With the upcoming 2.5.5 software release, Aruba Central will become integrated with the HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform. Read the following post for a quick overview of HPE GreenLake, how this development will benefit your IT organization, what Aruba Central features have moved as a result of this effort, and where you can find more information regarding these changes.
What is HPE GreenLake?
HPE GreenLake provides a unified platform for viewing and managing compute, storage, and networking infrastructure from HPE and Aruba. So rather than having separate management consoles and login screens for each of your IT domains, HPE GreenLake delivers a common view, with a consistent operating model across edge, data center, colocation, and multi-cloud environments – improving IT efficiency while providing tighter control over all of your infrastructure.
How Does This Benefit My Organization?
By integrating Aruba Central with HPE GreenLake, IT admins will now have a global view to manage users, policies, subscriptions, the audit trail, and device inventories across various regions from the same account, in the same dashboard as other HPE products (e.g., data services and compute).
Specifically, this development will deliver the following benefits for customers:
Higher IT efficiency with a single place to view and manage network infrastructure alongside HPE data and compute services. Tighter security via the HPE GreenLake single sign-on and embedded audit trail. Improved cost controls with consumption analytics across all infrastructure to help optimize spend and ensure investments are utilized as intended.
A better IT experience through a more responsive Aruba Central user interface.
How Will This Change the Admin Experience in Aruba Central?
The following account management functions, which were previously located on the Account Home page of the Aruba Central user interface, will now be viewed and managed from the HPE GreenLake portal.
App Catalog – Find and deploy new applications within the customer's organization (e.g., compute, storage) Onboard Devices – Add and assign devices in the customer's device inventory (network, compute, and storage) Subscriptions – View and assign subscriptions to available devices
Users and Roles – Add new users and assign or modify pre-built or custom roles and permissions
Audit Trail – Logs all account-level changes in a single audit trail
Single Sign-On – Access all HPE and Aruba workloads from a single portal
For more information about using these features on HPE GreenLake, see the HPE GreenLake User Guide. You can also watch our walkthrough videos for an overview of how to execute these workflows within HPE GreenLake.
To access Aruba Central's network health dashboards and management GUI, network operators simply launch Aruba Central via the HPE GreenLake dashboard, as depicted below.
Upon clicking on the Aruba Central tile in the application catalogue, the primary user interface that network admins are familiar with will load in their web browser, now embedded under a common "HPE GreenLake" banner, as shown below. All network configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting functions follow the same menus and workflows – no additional learning curve or new skills required.
What Functions Have Changed Within Aruba Central?
The following functions have moved to a new location within the existing Aruba Central user interface
Assigning newly added devices to groupsData CollectorsAPI GatewayStreaming APIWebhooks
See the below screenshots for a representative view of where these functions will be located within Aruba Central moving forward.
View more details on where to access these features by visiting the Aruba Central Help Center.
Note: All Aruba Central customer data (devices, configuration, users, reports and all other data) will be migrated as-is during the HPE GreenLake integration.
Accessing HPE GreenLake
HPE GreenLake is accessible at https://common.cloud.hpe.com.
Aruba customers are not required to create an HPE GreenLake account. Existing Aruba Central accounts will be mapped to a GreenLake account.
When will these changes take effect?
These changes will take effect once your Aruba Central production cluster migrates to the 2.5.5 code release. Production clusters will start migrating to Aruba Central 2.5.5 in mid-March 2022. At that point, there is a rolling schedule of availability based on the location of the customer's Central production cluster. It is expected that by April 30, 2022, all customers worldwide will have access to Central 2.5.5 functionality and the new experience within HPE GreenLake.
Additional Resources
Please refer to the following resources to learn more about Aruba Central within HPE GreenLake.
HPE GreenLake Resources:
Getting Started with GreenLake |
GreenLake user guide Aruba Central Help Center*:
Aruba Central 2.5.5 Home Page |
What's New for Central 2.5.5 Aruba Central on HPE GreenLake:
Walkthrough VideosAruba Support Advisories:
Aruba Support Portal
* The online help guide will continue to be updated with new information leading up to the general availability of the Aruba Central 2.5.5 software release. Please bookmark the page and check back periodically for the latest information
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Clarence Hillard
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