Juniper Networks unveils new Cloud Metro solution to improve productivity for service providers

Juniper Networks announced the innovation that will power its vision and strategy for Cloud Metro – a new category of solutions for service providers, optimized for metro transformation and sustainable business growth.

Traditional “retro” metro networks are device-centric and are buckling under the extreme scale, agility and experience demands that widespread digital transformation and the advent of 5G services are bringing.

This announcement focuses on enabling sustainable business growth, with a series of high-performance networking systems, powered by AI-enabled, cloud-delivered automation, specifically designed to build next generation Cloud Metro infrastructure.

These systems will deliver significantly-reduced natural resource consumption capabilities to help sustain the planet, improved tools and simplified working methods to help sustain over-pressured operations teams, along with embedded service assurance and security capabilities to optimize service experience, all while enabling service providers to sustain profitable business growth.

Juniper’s new Cloud Metro systems uniquely feature industry-leading energy-efficient, adaptive power designs as their foundational principle, enabling unused features and Packet Forwarding Engines (PFEs) to be automatically switched off when not in use. The removable modular power shelf design reduces e-waste and extends system lifetimes by accommodating up to 48 times bandwidth growth within the same chassis. It is certified as Titanium grade by CLEAResult® in its 80 Plus program, the first and only metro networking device power module to accomplish such a rating.

The future-proofed scale, capacity, performance and smart features of Juniper’s Cloud Metro portfolio replace the traditional 3-5 year ‘rip-and-replace’ network lifecycles with 7-12 year lifecycles. Pay-as-you-go models and a breadth of interface options allow service providers to flex their investment economically in line with demand.

Juniper’s advanced use of AI and cloud-delivered automation equips service providers to simplify day-to-day workflows, deploy services faster (with device onboarding taking just minutes instead of hours), reduce trouble tickets and accelerate time-to-service (and therefore revenue) restoration. This significantly improves productivity, empowering network engineers and operators to accomplish more, which is critical for employee satisfaction and retention.

The new solutions also deliver up to 71 percent lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by leveraging the latest generation of silicon, industry-leading system design and AI-enabled Device Onboarding-as-a-Service. Zero Trust security is built-in rather than bolted-on, while active service assurance is embedded to deliver proactive service testing, monitoring and remediation.

Solution news overview:

• Juniper Paragon Automation as a Service is the industry’s only AI-enabled, cloud-delivered automation portfolio for metro networks, delivering immediate time-to-service value from months to minutes and reduced Mean Time to Know (MTTK) and Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR).
• Juniper AI-Enabled Device Onboarding-as-a-Service is the first-use case to be launched leveraging Juniper Paragon Automation as a Service, driving real business outcomes by significantly reducing device onboarding times.
• Juniper Networks ACX7000 Family products are sustainable, high-performance systems leveraging unique design and adaptive power innovations that deliver up to 77 percent lower power consumption, up to 64 percent better space efficiencies and 4-7 years longer system lifetime than leading competitive products available today. The portfolio also delivers the industry’s fastest router line card, highest 400GE density and fabric capacity per slot, up to 21.6 Tbps with 54x400GE ports, ready for 800G and beyond.
• Juniper Paragon Active Assurance test agents are embedded in JUNOS OS Evolved, available in all ACX7000 models. This turns the cloud metro network into a distributed sensor for assuring user experience proactively which removes the need for additional, standalone probe hardware to be deployed. Additionally, with the new capability of emulating 5G UE/gNB, service providers can now simulate traffic for both the control plane and user plane, ensuring each 5G network slice meets expected SLA.
• Zero Trust Security principles and the threat detection, analysis and prevention fundamentals of Juniper’s Connected Security portfolio have been applied throughout the Juniper Cloud Metro solution. Unique cryptographic digital identities are implemented with the Trusted Platform Module (TPM 2.0) across the Cloud Metro IP services fabric, enabling device attestation and RFC-compliant secure zero-touch provisioning (sZTP). In addition, file encryption and MACsec are implemented to protect data at rest and data in transit. This holistic approach to trust is further enhanced by Paragon’s ability to automatically validate the security deployment and operation across a network of ACX7000 devices.
• Juniper Networks 400G ZR/ZR+ optics co-developed to reduce service provider costs by consolidating IP and optical layers with coherent pluggable optics, which eliminates an entire layer of DWDM transponder terminals by integrating 400G ZR/ZR+ Digital Coherent Optics (DCO). These optics fully comply with industry specifications from OpenZR+ and OIF.

“In a world of ‘retro metros,’ Juniper’s new Cloud Metro solution stands apart. Our cloud-delivered Paragon Automation-as-a-Service promises immediate productivity increases for service providers. Instead of building complex, time-consuming ‘DIY’ automation solutions, they are empowered to focus on assuring service experiences for their customers.

“By extending our proven AI solution to the service provider WAN, we can improve productivity for customer operations teams by dramatically reducing trouble tickets and increasing network availability. And our extended ACX7000 Family delivers the most secure, assured, scalable and intelligent Cloud Metro portfolio on the market. This is the answer to service provider needs for a sustainable future for their profits, their people and the planet,” said Brendan Gibbs, Senior Vice President of Automated WAN Solutions, Juniper Networks.

“Digital transformation is moving into its next phase which is all about transforming operational technology (OT) and driving the distributed delivery of new applications and use cases based on emerging technologies such as AI and AR. The metro edge is key to supporting the massive data, real-time performance and sustainability demands that this new era of OT transformation is bringing.

“This important industry shift requires the re-imagining and re-engineering of the metro network and Juniper is showing leadership here in its Cloud Metro portfolio. Service providers that want to deliver reliable, secure and high-performing services at the metro edge with a sustainable business model should pay close attention,” said Caroline Chappell, Research Director, Cloud Practice, Analysys Mason.

“Our metro connectivity services across more than 260 major cities around the world meet our customers’ need for secure, scalable and high-performance networking. We experience continuous demand for secure connectivity and expect to see double-digit traffic growth on our network, as we continue to provide the great experience our customers require. We’re long-term supporters of Juniper’s vision for high-performance, scalable IP networking and are excited to see the significant enhancements and innovation featured in their Cloud Metro portfolio that can bring more benefits for our customers in the future,” said Don MacNeil, Chief Operating Officer, GTT Communications.

“We are excited that the partnership between Broadcom and Juniper has delivered such a comprehensive portfolio of WAN routing platforms, all based on our leading Jericho and Qumran silicon. This announcement is especially compelling as it showcases Broadcom’s Jericho 2c+ silicon enabling a 50 percent increase to the industry’s highest-density 400G routing line card in a modular chassis. With market-leading 54 ports of 400G per slot at 21.6Tbps, this performance underscores the unmatched scalability and power efficiency of the product offering. We are thankful for our engineering teams,” said Ram Velaga, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Core Switching Group, Broadcom.

Solution availability

• AI-enabled Paragon Automation-as-a-Service – available 1H23
• Juniper embedded Paragon Active Assurance – available 2H’22
• Built-in zero trust security with SaaS-based network trust attestation – available 1H’23
• Juniper 400G ZR/ZR+ optics – orderable & available Q3’22
• ACX7000 Family:
• ACX7100-32C, ACX7100-48L, ACX7509 – available now
• ACX7024 – orderable now, available Q3’22
• ACX7908, ACX7348 – orderable 1H’23