This week Juniper Networks announced Juniper Support Insights, which is an AI-driven support service across the entire Junos portfolio. Juniper jumped into AI-based networking when it acquired Mist Systems in 2019. At that time, Mist was used primarily as a Wi-Fi troubleshooting tool. The focus of AI to improve Wi-Fi made sense given that is the single, most difficult area of networking to problem-solve as there are so many variables to consider. In fact, last year I ran a Wi-Fi troubleshooting survey and found that many network engineers spend about one-quarter of their time doing nothing but troubleshooting Wi-Fi. So, Mist came to market by attacking the biggest problems facing network professionals.
Juniper is now taking the lessons learned from Mist and creating its new Support Insights, a freemium service which gives all customers a “Mist-like” experience across all Junos products, which includes ACX, EX, MX, PTX, QFX and SRX. The service cloud connects all the products and takes information about them — such as line card status, configurations, operating system information and other product specific data — and correlates that with data in the Juniper cloud. That’s data such as contract, end of life, product, security and vulnerability. The output from the AI-driven analytics is a series of dashboards and reports that enable customers to take preventive actions on their network devices.
The new Support Insights offering differs from Mist in a couple of way. First, Mist is a premium offering and carries with it a subscription cost. Support Insights is available to all J-Care (Juniper’s support service) customers for free. Also, Support Insights takes in data and provides recommendations that engineers need to execute, where Mist is full read / write and can automate the changes.
Mist has been a change agent for Juniper
It’s my belief that market share changes happen when markets transition — and for years Juniper went to market with a value proposition of being a little faster or a little cheaper than the incumbents. But that didn't resonate with customers in any significant way, so Juniper remained a niche vendor. Mist and AI-driven networking have acted as a significant change agent for Juniper. In its most recent quarter, Juniper AI-Driven Enterprise revenue grew 35% year-over-year and bookings grew 50% YoY. Also, Mist-related revenue more than doubled year to date. The results have been consistent growth and steady stock price improvement as well as a leadership position in Gartner’s Magic Quadrants.
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The shift in the industry that Juniper has attached itself to is the rise of customer experience (CX) as a business differentiator. My research found that in 2018, CX became the primary brand differentiator outweighing price, product quality and all other factors. Connecting the dots to Juniper requires an understanding of how CX has now become network centric. Businesses in all verticals and of all sizes are leveraging the power of the cloud and mobility to create unique experiences putting network reliability front and center, and Juniper has done a great job of tying Mist to network reliability, which has a direct impact on CX.
Juniper announces Wi-Fi 6E APs
In addition to Support Insights, Juniper announced two new Wi-Fi 6E access points. The AP 45 is a 4x4 AP that operates at 2.4/5/6 Ghz and the AP 35 is 2x2. These APs can be managed via the same Mist cloud and AI engine as the rest of the portfolio. Every customer I have talked with about their Wi-Fi roadmap is interested in 6E as 6 Ghz brings some clean spectrum to wireless for the first time ever. Juniper admitted it wasn't first to 6E but claims its differentiator is the client insights and AIOps capabilities. In actuality, every vendor that has 6E claims something similar so it will be interesting to see how each vendor differentiates its AI capabilities. Juniper has been very transparent as to how effective its AI engine is, and I’d like to see the other vendors do this.
IoT Assurance simplifies the connectivity and security of things
Lastly, Juniper announced IoT Assurance, a cloud-based service that uses private pre-shared keys (PPSK) and micro-segmentation to simplify the process of onboarding and securing of IoT devices. Through a self-service cloud portal, administrators can manage the keys and apply policies to the IoT endpoints obviating all the manual processes currently being used today.
Although the concept of IT – OT integration has been bandied about for years, I am seeing more businesses making IoT the responsibility of the IT organization. One of the catalysts for this is the hybrid workplace where businesses are deploying IoT devices to enable a safe workplace. Organizations are connecting environmental sensors, cameras, temperature scanners, cleaning systems and more as they bring employees back. These devices can often be difficult to secure, and Juniper aims to make this easier with IoT assurance.
Zeus Kerravala is the founder and principal analyst with ZK Research. He provides a mix of tactical advice to help his clients in the current business climate and long-term strategic advice. Kerravala provides research and advice to end-user IT and network managers, vendors of IT hardware, software and services and the financial community looking to invest in the companies that he covers. He can be reached at [email protected], and follow him @zkerravala and on YouTube.
Industry Voices are opinion columns written by outside contributors—often industry experts or analysts—who are invited to the conversation by Fierce staff. They do not represent the opinions of Fierce.