When technology companies create something truly new, it can take time for the market to recognize what they’re doing and why it matters. So it’s incredibly gratifying to announce that, less than six months since launch, Light Reading has named Juniper’s Cloud Metro portfolio the “Most Innovative Routing and Switching Solution” in its 2022 Leading Lights Awards “Editor’s Choice” category.
On July 1st, Juniper introduced a full, expanded Cloud Metro solutions portfolio. Based on the response we’ve seen—from customers, partners, analysts and now, leading industry voices like Light Reading—it’s clear that our vision for the future of metro networks is resonating.
Grappling with Change
Juniper’s Cloud Metro journey started with a simple observation: the metro networks that communication service providers (CSPs) and their customers have relied on for years are undergoing profound transformation. And the kinds of solutions historically encompassed in the “metro” market category can no longer keep up with these changing needs.
On one side of the ledger, CSPs face explosive traffic growth in metro networks, growing security threats, heightened user expectations and new regulatory requirements to dramatically reduce greenhouse emissions. On the other, they face skilled staff shortages, flat budgets and stiff pressure to lower costs. Follow these trend lines, and they add up to the conclusion: the traditional approach to metro networks just isn’t sustainable.
So, Juniper asked: What would a metro look like that can support sustainable growth—for CSPs’ businesses, their people and their zero-carbon goals? Answering that question led us to create a new model for metro network operations, systems and architectures in an experience-driven, cloud-connected world. Ultimately, Juniper unveiled an entirely new product category: Cloud Metro. And with our expanded Cloud Metro portfolio announcement earlier this year, we became the first vendor in this space to make this vision of a new kind of metro a reality.
Reimagining Metro Networks
Enter the Cloud Metro, a new model that recognizes metro networks as the new CSP edge and applies modern cloud principles to build and operate them more efficiently. Cloud Metro puts the end-user front and center, employing experience-first networking principles to deliver the highest-quality subscriber experiences. It uses automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to reimagine metro operations. It delivers the performance and capacity to meet insatiable customer demand, with groundbreaking energy efficiency and system longevity. And unlike yesterday’s “retro metro,” it combines a broad range of attributes needed to enable sustainable business growth—holistically addressing CSPs’ profits, people and the planet.
The Light Reading recognition reflects Juniper Networks’ leadership for its significant innovation with the Cloud Metro solution for an experience-driven and cloud-connected world. The winning factors for the “Editor’s Choice” Leading Lights Awards are: Juniper’s ability to deliver a complete solution to the market with various metro systems for extensive use cases, the solution’s embedded security features and newly released 400G coherent optics. As networks are evolving to embrace automation with Cloud as a Service models, Juniper’s solution is well-positioned with its AI-enabled cloud-delivered automation capabilities to help operators reduce OpEx and outages, enabling exceptional user experiences.
Inside the Cloud Metro
Juniper’s Cloud Metro portfolio encompasses a wide range of solutions to build and operate metro networks more efficiently and profitably, with ubiquitous service-aware intelligence. Equipped with these new capabilities, CSPs can:
- Reimagine metro operations: A new cloud-based, AI-enabled Paragon Automation as a Service enables operators to diagnose problems rapidly and automatically remediate network failures. Our fully automated device onboarding as a service gets metro devices ready for services in minutes, thus delivering exceptional business outcomes.
- Reinvent metro networking systems: The Cloud Metro ACX7000 family delivers the industry’s highest 400GE port density, fastest line card and per slot capacity, with platform longevity while reducing carbon footprint and e-waste. Additionally, Juniper’s newly co-developed 400GE ZR/ZR+ optics deliver best-in-class performance and support an open and interoperable networking ecosystem.
- Build a scalable, assured, and secure metro IP services fabric architecture: The converged IP services fabric architecture is designed for scalability and optimized for end-to-end network slicing. We embedded active assurance and testing capabilities directly into the Junos Evolved OS in the ACX7000 family —turning the network into an “experience sensor.” And we applied Zero Trust security principles across the IP services fabric.
Together, these Cloud Metro capabilities can help CSPs transform metro networks to deliver unprecedented quality and capacity where customers demand it most. With Juniper Cloud Metro, CSPs can support the network experiences of the future more easily, while reducing power consumption by up to 77% and driving down emissions. They can also build a more intelligent, service-aware, secure, and sustainable metro with up to 71% lower TCO.
Looking Ahead
True transformation doesn’t happen without a monumental team effort. The Cloud Metro capabilities we’re now bringing to customers, and the accolades the solution is receiving, are a testament to the talent and commitment of the many Juniper stakeholders involved in this effort. We couldn’t be prouder to see this work recognized in the 2022 Leading Lights Awards. We look forward to continuing this journey with our customers and helping them build a more profitable and sustainable future.
