Justin Chiah (Aruba) and Wilson Ho (Westcon)
Aruba has signed a distribution agreement with Westcon amid plans to drive networking market growth via the channel across Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam.
Terms of the deal will see Westcon gain access to the vendor’s full suite of next-generation enterprise networking solutions, in addition to continuing distributing SD-WAN offerings by Silver Peak -- acquired by Aruba in July 2020 -- across “major Asian markets”. Meanwhile in Taiwan, Westcon will also distribute Aruba Clearpass alongside Silver Peak products.
“Westcon has been a strong partner to us in distributing our integrated EdgeConnect SD-WAN solutions this past year and we look forward in building on top of this successful foundation,” said Justin Chiah, senior director of Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong at Aruba.
“In today’s digital-first era, the right automated and intelligent network infrastructure will empower organisations to secure their network, while staying connected. With this partnership, our customers can expect to see the winning combination of Westcon’s extensive value-added distribution strengths with our Aruba Edge Services Platform (ESP) solutions.”
The expanded distribution rights will also result in Westcon connecting partners and customers to Aruba’s wired and wireless LAN solutions, including Aruba Central -- a cloud-based network management and monitoring platform which offers unified network management, AI-based analytics, and Internet of Things (IoT) security.
Operating as the management and orchestration console for Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform), Aruba Central provides a single point of control to monitor wired and wireless LANs, WANs, and VPNs across campus, branch, and remote office locations.
“Westcon is delighted to be able to represent Aruba in the markets of Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam,” added Wilson Ho, managing director of Asia at Westcon. “We have been Silver Peak distributor for much of the past decade and will continue to offer the Silver Peak SD-WAN solution in most of the major Asian markets.
"Aruba is highly regarded, has a passionate partner community and a solid team of professionals. It will add another best-in-class vendor to the solution portfolio of Westcon and further enhance our position as a leading technology distributor in this region. We are looking forward to winning together with Aruba.”
Aruba was acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in early 2015 which then subsequently went on to purchase Silver Peak for $925 million in July 2020.
As reported by Channel Asia, Silver Peak's Unity WAN technology transitioned into Aruba's portfolio, offering an immediate shot in the competitive arm when it comes to the hot SD-WAN arena where Cisco, VMware and others are attracting enterprise IT dollars.
Founded in 2004 by David Hughes, who is still CEO, Silver Peak develops a variety of wide-area network technologies including WAN optimisation and SD-WAN software.
"Our Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN edge platform is highly complementary to HPE's industry-defining SD-Branch offerings and it will become the centrepiece of Aruba's WAN edge strategy," said Hughes when speaking about the sale to HPE.
