At the Conference, Aruba announced the launch of three procurement models: 1) Network-as-a-Service; 2) Service Provider Managed Service; and 3) Management-as-a-Service.
The first procurement model is Network-as-a-Service (NaaS). Aruba has formed partnerships with HPE Financial Services and HPE Technical Services, as well as Deloitte and Accenture, which will all be extended to Hong Kong, pending the finalized finance model, said Wai. From these partners, Hong Kong customers can subscribe for network services on demand, such as controllers, virtualized mobility controllers. In turn, Aruba will provide services like consulting and designing of a mature Wi-Fi or WLAN network, together with billing and deployment services.
The next procurement model is Service Provider Managed Service. To deliver Service Provider Managed Service in Hong Kong, Aruba has partnered with HKT and "many internet service providers" whose names were kept undisclosed. The Service is targeted at small and medium businesses (SMBs) with a smaller scale Wi-Fi deployment. This applies, for example, to a shop owner that runs a store in a mall and wishes to provide Wi-Fi service, but does not wish to purchase an access point, or does not have the IT expertise to handle it. "In this scenario, the shop owner can subscribe from a network partner, such as HKT, for Aruba's managed Wi-Fi service.
The network partner would then install the access point and cables in the store, and have Aruba manage the Wi-Fi service, including the publication of the SSID, and management of the bandwidth and users.
The last procurement model is Management as a Service. It is hosted by Aruba itself in a cloud environment, and is supported by a number of Aruba data centers worldwide. This model is the most suitable in a distributed work environment, such as chain restaurants like McDonald's and KFC. This is because chain restaurants usually operate in numerous branches but without putting in place onsite IT expertise.
"Upon order confirmation, Aruba can ship the required number of access point(s) to the physical store. All that is required of the store owner is to plug in the access point(s) and the network cable. The administrator user can perform guest management, guest filtering on web access, all via Aruba Central on its Wi-Fi network," said Wai. And since this service is hosted on Aruba's cloud, the administrator user need not bother with upgrading the technologies subscribed for the next two to three years.
Wai added that users can adopt a mix of the above network services procurement models to cater to their individual business needs. "For example, an organization can deploy NaaS at its headquarter officer, and adopt Management as a Service at its branch offices or sites," Wai said.