solutions have built-in TPM chips which are designed to secure the hardware and software from tampering, providing a secure root of trust upon which to build a layer of Zero Trust and SASE security.
Learn more about HPE Aruba Networking security-first, AI-powered solutions.
