‘HPE is seizing the opportunity and putting on a full court press to grab share against Cisco with products that are market disruptors,’ says PKA Technologies Chief Technology Officer Patrick Shelley.
HPE partners said they are ready to grab share from network market leader Cisco with the new combined Aruba-Juniper network portfolio that is being unveiled at HPE Discover Barcelona this week.
“The AI networking war is on,” said Patrick Shelley, chief technology officer at PKA Technologies, a Montvale, N.J. solution provider, reacting to the new combined Juniper-Aruba networking lineup. “HPE is seizing the opportunity and putting on a full-court press to grab share against Cisco with products that are market disruptors. HPE has done an incredible job getting product out so quickly. Now it’s up to partners like PKA to educate our customer base and go out and sell it.”
Shelley said there is an “absolutely huge opportunity” for HPE partners to attack the Cisco network installed base. “Customers are looking for new options,” he said. “I think there is definitely going to be share shift in HPE’s favor.”
Among the new products unveiled at HPE Discover in Barcelona on Wednesday are a new Juniper-Aruba dual platform Wi-Fi 7 Access Point that will be delivered in the third quarter next year
HPE is also introducing a new AI data center switch, HPE Juniper Networking QFX5250, that it is touting as the “world’s highest performance Ultra Ethernet Transport Ready” network switch.
HPE Networking Vice President of Products and Solutions Jeff Aaron says the combined Aruba and Juniper Mist portfolio gives the AI networking powerhouse the muscle to displace Cisco as the number one wireless networking provider. “We feel that we can be number one in wireless,” said Aaron in an interview with CRN. “We have the best solutions with Juniper Mist and the Aruba solutions.”
Cisco declined to comment.
Shelley (pictured) said he was shocked that HPE was able to pull together a combined HPE-Juniper portfolio so quickly, just five months after acquiring Juniper Networks for $13.4 billion five months ago. “This gives customers options,” he said. “I’m looking forward to seeing all the technical detail on the new products.”
The biggest surprise, said Shelley, is the new HPE Juniper Networking QFX525 switch, which will be available in the first-quarter next year. He said the switch addresses network shortcomings that could hold back AI.
“The biggest problem in implementing AI is the network,” he said. “Everybody thinks about GPUs and servers and running the workloads. The network is almost an afterthought until they see the performance issues. Almost as important as the GPU is to the server, the network is to AI. It looks like HPE has put together an incredibly powerful switch at a time when customers are realizing their old network is not going to cut it anymore with the new AI workloads.”
Shelley said the new combined HPE Aruba-Juniper portfolio is a testament to HPE CEO Antonio Neri’s vision to transform HPE into a networking company with the acquisition of Juniper Networks. “This proves it,” he said.
With the acquisition of Juniper, HPE has effectively doubled the size of its networking business with more than 50 percent of its operating income now coming from networking.
Michael Maher, director of professional services at CPP Associates, Clinton, New Jersey, said he sees the new combined portfolio from the new Juniper to Aruba Network Central integrations and vice versa to the new breakthrough 5250 switch and the edge router are destined to “reshape how people do networking on a day to day” basis.
“HPE is providing ways to both improve network performance and reduce risk to the business overall,” he said. “Now you have the ability to network together your GPUs at the speed that is really required to get the most value out of your AI investments. It’s exciting!”
Ultimately, Maher said, the integration of AI into wired and wireless for network management and service delivery is going to “reduce deployment times, increase performance and increase value back to the business.”
With the new portfolio, the AI networking sales opportunity is one of the biggest opportunities for CPP to grow the business, said Maher. “Our networking business is growing and this just gives us more ammunition to go after the competition, add value to our customers and to ensure that our customer’s infrastructures are resilient and reliable as the industry continues to evolve at a breakneck pace.”
C.R. Howdyshell, CEO of Independence, Ohio-based Advizex, No. 129 on the 2025 CRN Solution Provider 500, said the new portfolio provides the firepower for Advizex to double the company’s networking business over the next year.
“HPE is doubling down with a parallel approach to the business that gives us the capability to accelerate our networking business,” he said. “They are bringing this to market fast which is going to drive faster customer adoption. HPE is bringing viable solutions that are going to run in parallel. Customers are going to gravitate to that kind of solution because it builds into what they want to do with AI in the future. This gives them an AI presence they did not have before.”
Advizex has already seen “tremendous adoption” for networking-as-a-service solutions, said Howdyshell. The new combined HPE-Aruba-Juniper networking portfolio is going to drive even further adoption, he said. “This is an opportunity for us to grab networking share,” said Howdyshell.