HPE Networking unveils AI-powered retail products at NRF 2026, integrating Juniper Mist tech

HPE Networking rolls out a bevy of retail products at NRF 2026 - SiliconANGLE

As CES wound down, industry watchers are now turning their attention to the National Retail Federation show across the country in New York. Retail, once is slow moving industry, is now ripe with change and the in-store environments have become operationally more complex. It's now common to find more digital services and connected systems as the networks now support point-of-sale terminals, kiosks, cameras, sensors and guest Wi-Fi, all of which are expected to function without interruptions. At the same time, many retailers are doing this with fewer staff and resources. Also, there is little room for error as when the technology fails, retailers lost money. To address these challenges, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Co. today announced a number of product updates across its networking, analytics, and compute portfolios that are aimed specifically at retailers. Continuous operations are the core tenet of HPE's announcements. Since acquiring Juniper Networks, HPE has been positioning itself as "network first." In a prebriefing, Gayle Levin, head of marketing for wireless products at HPE Aruba Networking, told me the company has a goal of being "the best networking business on the planet," and will lean into its self-driving network narrative to accomplish this. On my call, Levin noted that HPE is placing major emphasis on AI enabled operations to help retailers cope with staff shortages. "Retailers are struggling so much with staffing, and they're managing stores remotely," she said. "Having that kind of self-driving capability is a huge win for them." So much of the industry chatter regarding artificial intelligence is that the technology taking jobs, but in industries such as retail, business can't hire people fast enough. AI can help remove many of the complex and repetitive tasks, enabling information technology operations to focus on strategic initiatives. HPE ties much of its retail strategy to its broader push toward self-driving networks. The idea comes up repeatedly in retail conversations because sending IT support staff to stores is expensive and time-consuming and retailers are trying to avoid it whenever possible. By combining telemetry, AI for IT operations, and automation, retailers can detect and resolve problems remotely. Levin pointed to customers that have significantly reduced on-site IT visits by relying more heavily on self-driving capabilities. For example, one major retail customer was able to cut store visits by 85% thanks to more self‑driving operations. HPE is careful not to frame self-driving as an all-or-nothing proposition. Retailers can decide which actions are automated and which require approval from the IT team first. Levin explained: "This allows customers to move to self-driving at their own pace, and get to that comfort level." On the hardware side, HPE is expanding the Aruba Networking CX 6000 switch family with fanless, compact eight-port models to address space and noise issues in retail. The switches are designed for checkout lanes, kiosks and other customer-facing areas, not wiring closets. They can be installed under counters or in tight overhead spaces. These are one-gigabit switches that HPE is positioning as an entry point in the CX 6000 family. Retailers can move up to higher-capacity models if needed. Levin said the goal is to provide a consistent switching platform that can scale from a small convenience store to a large retailer, all managed through the same Aruba Central platform. The new models support both Power over Ethernet and non-PoE configurations. With more PoE capacity than older models, retailers will be able to add newer devices without having to redesign their networks. This is especially beneficial for those moving to Wi-Fi 7. Wi-Fi 7 is a recurring theme in HPE's retail messaging. HPE updated the Aruba User Experience Insight, part of Aruba Central, with support for Wi-Fi 7 and new sensors. The sensors can identify issues related to network upgrades or configuration changes, helping IT teams establish performance baselines and test network health. "It's one of the first sensors that's out there specifically designed for Wi-Fi 7 to look at not just the six-gigahertz channel utilization, but also some of the capabilities that are unique to Wi-Fi 7," said Levin. Levin explained that the sensors continuously run synthetic user tests -- about a thousand per day -- to proactively detect issues. The tests simulate common network interactions, such as user sign-on activity, to prevent problems before they affect real users. Another focus area for HPE is analytics. The company has integrated the Marvis virtual network assistant with Premium Analytics from its Juniper networking portfolio, giving retailers access to up to 13 months of data. This allows retailers to see how stores performed during the same period last year and track seasonal changes. All Mist customers have access to 30 days of data but the Premium subscription extends that by 10 more months for deeper analysis. The analytics component is handled by HPE's Mist AIOps platform, which collects and analyzes performance and location data, while Marvis is the interface where users interact with the data. Levin compared the experience to asking a question in a chat interface, rather than navigating traditional dashboards or reports. "We're able to use our natural-language interface in Marvis (from Juniper) and AIOps, then take all the rich data and get not only IT insights, but also business insights," said Levin. "And because retail is so seasonal, it helps with those seasonality components as well. For example, how should I staff at Christmas this year based on what we saw last year?" Levin said retailers are doing more than just network troubleshooting. They're using the data for occupancy planning, to make staffing decisions, and to gauge how product placement affects traffic flow inside stores. All of the work HPE is doing at the store edge ultimately depends on what happens behind the scenes. The company is updating its fault-tolerant NonStop Compute platform, which is still widely used for payment processing. For instance, a large share of credit-card transactions pass through NonStop systems at some point. The latest NonStop release can scale across thousands of nodes and delivers about 15% more performance than the previous generation. HPE also introduced Transparent Data Encryption to strengthen protection for payment and customer data. Another notable change is how NonStop can be deployed. HPE now offers a software-based version that can run on standard infrastructure or in cloud environments. For retailers, that opens up more options. They can also access NonStop through HPE's GreenLake platform, adding capacity during peak periods as needed. The NonStop Compute platform is ideally suited when uptime is everything. On our call, HPE said 90% of retail transactions flow through the product. While there are many high-availability compute products available, there is a big difference between them and fault-tolerant solutions, which offer 100% redundancy in hardware and never go down. Prior to being an analyst, I worked as an IT pro at a financial firm, and we used similar systems to power our trading desk as any downtime meant lost revenue. HPE's announcements at NRF 2026 give retailers a closer look at how these pieces fit together across stores, networks and core systems. Levin said the common thread is reducing operational friction for retailers: "This is really about the enhancements that we're making so that we can deliver the backbone for the best retail experiences and transactions." For HPE, the set of announcements was a combination of Aruba, Juniper and its compute products. Historically, the various groups within HPE haven't always come to market together, so it was good to see a set of innovations for retailers from "HPE." Customers are now looking for business outcomes and that requires vendors to eliminate the historical silos that may live within their companies. Moving into 2026 it would be good to see HPE and its peers continue to announce products structured along the lines of customer challenges.

