I was able to attend Juniper Networks' AI-Native NOW virtual event this last week. It was a great way to end the 2024 year of AI-Native NOW events. And this last event of the year did not disappoint! While the format was similar to other events this year, the content was not the same. During the event, we heard updated information from all the Juniper business units as well as new and different customer stories. It built on the successful combination of Juniper folks delivering great details on why Juniper is the only company delivering the network for the next decade and customers talking about why the Juniper solution is the right one for their businesses.
The most prominent theme was the continued discussion of the major focus areas of “Networking for AI” and “AI for Networking.” If you haven’t heard these phrases yet, the short version is that they break down how the acronym “AI,” while ruling the tech world these days, has two separate focus points in networking.
The first, “Networking for AI,” is all about how we design and build networks for the power-hungry, bandwidth-intense, complex, and demanding data centers that house AI clusters. These data centers are looking for best-in-class connectivity to meet the demands being placed upon them. And Juniper is delivering here. They were the first-to-market vendor with high-density 800Gbps ethernet switches. These switches form the backbone of the connectivity between GPUs in an AI cluster. But you also need great connectivity for other parts of the data center. And even connectivity between data centers. Juniper continues building on its legacy of LAN and WAN products to deliver a reliable, scalable, and resilient network for some of the most intense and critical workloads.
But just providing great connectivity isn’t enough anymore. As the networks grow bigger and more demanding, we need a better way to operate them. And that’s where “AI for Networking” comes into play. AI Operations (AIOps) is the next evolution of tooling. And Juniper’s Mist platform started this process with Wi-Fi 10 years ago. Since bringing the Mist platform into Juniper, they have extended its reach into all of the other campus and branch networking components (switching, SD-WAN, firewalls) and beyond into the datacenter and even WAN routing. Marvis has grown from being just a chatbot to having amazing amounts of domain specific knowledge at hand. And putting that knowledge to work by helping networking teams understand what’s going on with the network, how to find the problem areas, and even helping provide actionable tasks for how to correct issues, before the human networking teams may even recognize there’s a problem. Or even, with the rollout of Marvis Minis in the branch, before there are even people at the site trying to use the network.
A couple of years ago I was asked to develop a “Here’s what Juniper Networks is” presentation to help some of my clients who weren’t familiar with Juniper understand the scope of what Juniper does. There were a few different Juniper presentations that I was able to weave together into a good “Intro to Juniper” deck that went beyond the corporate brief into product and design. But now, I can really deliver most of that presentation with a single image:
This graphic, to me, really shows the entire scope of what Juniper is delivering today. And it demonstrates the transformation of Juniper that is driving the incredible momentum they have in the networking industry today. And personally, I think they’re the only networking vendor that has this completeness of vision and is delivering on that vision right now.
I’ve written about some of the pieces of the Juniper solution here before. And there’s so much more to write. But for now, I want to encourage you to listen to the recording. And then let’s setup a time to talk about how what Juniper brings to the table can help you and your company. And just as importantly, how Nexum, as a Juniper partner, can help you get that solution up and running for you.
