HPE Acquiring Axis Security- SSE Provider

Aruba, the networking division of HPE, announced its intent to acquire Israel-based Axis Security, which is one of many providers of secure service edge, or SSE, on the market today.

Axis debuted as zero-trust network access as a service but since then has added other core components of SSE, including cloud access security broker, or CASB, and secure web gateway, or SWG.

Security tools see all traffic that runs across the network and use it to find threats. The same traffic can be analyzed to understand how applications are performing without having to deploy agents. Earlier in 2020, Zscaler introduced its DEM solution, and since then others, such as Netskope and Axis have followed suit.

The addition of Axis is highly complementary to Aruba and HPE. The company has a strong software-defined wide-area network solution from its acquisition of Silver Peak, which includes a network-based firewall and dynamic segmentation. More and more customers are looking for a full solution for secure access service edge, or SASE, which is the combination of SD-WAN and SSE. Prior to the acquisition, Aruba could deliver SASE only through a partnership but upon closing, will have its own solution.

Axis should be a good fit for Aruba. No purchase price was given, though the reported amount was under $500 million. Axis is a SaaS-based solution, which positively contributes to the shift to subscription revenue.

This acquisition comes on the heels of HPE announcing the purchase of Athonet, a provider of LTE and 5G solutions. Prior to that, Aruba’s last major acquisition was Silver Peak in July 2020, which gave Aruba a solid SD-WAN offering.