HPE Aruba's Retail Portfolio Is Now Infused With Juniper Mist For AI-Powered Networking

"Retail has to be built to support whatever may come from the business side," he said. "The portfolio certainly allows us to go into a retail account and be confident that we're going to be able to propose something that can support the business needs of a client," one HPE partner tells CRN on the company's enhanced retail-ready networking portfolio. HPE's retail-ready networking portfolio now has an even greater focus on enhancing retail infrastructure while self-driving networks thanks to the addition of Juniper Mist technology, the company told CRN. HPE on Monday rolled out its enhanced portfolio of wireless retail offerings, one of the first portfolios that's offering "cross pollination" between HPE and Juniper Networks technologies since the acquisition closed in July, according to the company. The enhanced portfolio ties together the strengths of HPE Aruba Networking CX switching and Juniper Mist AIOps at the branch edge with the latest HPE Nonstop offerings -- a business within the HPE Server group -- at the heart of the portfolio, Gayle Levin, head of product marketing, wireless for HPE Aruba, told CRN. "Retailers are relying on our solutions, whether it is at the store or at the warehouse or at the data center, across the whole retail chain of value. This announcement is really about how we're pulling these self-driving networks together," Levin told CRN. The company launched the retail-ready networking portfolio last year, which includes HPE's most modern connectivity technology, private 5G and edge computing. [Related: The 10 Hottest Networking Startups Of 2025] New to the portfolio is the HPE Aruba Networking CX 6000 Switch Series, the smallest form factor of the product line designed for small retail environments that includes new 8-port Power over Ethernet (PoE) and non-PoE models that securely connect point-of-sale (POS) terminals, IoT devices, and staff systems to the network. The switch can support next generation use cases, such as digital signage, smart checkout, and edge analytics, as well as advanced telemetry, IoT probing, and total system monitoring, according to HPE. "This will give partners another way to go into maybe a smaller retailer and be able to deliver a very high performing, secure, enterprise-ready solution and allow them to connect point of sale, IoT, and even associate devices using the CX 6000," Levin said. Also new to the lineup is the HPE Aruba Networking User Experience Insight, part of HPE Aruba Networking Central, which acts as an early warning system for organizations modernizing their networks. User Experience Insight Sensors identify issues introduced by upgrades or network changes before users are impacted. IT teams can use the product to create a baseline for their network performance, continuously test network health, track trends, and plan for device growth and AI-native use cases, the company said. User Experience Insight, Levin said, is one of HPE's "best kept secrets" and now supports Wi-Fi 7. "What HPE is doing is helping retailers, like the Gap and 711 and others, modernize their infrastructure, so that they can deliver AI at scale and they can deliver it with the high reliability and high performance that they need," Levin said. Riptide Technologies, a Portsmouth, N.H.-based solution provider and HPE partner, is no stranger to serving the retail space. The firm has been working with a large wholesale club chain with about 300 retail stores and distribution centers in the U.S. to support their technology evolution as the retailer rolls out new use cases centered on improving customer experience, including curbside pickup and an in-store mobile app that lets customers price check, clip coupons and complete express checkout. For the store itself, HPE's technology is empowering things like wireless deli scales, handheld scanners and automated inventory tracking, according to Patrick Rahn, Riptide's director of sales. "Retail has to be built to support whatever may come from the business side," he said. "The portfolio certainly allows us to go into a retail account and be confident that we're going to be able to propose something that can support the business needs of a client in a way that's not causing a headache to manage from the IT side." The tech stack that HPE Aruba is offering today supports a wide array of customer requirements, especially within certain verticals such as retail, said Jake Perron, Riptide's principal network engineer. "These warehouse-style environments [can be] challenging, like the frozen goods distribution centers that need to maintain temperatures below zero degrees constantly. HPE Aruba has various products that are able to support those harsh, challenging conditions," Perron said. "HPE networking is able to match the needs of different environmental challenges." The HPE Aruba Networking CX 6000 Switch Series and User Experience Insight will join the existing retail portfolio, which includes AI Premium Analytics, which have been enhanced with Juniper Mist Marvis technology and HPE NonStop, the company's product line of scalable server systems designed for mission-critical applications. HPE NonStop now offers faster processors and enhanced security to ensure fault-tolerant transaction processing for retail customers, said Casey Taylor, vice president and general manager, HPE NonStop. "When we think about credit card transactions, payments, or any kind of transaction, whether that be a payment or not, that needs to be continuously processed and you can't lose a single transaction anywhere in that process, NonStop is the sweet spot for that," Taylor said. HPE has many use cases around the world in which NonStop technology is powering the retail experience, including convenience stores in Japan and grocery stores in Australia, she added. "Statistics tell us around 90 percent of credit card transactions in the U.S. at some point have passed through a NonStop system," Taylor said. The HPE Nonstop Compute solutions and HPE Aruba Networking CX 6000 Switch Series are available now from HPE and its channel partners, the company said.