HPE flexes some Juniper muscle at MWC26

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. announced latest networking, compute hardware, cloud operations software and financing updates for service providers at this past week’s MWC26 in Barcelona. The updates center on meeting the brand new demands being created by artificial intelligence reshaping every aspect of network design — from centralized data centers to distributed edge environments.

AI adoption is driving more traffic into AI data centers, accelerating investment by hyperscalers and neocloud providers. In those environments, ultra-low latency and high reliability aren’t any longer optional. They’re basic requirements for delivering AI as a service.

Traditional network traffic remains to be growing nevertheless it’s quickly being dwarfed by AI traffic. But that traffic behaves otherwise and it’s way more sensitive to delays. The present networking oversubscription model cannot handle today’s AI requirements.

AI creates latest networking demands

To handle these changes, HPE is expanding its Juniper-based PTX routing portfolio. The updates include latest PTX12000 modular routers, which support dense 800G connectivity initially and may scale to 1.6 terabits per second without major redesigns. Moreover, HPE introduced a brand new line of PTX10002 fixed-form routers — a smaller, more efficient option for constructing AI networks and connecting data centers. The PTX Series routers run on Juniper Express 5 silicon, with an emphasis on throughput, deep buffering and power efficiency.

Routing is what Juniper has at all times done best and at MWC I had a likelihood to satisfy with HPE Executive Vice President AE Natarajan concerning the latest products. He told me customers are constructing out larger and bigger graphics processing unit clusters, that are geographically distributed and have to be connected making the network central to the expansion of AI. “The appetite for the PTX12000 platform could be very strong immediately,” he said. “Some telcos are making big leaps into constructing out AI networking fabrics, inference edges or sovereign clouds.”

Custom silicon creates HPE differentiation

Though there are various scale-up, -across and -out products available, these are powered by the Express 5 Silicon, which got here to HPE via its acquisition of Juniper Networks. The brand new application-specific integrated circuit delivers roughly 49% more power efficiency than the previous generation, with PTX10002 systems achieving as much as a 54% improvement over earlier platforms. The silicon was built with AI in mind an includes things like inline MACsec (Media Access Control Security) for integrated security.

One other aspect of Express 5 is the load balancing and quality of service algorithms. With AI networking, it’s not enough simply to be fast;  the network must know easy methods to handle congestion, and that’s something merchant silicon doesn’t not handle well. “We built load balancing capabilities with smallest amount of switch over drops making it ideal for AI,” Natarajan explained. “By not dropping packets, the GPUs are never having to attend for the network to catch up.”

HPE can also be updating Juniper Routing Director to be agentic AI-ready. The software platform provides end-to-end transport and wide-area network automation for service providers and enormous enterprises. Many large operators are constructing their very own AI copilots and customised models quite than counting on vendor-provided assistants. With this update, Juniper Routing Director can integrate with customer-built AI copilots, allowing operators to automate network operations and speed up troubleshooting.

ProLiant gets an upgrade

On the compute side, HPE is introducing latest ProLiant platforms aimed toward service providers, including the Compute EL9000 chassis and EL140 Gen12 servers. These systems are designed to handle higher network traffic density for AI and 5G workloads. HPE can also be integrating Juniper’s cloud-native routing software directly into select ProLiant servers, combining routing and compute right into a single system for radio access network deployments. This includes the 1U HPE ProLiant Compute DL110 and the brand new 2U HPE ProLiant EL140 Gen12 servers.

Telco RANs at the moment are software-based and don’t must have a separate compute server and routing platform. These layers have collapsed, giving HPE the chance to bring its strength in compute and networking together.

Moreover, HPE is expanding its CloudOps Software as a unified control plane for managing virtualization, containers, observability, automation and operations across multicloud and multivendor environments. The concept is to make complex cloud environments easier and cheaper for service providers to run by managing all the things through a single platform as an alternative of multiple disconnected tools.

To support adoption, HPE Financial Services is launching a brand new 90/9 Advantage financing program, which offers deferred payments followed by low monthly lease options. This system covers HPE’s portfolio across networking, compute, storage and software.

Final thoughts

As an industry watcher, I used to be curious as to how quickly or slowly HPE and Juniper would come together. When HPE acquired Aruba Networks years ago, it left that business unit alone as to not disrupt it and I believed HPE might take an analogous approach with Juniper. That doesn’t appear to be the case because the joint company has built out an aggressive roadmap of products that brings the most effective of HPE and Juniper along with former Juniper CEO Rami Rahim running the whole networking business.

In my discussions with HPE management, though the corporate is moving fast, it is usually conscious about the product loyalty that HPE and Juniper had, and that’s a part of the design principals where any latest products don’t require a “rip and replace.” Each sets of consumers can profit from cross-engineering but shouldn’t ever need to do anything that disrupts their businesses.

Zeus Kerravala is a principal analyst at ZK Research, a division of Kerravala Consulting. He wrote this text for SiliconANGLE.

Photo: Zeus Kerravala