While Others Tunnel, Juniper Looks to the Cloud

Juniper Networks’ acquisition of Mist in 2019 wasn’t just about bringing wired and wireless access together. It was about building the AI-driven enterprise, where cloud-hosted AIOps deliver the absolute best user and IT professional experiences.

But this vision doesn’t stop with wired and wireless access. The WAN edge is also critical to supporting the best user experiences from client-to-cloud, which is why Juniper acquired 128 Technology just over one year ago. Not only did 128T bring Session Smart Routing (SSR) into the Juniper portfolio, arguably the most unique and innovative technology to hit the SD-WAN space in decades, but it also provides indispensable insight and control to Juniper.

Juniper integrated 128T’s SSR with the Mist cloud and AIOps in record time, starting with the introduction of a new WAN Assurance cloud service last year. By introducing new capabilities like service level expectations (SLEs), anomaly detection and prescriptive AI-driven actions via Marvis, the Virtual Network Assistant, it completely changed the WAN space with simplified Day 2 operations, reduced mean time to repair and, most importantly – provided the best visibility into end-user experiences. These are the inherent benefits of what we call AI-driven SD-WAN.

Introducing New Capabilities for the Juniper SSR Portfolio

Today, Juniper is continuing to fulfill the vision of AI-driven SD-WAN in several key areas, from Day 0/1 operations to enhanced security. Specifically, we are pleased to announce the following new capabilities within the Juniper SSR portfolio:

1. Full AI-Driven SD-WAN Operations, via the Mist Cloud: Customers can now deploy, configure and operate Session Smart Router (SSR) technology via the Mist Cloud and AI engine.

This announcement brings Day 0/1 operations of the Session Smart Conductor into the Mist Cloud, including routing and security policies, peer path configuration and templating.

This complements the Juniper Mist WAN Assurance service, announced last year, which brings Day 2 operations like SLEs, AI-driven insights, anomaly detection and automated troubleshooting to Session Smart Routing.

Additionally, Marvis, Juniper’s AI-powered Virtual Network Assistant, helps IT teams quickly identify network issues across the WAN and accelerate time to resolution.

2. New Hardware that’s Easier to Deploy: Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) has been added to the SSR portfolio, making it easier for customers to get up and running with new cloud-ready appliances.

A standalone Juniper-branded device makes it easier for many customers to procure and onboard a branch site.

Customers can onboard their SSR device centrally, by simply relying on “smart hands” in the field to plug in the device and scan its claim code, causing it to automatically provision and come online. Along with the Mist APs and EX switches, it brings a simple, seamless solution, allowing IT teams to significantly reduce the time to value for any branch site.

3. Enhanced Security: Building off Juniper’s unique zero trust architecture, the security of the Juniper SSR portfolio has been enhanced with IDS/IPS and URL filtering capabilities.

URL Filtering allows IT teams to prevent access to or from specific sites on the internet, allowing them to meet business and security requirements.

IDS/IDP further protects branch sites from advanced malicious attacks that have been on the rise.

One can argue that Juniper is now the only vendor that can deliver a full stack (LAN/WLAN/SD-WAN) solution that’s operated from a single AI-driven cloud platform. Juniper is also the only vendor that can quickly onboard the full stack of branch devices, including Wi-Fi access points, access and distribution switches and SD-WAN gateway devices, all from the same cloud portal. This saves substantial money in both OPEX and CAPEX, while delivering automation and insight not seen in other solutions.

In addition, no one else can deliver Juniper’s unique zero-trust fabric with leading advanced security capabilities or offer a full portfolio of hardware devices along with a robust ecosystem of meet in the market options. When it comes to “seamless” and “secure,” Juniper is the answer.

These capabilities help distinguish Juniper’s offering from the industry and are the reason why customers across multiple industries choose Juniper SD-WAN, including a global Fortune 10 retail company, a global energy producer and a growing number of managed service providers focused on evolving their customer experience.

Born in the cloud. Built on AI. Focused on user experiences. That’s the Juniper approach, and today’s announcement represents yet another example of our relentless execution on this vision. We’re proud to disrupt yet another part of the AI-driven enterprise and now, we can confidently say the WAN edge will never be the same.