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An Intelligent Edge Brings Amazing Great User Experiences to Life

By Keerti Melkote, Blog Contributor

Watch Keerti’s keynote on the power of the intelligent edge at HPE Discover 2018 Madrid.

People expect satisfying digital experiences, whether they are shopping, guests at a beachside resort or running late for a doctor’s appointment. As consumers, we expect our favorite brands to understand our needs and anticipate our expectations. Increasingly, we expect our workplaces to do the same.

Delivering personalized, connected experiences demands greater intelligence at the edge of the network. The edge is where we live, where we work, where we go, where we learn. It is where experiences come to life. The rise of smarter, connected stores, hospitals, schools and workplaces, in combination with the expansion of mobility and cloud services, will drive the next decade of sustainable advantage.

Amazing Begins in the Workplace

Active Cyber Defense: Using Closed-Loop Security to Protect the Digital WorkplaceFor many organizations, the workplace is a top priority for delivering amazing experiences to employees in order to boost productivity and enhance employee engagement. In today’s war for talent, employers recognize that the place of work is an important part of any candidate’s consideration.  Employers are creating smart digital workplaces to wow employees and attract today’s tech-savvy workforce.

A modern workplace experience offers flexibility, productivity, and easy collaboration. And a mobile-first network that is tuned for collaboration applications can enable those convenient, frictionless workplace experiences. Skype calls just work with interruption.  Smart meeting rooms can become user-aware and auto-join meetings with almost no intervention from the user.  Employees can easily locate available meeting rooms on the spot and while on the go via a mobile app, putting an end to the frustration of trying to find an open meeting room and fussing with calendaring applications.

The workplace experience can be further personalized and enhanced with IoT and automation. Connected lights, environmental controls and smart furniture mean the workspace can adapt immediately to workers’ personal preferences for light, temperature and even the ergonomics of their chairs and desks.

The Power of Intelligence at the Edge

The workplace is only the beginning of the journey, as a mobile, IoT and cloud world transform customer experiences. In smart digital hospitals, patients receive better care when doctors have the data they need right at their patients’ bedsides. Mobile apps and location beacons can help people quickly find their way without frustration through large campuses. Mobility and IoT will enable smart digital stores, blending the rich experiences of online shopping with the personal experiences of in-store shopping. With mobile check-in and concierge services, guests in a smart digital hotel no longer need to wait in line at the reception; instead, those busy travelers can go directly to their room, enter with a digital room key, and be welcomed by a room that is already set to their personal lighting, temperature, and TV channel preferences.

The integration of the physical and digital worlds is happening on the factory floor, too. Manufacturers and utilities have long relied on advanced operational technology (OT), and now even more of that rich data is being harnessed to make sure the factory processes are monitored and supplied in real-time and machines are proactively maintained, cutting interruptions and waste. Marrying the IT and OT infrastructures ushers in a new era of productivity and efficiency for smart digital factories.

Enabling the Intelligent Edge

Aruba is focused on delivering the network innovation that’s critical to create these smart digital experiences. We believe that amazing experiences can be created while simultaneously giving IT organizations amazing simplicity.  Aruba’s approach is to deliver secure, simple, and smart networking that brings together Aruba’s best-in-class wired and wireless network solutions with our industry-leading security framework and the vast ecosystem of security and application partners. Game-Changing Business Agility with the New Aruba 8400Last year, we introduced the Aruba 8400 Core and Aggregation Switch to connect the increasingly critical access edge into the core of the campus network to give IT organizations an end-to-end mobile-first campus network. And we’ve cloud-enabled branch offices with SD-WAN capabilities in our award-winning SD-Branch solution.

We’re bringing together one of the world’s largest networks of network data, aggregating data from thousands of enterprise networks, millions of network devices, and hundreds of millions of clients.  Over the last year, made key acquisitions to advance our machine learning and analytics capabilities so that we can deliver more AI-powered automation and insights. With our user service assurance solution, IT managers gain real-time actionable insights into the users’ experience of the network. We are using AI to tune the campus network on the fly to deliver users flawless Wi-Fi-based experiences and provide IT with the critical automation they need. We are employing the most advanced AI to understand the behavior of users and devices inside the campus network, to identify and stop emerging insider attacks. We are focused on enhancing experiences for end users, IT administrators, security operators, and the line of business.

As we look ahead, we see the value of the network not just in connecting users and devices, but to put our vast body of data to use in new ways for automation, insights, and personalized experiences. We are innovating on an “edge” data center with full-stack solutions that include networking, security, compute, and storage--where data created at the edge can stay at the edge, to be used for automation and turned into actionable insights, in real-time.  Our goal is to deliver a platform for customers to innovate and create amazing experiences, but with amazing simplicity.

Watch my update on the intelligent edge at Discover

https://www.hpe.com/events/discover/more/details/GSS8156

Blog: Experience the future of AI-powered mobility innovations

https://blogs.arubanetworks.com/solutions/aruba-experience-edge-launch-blog/