Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has unveiled a comprehensive portfolio of networking hardware and software designed to help enterprises build and manage large-scale AI infrastructures, from the data center to the edge. The announcements, made at the HPE Discover event in Las Vegas, span new switches, AI-driven management tools, and tighter integration with the company's Mist AI engine.
New Switching Hardware for AI
At the forefront of the hardware releases is the HPE Juniper Networking QFX5140 switch, a 1RU fixed-configuration device targeting the surging demand for AI inferencing and edge AI workloads. The QFX5140 offers up to 24 ports of 400G QSFP112, 8 ports of 800G OSFP800, and 2 SFP28 ports, with support for RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCEv2). It includes congestion management features such as Priority Flow Control, Explicit Congestion Notification, and dynamic load balancing, all critical for efficient GPU-to-GPU communication.
The QFX5140 fills a mid-tier position in the HPE Juniper QFX family, complementing the high-end 102T QFX5240/QFX5250 and the entry-level 100GbE QFX5100. Additionally, HPE introduced the QFX5252 module for its AMD Helios turnkey AI package, which combines CPUs, GPUs, and open Ethernet networking into a unified platform for AI training and high-volume inferencing. The module supports up to 72 GPUs per rack.
HPE continues to integrate its Juniper acquisition, with the QFX switch portfolio now fully supported in the HPE Data Center Director management platform. This integration provides customers a centralized view of all network components, enhancing visibility and accelerating troubleshooting.
Mist AI and Marvis Enhancements
HPE deepened the integration of Juniper's natural language Mist AI into its Aruba Central platform, powered by the Marvis AI engine. Marvis now collects telemetry and user state data from Juniper routers, switches, access points, firewalls, and applications to proactively detect and resolve network issues. A key update is the expansion of Marvis Actions, which uses AI to identify and prioritize remediation tasks. HPE plans to extend Marvis Actions to Aruba Central by the end of the year.
For data center operations, HPE introduced an advanced reasoning AI agent within Mist. This agent leverages agentic AI to continuously reason across diverse data streams, including millions of technical support cases and a contextual graph database from HPE Networking Data Center Director. The result is precise root cause analysis that can reduce troubleshooting time from hours or days to minutes, or even prevent issues before they occur. HPE CTO Fidelma Russo described this as bringing the self-driving network from campus into the data center.
Mist data center capabilities now include predictive analytics for proactive maintenance, such as forecasting potential optics failures that could cause network outages. HPE also announced that the HPE Aruba CX switching portfolio will be integrated with Mist, providing AI-native visibility, zero-touch provisioning, wired assurance for Layer 2 access, and service-level insights.
Unified SASE Orchestrator
To simplify WAN access to data center resources, HPE launched a new SASE Orchestrator that combines SD-WAN, SSE, cloud security, and a unified policy engine. The policy engine uses AI to manage branch, remote user, and cloud connectivity from a single pane of glass. Customers can set security policies once and deploy them consistently across multiple sites, reducing operational complexity. HPE executives emphasized that the Orchestrator promises faster zero-trust adoption, improved user experience through intelligent traffic steering, and application awareness.
Nvidia Partnership Updates
HPE also tightened its collaboration with Nvidia, particularly through the HPE Private Cloud AI platform. This turnkey AI factory, co-engineered with Nvidia, now supports Nvidia's Agent Toolkit software, including Nemotron open models, NemoClaw, and OpenShell secure runtime. These additions provide an agent operating system that can reason, monitor agent behavior, enforce policies, and lower deployment risk. Additionally, HPE introduced Nvidia Confidential Computing to the HPE AI Factory, protecting models and private data during execution for on-premises or sovereign deployments.
Security and Management Software
HPE updated its Zerto software to identify rogue AI agent actions and enable data protection rewind capabilities, allowing customers to revert to a clean slate. The Private Cloud AI package now also supports secure local agent registration, giving customers control over approving AI models, skills, and tools while adhering to centralized governance policies.
For multi-cloud management, HPE announced new incentives for Morpheus VM Essentials. Customers who own or purchase the package for a year will receive free licenses for the first year, along with Zerto migration licenses to facilitate transitions. HPE is also offering zero-interest financing for its cloud operations software over three years. These measures aim to ease the financial burden of migrating from legacy platforms, such as Broadcom's VMware.
HPE's moves reflect a strategic effort to leverage its Juniper acquisition and create a cohesive, AI-native networking portfolio. Analyst Mike Leibovitz of Gartner noted that HPE is innovating while integrating the Mist model into Aruba networking, data center, and branch environments, positioning itself strongly in the race for AI-driven network operations.
Source: Network World News