New AI-driven SD-WAN capabilities make WAN edge easier to deploy, manage and secure

Juniper Networks has announced that customers and partners can now fully deploy, configure and operate the company's Session Smart Router (SSR) technology via the Mist cloud and AI engine.

Juniper says this represents a significant step forward in its AI-driven enterprise across wired access, wireless access and SD-WAN domains. The company has also expanded the security capabilities of the Juniper SSR portfolio with enhanced IDS/IPS and URL filtering capabilities and made it easier to get SSR up and running with new cloud-ready appliances with Zero Touch Provisioning.

"Juniper is executing on a simple vision, AI-driven operations deliver the best user experiences from client to cloud," says Juniper vice president of products, Sudheer Matta.

"This is critically important in the WAN edge, so we have put considerable energy into advancing the first truly AI-driven SD-WAN solution born in the modern cloud. SSR is key to this mission, as it brings unique simplicity, scale, security and performance to WAN edge environments. Combined with our award-winning wireless and wired portfolios driven by Mist AI, this enables the best end-to-end experiences across the board."

Not long after the acquisition of 128 Technology, Juniper brought AI-driven operations to SSR with the Juniper Mist WAN Assurance cloud launch. This lowered the cost of Day 2+ SD-WAN operations with powerful AI-driven features like service level expectations (SLE's), predictive insights, anomaly detection and automated troubleshooting. In addition, Juniper's AI-powered virtual network assistant, Marvis, was extended to cover SSR, helping IT teams quickly identify and fix network issues using natural language queries, often before users even know they exist.

Juniper is now completing the AI-driven SD-WAN vision by adding day 0/1 SSR operations into the Mist Cloud. This includes many configuration elements found in the current on-prem Session Smart Conductor, such as the definition and enforcement of routing and security policies, peer path configuration and more.

"As one of the fastest-growing segments of the network infrastructure market, SD-WAN is designed to improve user and application experiences while enabling seamless connectivity and security to the cloud," says IDC research manager, Enterprise Networks, Brandon Butler.

"Juniper's AI-driven SD-WAN aims to simplify branch operations via integrations with the company's WAN Assurance visibility and analytics platform and its existing Juniper Mist Wi-Fi and Wired Assurance products, which leverage the natural language processing capabilities of Marvis. These types of advancements will continue to make SD-WAN a key technology for enterprises as they look to build out their digital transformation journeys in 2022 and beyond."

Marisa Trisolino, CEO, CMC Networks, says, "As a global service provider servicing 63 countries across the MEA region, we know first hand how distance can impact the performance and reliability of the network.

"Juniper's innovative AI-driven SD-WAN technology makes it easy to onboard a full-stack solution. Once operational, it can identify a problem and automatically decide on the best and most effective resolution possible without any user intervention. We believe the level of intelligence delivered as part of this full-stack solution will make it even easier to continue to provide secure, fantastic user experiences across the globe."