HPE Networking Instant On have made some real waves in the industry over the last few years - offering networking kit that’s both powerful and intuitive, scalable and affordable, HPE have increasingly become a byword for reliability and performance for businesses of all sizes and requirements.
A core tenet of HPE’s overriding ethos when developing and releasing their portfolio has always been simplicity without sacrificing power - the belief that a company shouldn’t need a suite of the latest expensive management software, an on-call team of dozens of highly-qualified round-the-clock network engineers, and a six-figure networking budget to achieve consistent, scalable and high-quality networking. This belief is borne out in the products HPE release; with a wide array of access points with WiFi 6E and outdoor options, and network switches featuring generous PoE budgets and even true stacking, an Instant On network installation can provide secure, consistent and high-speed connectivity, with the ability to be fully set up and configured in minutes, and scalable enough to grow the network as the business grows.
However, as any good IT manufacturer will tell you, the devices are only one side of the story: the most powerful networking equipment in the world can’t do much good if the portals you use to provision, monitor and manage them effectively are confusing to use and limited in scope. A good management portal can make all the difference to a systems administrator - streamlining an entire network ecosystem spanning multiple sites into an intuitive, centralised single pane of glass.
HPE Networking recognised this, and that’s why they’ve released their new management portal!
Dubbed Instant On 3.0, this update heralds a revamped management portal for their networking devices, making network management smoother, smarter, and more secure. Featuring a refreshed, straightforward UI and a sophisticated suite of advanced features, Instant On 3.0 promises a total refresh of the way that admins and engineers interact with their HPE networks.
Updated UI
Among the first things to notice when logging into Instant On 3.0 is a fully retextured and updated user interface, granting an at-a-glance oversight across an entire network - no matter the size. The initial login screen features a six-tile view of the metrics closest to the heart of a network engineer - a generalised score of network health, active alerts, a list of connected clients, the status of any active networks, an overview of network devices like switches and access points, and an application overview. It’s a great way to instantly glean an understanding of network health and functionality - a clean, accessible interface significantly reduces the time it takes to access important, high-level information about your Instant On network.
In a much-requested improvement on the old Instant On management portal, the ability to search has also been added on every page, offering easy filtering for parameters like device names, site health rating, web application and a whole host of other considerations.
The process to add and manage new sites has also been streamlined and condensed even further - a new site can be established in under five minutes using the new Geolocation feature, designed to automatically record the location in which it’s established. Simply by choosing the location of the site, copy and pasting the MAC address of a single Instant On device at that site and then choosing its function, you can create a brand new site - perfect for expanding network reach in moments.
Intelligent Automation Updates
To assist small teams and single network engineers and unlock the same sense of oversight and cohesiveness normally only accessible to large teams, Instant On 3.0 brings a new powerful and varied feature set to the table.
It’s now easier to view and manage multiple sites from a single location anywhere in the world; each site is automatically given a health score ranging from ‘Poor’ to ‘Healthy’, and all can be easily viewed from one screen instead of toggling back and forth between sites.
There are now a few different options for managing these sites - a Multi-Site view that displays the most critical metrics on site health and alerts, a List view to quickly search and sort multiple sites, and a Map view that plots sites geographically on a global map for service providers to engage local engineers in case of any errors. If your network only includes one site however, not to worry - Instant On 3.0 will display that site on your home screen by default.
Site Scheduling & Cloning
Another cutting-edge new feature introduced by Instant On 3.0 and drawn directly from customer feedback is the ability to clone existing sites and easily set dedicated schedules for updates and provisioning, dramatically reducing the amount of time needed to configure each network.
By cloning an existing site instead of beginning from scratch, HPE Networking’s partners can set up and manage multiple similar sites in a few seconds. These cloned sites won’t copy device-specific settings like watched and blocked lists, access control lists or IP reservations as these will vary from site-to-site, but names, guest portal configurations, network policies and more will be seamlessly and instantly duplicated between sites to streamline the site establishment process.
Once these sites have been set up, the new scheduling feature means that firmware can be automatically updated at specific times to minimise disruption as far as possible, while requiring no user input. This update also brings improved classification tags like ‘Smart Device’, ‘Android’ or ‘iOS Device’ that are automatically assigned and visible, with each tag also being searchable to easily and instantly identify client devices.
Access Point Improvements
Access to fast, consistent and far-reaching WiFi is more of a necessity than ever before in the modern world, and there’s no sign of that fact changing soon; luckily, with Instant On 3.0, a special emphasis has been placed on managing, monitoring and perfecting an ecosystem of HPE Networking access points for dependable, quality WiFi throughout any space.
Notably, improving access point radio configuration has been focused on - administrators can now alter the configuration of connected APs to a significantly more granular degree, right down to selecting the channels and specifying the transmit power per frequency band. This transmit power is also now displayed in specific decibels (dBm) instead of on a sliding scale from low to max, and each channel now features a selector box to more clearly identify which ones are active.
Automated Smart Mesh support for the 6GHz band is also now supported for the AP32, automatically using the 6GHz for backhaul to speed up WiFi connectivity for connected devices and reduce the speed loss between mesh hops.
Enhanced Permissions & Security
To accompany the huge range of feature and quality-of-life improvements, network admins are now able to specify permissions for any user with access to the Instant On 3.0 management portal.
These roles range - Administrator, Operator, Delegate and Viewer - range in that order from full access to all network configuration options and the ability to create new accounts, all the way to viewer-only permissions where users can see but not edit network settings.
This is a huge step forward, both for internal IT teams who need different staff members to have different roles and permissions, but also for partners acting as service providers for their customers. Administrators and Operators can create policy-based rules blocking wireless application access and achieve a finer degree of control over their network - thereby improving security and safety by preventing access to dubious sites.
Conclusion
HPE Networking’s Instant On 3.0 is a game-changer; by revamping their management portal to be simple, scalable and feature-rich, HPE have ensured that the kind of network oversight normally reserved for enterprise-sized businesses are now fully and firmly accessible for startups, up-and-coming MSPs, medical centres, and any other business who don’t have a 24-hour network operation team.
By including enhanced permissions, site scheduling and duplication and the ability to search for specific user devices and sites (among a whole host of other controls, features and improvements!), Instant On 3.0 is ushering in a new era of remote network management that’s more efficient, intuitive and accessible than ever. Whether you’re a small business owner, an IT professional at a growing company, or a service provider supporting multiple clients, HPE’s committed to providing simple, powerful and scalable solutions for anyone to create, maintain and monitor a secure, high-performance network.
