On April 8, 2025, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced an expansion of its network management platform, HPE Aruba Networking Central, introducing new virtual private cloud (VPC) and on-premises deployment options. The move is designed to address enterprise and government requirements for data sovereignty, regulatory compliance, and deployment flexibility.
The new offerings build on Aruba Central’s existing cloud-native architecture, expanding it beyond a traditional public SaaS model to now include four deployment modes: public cloud SaaS, dedicated VPC, on-premises, and Network-as-a-Service (NaaS).
Meeting Increasing Demands for Data Control and Geographic Compliance
With data sovereignty concerns becoming more prominent—especially in regulated industries and public sector environments—many enterprises are seeking solutions that offer both agility and control. HPE’s new VPC deployment option allows organizations to maintain a dedicated, cloud-based environment that aligns with local data handling requirements. These VPCs are deployed through the HPE GreenLake cloud, which provides regional points of presence in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, and China.
In parallel, HPE introduced Aruba Networking Central On-Premises for Government, featuring FIPS 140-2 certified server hardware to meet federal and defense-grade security requirements. This air-gapped option is designed for scenarios where cloud connectivity is either undesirable or not allowed, such as in national security or defense-related environments.
AI-Powered Network Operations and Expanded Telemetry
Alongside the new deployment models, HPE has continued to invest in its AI technologies by delivering enhancements to its AIOps capabilities. Aruba Central now includes an automated network assistant that operates continuously to detect performance anomalies, identify configuration errors, and suggest optimizations. These functions are supported by a telemetry data lake that has grown to over 5.2 million managed devices and more than 2 billion endpoints, offering a foundation for machine learning models and predictive analytics.
More importantly, these insights now extend beyond HPE infrastructure. By integrating with OpsRamp, the platform also provides observability for third-party devices from vendors such as Cisco, Juniper Networks, and Arista. The new offering is designed to support enterprises with multi-vendor environments that want centralized visibility.
Focus on Application Performance and End-User Experience
HPE is also expanding support for application-level observability, particularly for real-time collaboration platforms. With native integration for Microsoft Teams, Aruba Central can now monitor voice and video traffic quality, identify performance bottlenecks, and help IT teams improve the end-user experience through Quality of Service (QoS) diagnostics.
The platform’s observability data can be integrated with other IT management systems using a suite of open APIs, enabling organizations to correlate network, application, and endpoint telemetry as part of broader IT operations and analytics workflows.
Broader Context and Market Considerations
The expansion of deployment models for Aruba Networking Central reflects broader trends in enterprise IT, where hybrid environments and data residency regulations are driving demand for more adaptable infrastructure solutions. While cloud-native network management platforms continue to grow in popularity, concerns around control, security, and local compliance remain a factor for many organizations.
Vendors across the networking landscape are responding to these needs with varying degrees of flexibility. HPE’s approach—providing identical management capabilities across SaaS, VPC, and on-prem—aims to reduce functional trade-offs across environments while supporting consistent operational practices. Although it should be noted that deployment times for patches and updates for on-premises deployments may vary based on that organizations testing requirements.
The integration of OpsRamp and the focus on third-party observability also align with a growing emphasis on full-stack visibility across multi-vendor, multi-cloud networks. Enterprises managing increasingly complex infrastructure footprints are seeking unified platforms that not only manage devices but also provide actionable insights into performance and end-user experience.
Our ANGLE
HPE’s recent expansion of Aruba Networking Central introduces new deployment flexibility designed to meet a broad range of enterprise and government requirements. By offering options across SaaS, VPC, on-premises, and NaaS, and pairing them with AI-powered operations and extended observability, HPE is positioning its network management platform to serve customers with diverse operational, security, and compliance needs.
While the long-term impact will depend on customer adoption and competitive responses, the announcement reinforces the growing importance of flexible, intelligent infrastructure solutions in a landscape shaped by AI, compliance pressures, and distributed work.
