“If you’re able to be patient, you’re going to be successful.”
– Dawn Staley, American Olympic gold medalist basketball player and coach
Timing is everything. The product is right. The team is right. The market is at an inflection point. Things are moving in a positive direction and with patience, hard work and the determination to stay the course and execute, good things will happen.
The Mist Systems team felt this early on in the wired/wireless access space. At first, they were dismissed by people saying the WLAN/LAN market was “too mature” and the competition was “too stiff.” But they knew that bringing AIOps and a modern cloud to networking was what the industry needed. And with perseverance, customers would buy it, partners would embrace it and analysts would recognize what would later become Juniper Networks’ unique value proposition.
And they did. For example, last quarter was a record for Juniper’s enterprise business, with the “Mistified” portfolio accounting for a big piece of that growth.
In addition, in the most recent Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure, Juniper Networks was named a Leader and positioned highest for its Ability to Execute, which is a perfect segue to now.
Today, Gartner published the new 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure and Juniper is excited to announce that we are the only vendor in the Visionary Quadrant!
We believe that this placement is the result of several unique value propositions that continue to differentiate Juniper from a crowded WAN edge field. These include:
- AI-Driven Operations (AIOps), such as Mist WAN assurance and Marvis, the Virtual Network Assistant. Our AIOps solutions simplify WAN edge management and increase network uptime with customizable service levels and Self-Driving Network™ operations, driven by Mist AI.
- Session Smart Routing (SSR), which brings scale, agility and flexibility, plus unparalleled cost savings thanks to a tunnel-less architecture.
- Connected Security, which safeguards users, applications and infrastructure by extending security to every point of connection, from client-to-cloud (including SASE).
So, what does this all mean? Specifically:
Play 1: State a bold and unique vision. Mission Accomplished. Juniper believes that AI-driven WAN is the future for the WAN edge and will supplant traditional SD-WAN solutions that were built on outdated architectures. In addition, by unifying the WAN with the WLAN and LAN into a cohesive AI-driven enterprise, Juniper will continue to deliver unparalleled end-user and operator experiences.
Play 2: Execute on the product vision. Juniper has been working feverishly to bring the same automation, insight and proactive actions the industry knows it for in wired/wireless access to the WAN. For example, we announced WAN assurance driven by Mist AI for both SSR and SRX platforms in the past year, as well as management of the SRX via the Mist Cloud. Juniper hit the ground running hard in 2021 and came a long way thanks to an amazing engineering team.
Play 3: Create maniacally loyal customers. Our actions to date have brought real value to numerous Juniper WAN edge customers, including a global marketing firm, international construction company, Fortune 100 retail chain, several military branches and a national healthcare institution. In fact, Juniper has an amazing 4.9 out of 5 rating based on 9 reviews as of September 21st, 2021 on Gartner Peer Insights reviews with testimonials, such as:
“We’ve been using 128T for over 3 years now and overall it has been a fantastic experience. The support and implementation are the best we have ever experienced. We always feel our voice is being heard. The product itself has solved so many of our issues and it has made routing an afterthought because it “just works” once we got everything setup.”
“We have been working with this solution and company since its inception. Their innovative approach to providing the ultimate security around networking and rapid ability to innovate has been awe-inspiring.”
Play 4: Hit the gas. Juniper continues to invest heavily in awareness, partner enablement and demand generation to increase our market share in the WAN edge space, much like we have done successfully in other key areas (e.g., wired access, wireless access and the data center).
Another great coach, Jill Ellis of the US women’s national soccer team, once said, “If you want to be heard, make a statement.” Well, there’s no doubt that the industry hears Juniper loud and clearly now in the WAN edge. Next up – we’re going to follow our playbook all the way to the championship.
Disclaimer
Gartner Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure, by Jon Forest, Andrew Lerner, Evan Zeng and Naresh Singh, [Publish Date September 20, 2021].
Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure, Bill Menezes, Christian Canales, Tim Zimmerman, Mike Toussaint, 4 November 2020
Gartner and Magic Quadrant are registered trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
