Juniper Networks claims first with AIOps to WAN routing

Stating that it is now the only company of its type with a single native artificial intelligence (AI) platform that reduces operational expenditures, by up to 85% in some instances, across the entire networking footprint, Juniper Networks has enhanced its premier AI-Native Networking platform.

With the claimed result of driving “exceptional” value and cost savings to enterprises requiring secure branch connections, the company’s WAN Assurance, Premium Analytics and Marvis Virtual Network Assistant (VNA) products have now been augmented with what is said to be new and unique AI for networking capabilities that deliver simple, seamless and secure software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) and secure access service edge (SASE) experiences.

Juniper also announced a new routing assurance product that claimed to be the first in the industry to bring AI-native automation and insight to traditional edge routing topologies.   

The augmented Juniper solution is designed to use AI for Networking to drive even more value to enterprise WAN environments offering assured SD-WAN experiences with proactive AIOps. Marvis Minis, Juniper’s digital experience twin solution built to improve network ops by diagnosing real authentication issues without requiring users/devices, has been extended to SD-WAN.

The enhancement means WAN speed tests can be continuously run to verify link speeds and take proactive actions if problems are detected without users having to be present. With the expansion, Juniper said it is the first vendor to span wired, wireless and WAN with a single AI-native digital experience twin solution, enabling exceptional end-to-end user experiences.

In addition, existing WAN service level expectations (SLEs) for WAN edge health, link health and application health have been augmented with a new SLE that tracks WAN congestion. The new WAN Congestion SLE alerts operators when their network interfaces are being over-utilised to prevent poor user experiences. Juniper has also further expanded its unique streaming dynamic packet capture (dPCAP) solution for wireless and wired to now include WAN.

The WAN Assurance solution can now proactively capture packets at the time of a bad incident to help identify and fix hard-to-find issues, avoiding expensive and time-consuming site visits. Finally, new application insights offer network operators a user-friendly visualisation of the traffic traversing the SD-WAN.

Offering integrated SSE/SD-WAN (SASE) insight via an expanded premium analytics, Juniper is introducing a new security insights Mist dashboard within its Premium Analytics product to provide increased security event visibility and persona-based policy activation and threat responses. This increased visibility is intended to provide actionable intelligence to security teams, enabling them to quickly identify incidents and respond to threats in real-time, thereby improving the user experience.

The security insights dashboard in Premium Analytics is also seen as also helping to break down siloed network and security management. Networking and security teams are said to be able to benefit from a shared portal that shows proactive actions needed to streamline operational workflows for increased efficiency, agility and cost savings.

New routing assurance intros the first AI-Native WAN routing solution, bringing the company’s sustainable and versatile enterprise edge routing platforms under the Mist AI and cloud umbrella. With Juniper Mist Routing Assurance, Juniper said it is modernising the WAN edge with customisable service levels that allow administrators to monitor, analyse and resolve issues swiftly any anomalies identified by Mist AI across connected WAN Edge and peering locations for edge MX and ACX routing products.