HPE + Juniper Networks Creates A Cisco Doppelganger

Some information you count on, some you don’t. I’ll be sincere — I didn’t count on this and would have wager towards the thought if somebody advised me about it yesterday. HPE is buying Juniper Networks.

I’ve had a pair days to course of it, and through that point, I had an epiphany. Considering again to early 2023 at Aruba’s Ambiance convention, it hit me why HPE is making this transfer, which is a really completely different strategy from Aruba’s previous. Aruba’s founders — Keerti Melkote and Pankaj Manglik — and the CEO credited with their rise, Dominic Orr, grew the enterprise by difficult the fats entry level (AP) strategy within the early 2000s with a singular imaginative and prescient on managing a wi-fi community. The brand new executives at Aruba (HPE) from Silver Peak, HPE, and Axis see acquisitions as the way in which to develop the networking enterprise. At first look, shopping for Juniper would possibly seem to be a poor strategy given its many overlaps (i.e., each firms have switching and wi-fi product traces), however there’s extra to this than you assume. A lot of Juniper’s merchandise and IP would take HPE too lengthy to create organically, and it might be too messy if the corporate tried to purchase completely different items, like Excessive Networks did with Enterasys, Motorola, Aerohive, Avaya, and Brocade. HPE wants an enormous fish if it will hit its targets shortly.

Here’s what HPE is getting out of a Juniper acquisition:

Synthetic intelligence. Juniper’s AI product, known as Marvis (a part of the Mist acquisition in 2019), is by far essentially the most superior AI resolution within the networking market. That’s not a profound assertion; no vendor has something near it. The fast historical past: Juniper’s acquisition of Mist introduced the corporate a cloud-based Wi-Fi resolution with a number one AI functionality, Marvis. Juniper shortly began integrating its switching and routing portfolio into Marvis. Walmart, Amazon, and others took discover. Quick-forward to at the moment: This provides HPE Aruba a two-year lead towards its opponents by bringing Juniper into the fold.
A critical knowledge middle switching resolution. HPE has had many begins, but it has all the time fizzled with regards to knowledge middle options that ranged from 3Com switches to the latest Aruba CX switches. None of them stood as much as what Arista, Cisco, and Juniper supplied. Now, Aruba has Juniper’s knowledge middle switching line and sturdy OS, Junos.
Actual cloud-based administration and monitoring. I feel we will all agree that conventional networking distributors don’t excel at constructing intuitive trendy software program. Particularly, none of them may create good, easy cloud-based administration and monitoring options for switches and APs. That is the important thing cause why Cisco purchased Meraki, Juniper purchased Mist, and Excessive Networks purchased Aerohive. For HPE Aruba, shifting Central into the cloud wasn’t turning out to be straightforward. Now, HPE Aruba could have Mist.
A foothold within the service supplier market. Apart from Cisco, Juniper is the one enterprise networking vendor that has a powerful presence within the cloud and telecom market. Juniper brings in about $2 billion in annual income from the SP market, which is roughly 40% of the corporate’s 2023 income. HPE has been making an attempt to get a networking foothold into the 5G market so it might probably deliver in additional Silver Peak gross sales, which additionally capitalizes on the 2023 personal 5G Athonet acquisition.
A robust safety story. By way of this acquisition, HPE goals to additional bolster its rising safety portfolio by gaining Juniper’s enterprise firewall (which carried out nicely in our most up-to-date evaluations) and its cloud sandbox, full with a reliable risk intelligence workforce. It’s not clear, nonetheless, whether or not Juniper’s “Linked Safety” technique, the place switches take part in a safety mesh, will discover a eternally residence in a conglomerate like HPE. HPE launched an identical characteristic to its CX lineup, which brings utility visibility and coverage enforcement on the change. However this latest enhancement sought to place its CX switches as an enterprise firewall various, and it might be too quickly in its rollout to find out its benefit.

What does this imply for the competitors?

Arista Networks. Whereas many would possibly see this acquisition as hurting Arista, I really see it as a win. Arista would be the solely firm to supply a single community working system with a transparent and succinct networking focus. The opposite distributors can be spending numerous sources making an attempt to wash up piles of acquired merchandise. Juniper resellers, which have a powerful set of technical expertise and consumer lists, will in all probability shift to Arista Networks.
Whereas Cisco lacks AI capabilities, the corporate has made an about-face and has a few 12 months’s head begin in cleansing up and slimming down its large portfolio; Aruba has but to start out. However Cisco received’t be the one vendor with a head begin; Cisco should take care of the second- and third-place distributors coming collectively and making a comparable switching and routing portfolio that addresses each the enterprise and SP markets.

What does this imply for you?

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. As with all acquisition, the journey forward can be rife with obstacles for Juniper and HPE/Aruba prospects alike. As this high-level merger unfolds, the corporate will search to:

Create a singular technique that doesn’t simply say “I’m a unique sort of Cisco.” Check out my weblog on the technique axis in a Forrester Wave™ analysis. This could offer you some issues to consider and inquiries to ask. Don’t settle for what you learn over the subsequent week or vendor advertising and marketing slides, press studies, or what different blogs say. This may take a while to work out. Distributors usually promise larger and extra choices by way of a traditional “higher collectively” story. However that isn’t a imaginative and prescient and technique. Extra choices result in extra complexity, and it takes a very long time to get there.
Rationalize/optimize the portfolio, the merchandise, and the options. Whereas HPE will attempt to reassure you that nothing will change, it doesn’t make sense to maintain all the things, particularly the a number of AP product traces (On the spot On, Mist, and Aruba APs), all of the routing and switching working techniques (Juno, AOS-CX, and ArubaOS), and each administration techniques (Central and Mist). Although not instantly, merchandise might want to go, and the {hardware} that stays will must be modified to accommodate cloud-based administration, monitoring, and AI. This occurred at Cisco with its routing, switching, and wi-fi product traces after the corporate acquired Viptela and Meraki. My wager? I imagine that Aruba Central can be phased out for Mist. This may take a couple of years to occur. If HPE stops including options to Aruba Central, then take that as an indication that Mist is taking on right here.
Take away channel and gross sales redundancy. Throughout M&A exercise of alike portfolios, gross sales redundancies are eradicated. This may rock the channel and trigger plenty of channel battle between HPE Aruba and Juniper resellers. Juniper resellers will stick with Juniper for a while however will finally both drop the portfolio — except the VAR was an HPE reseller — or decide up Arista.