GITEX Technology Week started with great energy, productivity and teamwork and it resulted in five days of amazing customer engagements, discussions on various topics around technology and solutions.
GITEX has become the leading tech sourcing and networking platform – with over 100,000 visitors attended from140 countries. Seeing GITEX grow every year is commendable.
As the focus on digital transformation continues, the theme Aruba demonstrated was its Mobile First Architecture -- a next generation networking architecture for the software defined enterprise, designed to be mobile first and deliver a network that is:
- Simple
- Secure
- Autonomous
All the booth elements, tied together, led to a digital transformation journey for our visitors, giving them the flavors of the best-in-class solutions to transform their business needs. Read my colleagues' blogs about our great discussions and demonstrations on Aruba Secure 360 Fabric and Cloud Managed Networks at GITEX.
We also had our Aruba Robot welcoming the visitors and keeping them entertained with her dance moves.
Aruba SD-Branch and SD-WAN at GITEX Technology Week
One of the major discussion topics during the event was cloud solutions and Aruba’s cloud offering. Aruba’s SD-WAN solutions was another topic of interest for visitors, as they were curious to know how Aruba can help to:
- Simplify branch network operations
- Optimize performance
- Secure and adapt
- Reduce costs
- Cover geographical monitoring
Every visitor had a different scenario-related question about SD-WAN deployments. Thus once approached I asked visitors who enquired about SD-WAN the below questions:
- What SD-WAN means to them?
- What is that they want to achieve with SD-WAN?
- What are they using today for branch connectivity?
- What are their challenges?
- Are they willing to accept cloud management platform?
Cloud-based services are driving rapid change across industries. The entry of mobile devices and Internet of Things (IoT), and the increasing demand for bandwidth also changes how the LAN and WAN must be managed moving forward.
With all those questions coming from the market on SD-WAN, I had to explain in simple terms the value of SD-WAN:
“SD-WAN is a growth of WAN technologies that allows organizations to overcome inherent network vulnerabilities, Aruba helps in addressing the branch, not just the WAN.”
- Single, software-defined architecture
- Rich context-awareness
- Open and integrated, best-of-breed
While at the event, I also took the opportunity to showcase how Aruba’s best-in-class wireless and wired infrastructure and management orchestration features with cost saving SD-WAN capabilities help IT organizations. The IT organization will benefit by utilizing a common model, designed with cloud-based management in mind to simplify the deployment, configuration, and management of everything within a branch location.
When it comes to networks monitoring and managing, Aruba Central cloud management platform provides a single pane of glass for wireless, wired and WAN management, enhancing IT’s ability to proactively see what is happening in each branch and troubleshoot issues more easily.
Along with cloud, we also leveraged on Aruba’s extensive portfolio of security and analytics solutions that provides the needed context to customize access and bandwidth policies accordingly, helping customers to have a trusted and secured infrastructure.
What’s next? How can customers benefit? Where to start?
Aruba's strength lies in offering a full-stack solution that is cloud-managed, where we can greatly simplify the network by deploying smart user-centric policies that improve visibility, security and performance of branch networks. Access the below to read more depending on your interest.
Learn more about Aruba's SD-Branch value proposition
Watch the Aruba Pulse Video: SD-Branch
Stay ahead of the game with Aruba technology and product knowledge
Visit our Cloud Managed networking site for more information
Get the Aruba Central 90 Day Trial
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