Enterprises are shifting their applications and data to the cloud to enhance scalability and resilience and accelerate their digital transformation. Driven by diverse needs related to application functionality, commercial factors, and other considerations, they often choose varied cloud environments and locations, including public or private, hybrid, and centralized or edge settings. As a result, these enterprises often face challenges in integrating multiple applications and services spread across different cloud locations while meeting application and network Service Level Expectations (SLEs).
To address these challenges, Juniper Networks has developed Juniper Cloud Interlink (JCI), an AI-powered software solution incubated in Juniper® Beyond Labs. It seamlessly connects applications across hybrid and multicloud networks at scale and enables the best experience.
Connectivity challenges across hybrid and multicloud networks
Navigating the intricacies of hybrid and multicloud networks presents a myriad of connectivity challenges that can complicate operations and escalate costs. For starters, the increasing complexity of these networks often results in limited visibility for IT teams to monitor and manage their environments effectively. This is further exacerbated by inconsistent operations due to the use of multiple homegrown and/or cloud provider tools, leading to inefficiency and potential errors.
Additionally, the rapid pace of cloud evolution means there is an ongoing lack of cloud-specific skills among IT professionals, making it tough to leverage the full potential of cloud services whilst ensuring optimal performance and security. The expanding threat landscape in the cloud environment is also a significant concern, with rising security threats posing increased risks of data breaches and compliance violations. All these challenges lead to a situation where costs can spiral out of control.
Juniper Cloud Interlink (JCI)
JCI addresses the challenges and complexity associated with building and operating secured, assured hybrid and multicloud networks. JCI is based on the Juniper® Session Smart® Router which provides an application-aware, Zero Trust secure network fabric to meet the most stringent enterprise performance, security, and availability requirements. The Session Smart Router overcomes the inherent inefficiencies of conventional solutions with a tunnel-free architecture that enables improved performance, fast deployments, and cost savings.
JCI simplifies hybrid and multicloud networking significantly by streamlining the deployment and management of applications and services. Benefits include:
Common administration for faster rollout of applications and services
By adopting a common administration platform, organizations can accelerate their rollout processes using a single pane of glass to manage connectivity across hybrid and multicloud deployments. This eliminates the need to stitch together various tools, whether homegrown or from cloud providers. Furthermore, centrally-managed access control policies provide the ability to enforce consistent security postures regardless of where the data or applications reside. For example, JCI allows for enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications running on a public cloud to access a database on a private cloud hosted in the enterprise—all while blocking any outbound traffic from the same database.
Assure consistent experiences and improve MTTR
By eliminating the silos that can often slow down troubleshooting and repair, JCI’s unified approach helps assure network and application SLEs across different environments when issues arise. Leveraging AI-based proactive anomaly detection, JCI can continuously monitor and identify any deviations or abnormal behavior with respect to latency, jitter, packet loss, etc., in real time before they escalate into more severe problems. Furthermore, immediate root cause discovery enables swift identification of the underlying issues causing the detected anomalies. This immediacy in pinpointing the problem areas reduces the time spent in diagnosing issues, thereby improving Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR).
Consistent security posture to reduce attack surface
JCI’s embedded security tools enable Zero Trust across multicloud environments. Not restricted to the embedded security tools, enterprises have the liberty to augment their security posture by incorporating third-party firewalls.
Cost analytics and optimization to lower cloud spend
JCI’s cost analytics and optimization tools allow organizations to gain visibility into their cloud networking spend, helping them identify inefficiencies and optimize resource allocation. This not only helps to prevent budget overruns but also aids identifying potential savings opportunities. In addition, cloud capacity optimization based on SLEs ensures resources are neither overprovisioned or underutilized, striking the perfect balance between performance and cost.
A successful PoC with Tier 1 service provider
In collaboration with a top-tier service provider, Juniper executed a successful Proof of Concept (PoC), showcasing the capability of JCI to connect applications across multiple public clouds, as well as those on a private cloud. Additionally, this PoC included the implementation of centrally-managed access control policies. This engagement offered an invaluable opportunity to gain insights, enhance features, and validate the technology’s effectiveness in real-world scenarios.
Conclusion
By simplifying multicloud networking through its intent-driven, assured approach, JCI enables enterprises to concentrate on their digital transformation initiatives and unlock the benefits of multicloud.
Visit the Juniper® Beyond Labs page to learn more.
