Juniper Networks Enhances Data Centre Assurance Capabilities

Juniper Networks has announced several new enhancements to its data centre assurance capabilities. These updates aim to improve network visibility, analysis, and automation, providing users with better tools for optimizing and troubleshooting network performance.

Integration of AI-Native Cloud Services

Juniper’s updated data centre networking solution now includes cloud-hosted services that utilize AI for networking. These services deliver enhanced insights into both traditional and emerging AI workloads, aiding in ongoing optimization and rapid troubleshooting. The new features are designed to reduce deployment times by up to 85 per cent and operational expenses (OPEX) by up to 90 per cent in certain cases.

Components of Juniper’s Data Centre Networking Solution

The updated solution consists of QFX Series Switches, EX Series Switches, PTX Series Routers, ACX Series Routers, and SRX Series Firewalls. These components are managed via Juniper Apstra data centre assurance software and the Marvis Virtual Network Assistant (VNA). The solution supports multi-vendor intent-based networking, proactive AIOps, and a GenAI conversational interface for knowledgebase queries.

New Software Enhancements

1. Service Awareness and Impact Analysis 

Juniper has introduced two new cloud services, Service Awareness and Impact Analysis, to complement the existing Marvis VNA for Data Centers. Service Awareness adds application and service data to the Juniper network knowledge graph, enhancing visibility into application performance and resource consumption. Impact Analysis builds on this by mapping identified issues to their impacts, facilitating faster troubleshooting and issue resolution.

2. Availability and Licensing

Service Awareness and Impact Analysis are available in the Juniper Apstra Premium license tier at no additional cost. Marvis VNA for Data Center remains available in all three Juniper Apstra license tiers (Standard, Advanced, Premium) at no extra charge. These services are built on Juniper’s microservices cloud architecture, which is used by several major corporations, including five of the Fortune 10.

Updates to Intent-Based Networking

The latest release of Juniper Apstra (version 5.0) introduces over 100 new features to enhance data centre operations. Notable updates include:

• Enhanced EVPN analytics for simplified operations.
• Intent-based Analytics (IBA) features such as easy buttons and visual guides for quicker data interpretation.
• Simplified switch port validations to resolve multivendor conflicts.
• Expanded environmental telemetry data covering traffic, switch health, optics, power supplies, fans, and temperature, aiding troubleshooting and enabling future AI-driven maintenance applications.

These enhancements aim to improve operational efficiency and application performance within data centres.

“As a nonprofit health system in the Upper Midwest, the network is critical for Avera to provide the best patient care. Juniper’s intent-based networking solution previously improved reliability and simplified the operations of our data center infrastructure.  Now we’re also using the new cloud services and AIOps capabilities and we've seen early success. We are excited to use the new application assurance capabilities and expect them to help make the employee and patient experience even better." Matt Schroeder, Network Engineering Manager, Avera Health.

“Today’s hyper-connected digital business environment is placing more and more pressure on the network and networking staff. AIOps advancements, intent-based networking and application intelligence provide much-needed relief for these pressures by bolstering the resiliency and responsiveness of the network infrastructure, enabling a more precise and proactive approach to network management. Juniper’s latest AI-Native Networking Platform enhancements enable data center operators to become more application-aware and deliver application assurance that improves end user experiences.” Mark Leary, Research Director, Network Observability & Automation at IDC.

“We've seen a steady increase in customer adoption of Apstra to optimize the design, deployment and ongoing operations of data center network fabrics. The new cloud and AIOps capabilities will further solidify the operational value Juniper brings to NetDevOps teams while helping Presidio deliver automated, scalable, easy-to-deploy and -manage data center networking solutions to our customers." Vince Trama, Chief Revenue Officer, Presidio.

"We’ve developed industry-leading AIOps capabilities driven by Mist AI and powerful intent-based networking capabilities with Apstra. These two technologies integrated together deliver an unbeatable experience for our customers that operate data centers. The addition of new cloud and AI capabilities with Apstra Cloud Services will further extend the strength of our data center solution. There has never been a better time to build high-performance, low-latency, multivendor data center solutions that are simple, fast and economical to deploy and operate.” Praveen Jain, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Data Center, at Juniper Networks.

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