Networking solutions vendor Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR), a pioneer in secured, AI-driven networks, has announced new Juniper Apstra platform advancements that would make data center network configuration, troubleshooting, and operations easier. Intent-based networking provider Apstra was acquired by Juniper in December 2020.
Enterprise clients, service providers, and cloud provider customers may now extend Apstra’s intent-based networking capabilities to edge data centers with collapsed fabric topologies with the newest Apstra software version. Apstra software would also enable tighter Zero Trust security with enhanced policy assurance and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) features, as well as simpler migration from older data centers with new Apstra professional services.
“With the latest enhancements to our Apstra software platform, we are continuing our commitment to putting user and operator experiences at the forefront of everything we do,” said Mike Bushong, Vice President of Data Center Product Management at Juniper Networks. “Apstra uniquely provides a single solution for the design, deployment and operations of data center networks in multivendor environments, leveraging true intent-based networking to maximize data center reliability with automation and assurance. The newest features enable us to double down on these core architectural differences, bringing reliability, simplicity and security to even more use cases and environments.”
Edge Deployment Architecture
Small data centers are increasingly being deployed at the network edge by enterprises and service providers. To reduce application latency and enhance dependability and user experience, new use cases such as industrial automation and augmented reality are pushing the need to move data processing closer to the end user, stated Juniper. By removing the need to transfer traffic back to centralized cloud data centers, processing data at the edge can save significant networking expenses.
Apstra’s edge deployment architecture enables collapsed fabric topologies, which are often employed in smaller, remote edge data centers, to meet these developments. Clients may use this new paradigm to manage intent-based networking and analytics from tiny edge data centers to big, centralized locations utilizing a single source of truth and a simple platform. By extending Apstra to edge data centers, businesses may take use of intent-based networking and analytics in smaller installations that don’t require the size of a big, centralized data center.
Zero Trust Security
In conjunction with Juniper’s Connected Security portfolio, Juniper’s data center offering provides a wide range of protections for the Zero Trust data center, including workload protection, threat intelligence and prevention, unified policy management, and network segmentation and isolation at scale. Apstra offers a variety of data center fabric security features, including intent-based policy assurance for consistent and accurate policy enforcement and continuous validation across vendors, easy-to-use blueprints and templates for data center security, and strong audit trails.
Apstra’s current version includes policy assurance, which allows for more granular enforcement when needed for increased scalability and efficiency, as well as connection limits for multi-tenant setups and a variety of RBAC and assurance. Apstra can discover security policy inconsistencies and duplicate rules, notifying users and offering solutions.
Apstra Professional Services
Juniper’s new migration services let clients to migrate from outdated data center architectures to contemporary environments that benefit from Apstra’s intent-based networking and assurance in a quick and secure manner.
Juniper’s professional services team can do real-time, preconditioned validations based on the specific blueprints, network models, and operating systems by utilizing Apstra’s intent-based networking architecture and automation technologies. Customers may move to Apstra with less downtime and lower CapEx and OpEx associated with physical and virtual testing throughout the transition. Clients may also employ Juniper specialists, best practice design techniques, and in-house automation technologies to expedite installations, resulting in a higher level of assurance, better business agility, faster deployments, and lower risk.
“Juniper’s integration and assimilation of Apstra into the company has allowed for growth and innovation in its data center portfolio at a time when the need for increased automation in data center operations has become more pronounced,” said Brad Casemore, Research Vice President, Datacenter and Multicloud Networks, IDC. “By extending Apstra’s use cases to edge data centers, organizations can design, validate and scale their networks across multiple environments, all with the reliability of automation. Additionally, as the demand for digital infrastructure continues, Apstra’s new migration services address the changing nature of the networking community, helping organizations overcome significant hurdles in modernizing their data center infrastructure on-prem and at the edge.”
