Aruba adds network auto-fixes to AI Insights

Aruba customers will soon discover that the company's cloud-based network management system automatically corrects some wired and wireless network problems.

This week, the Hewlett Packard Enterprise subsidiary introduced upcoming corrective features in AI Insights, a dashboard within the Aruba Central network management console. AI Insights predicts or identifies problems based on telemetry data gathered from access points (AP), switches and gateways.

Starting in the fall, AI Insights will fix some problems by default. Aruba chose the issues to correct automatically based on customer feedback, said Scott Calzia, vice president of product marketing.

For example, suppose an excessive number of 5 GHz-capable mobile devices connect to an AP's 2.4 GHz wireless band. In that case, Insights will lower the transmission power and raise that of the 5 GHz band. The adjustment would increase the likelihood of devices switching to the higher-performing underutilized band.

Another example of an automated change involves devices having trouble obtaining an IP address from a DHCP server to connect to a wireless network. That problem type is more difficult to fix because there are many possible reasons for it.

In that case, AI Insights will correct what it knows is safe, such as re-establishing a connection to a VLAN, leaving more complicated possibilities to network managers.

Another example is connectivity problems associated with a DNS server. If congestion is the trouble source, then AI Insights would notify Central users without making changes.

"The changes that we would make are those that we determine are going to make the network more efficient," Calzia said. However, Aruba can't guarantee that what it fixes is the root cause of a network problem.

Calzia did not know how many corrective actions AI Insights would take by default. Also, AI Insights works only with APs running Aruba's latest AOS 10 operating system.