Juniper Networks introduces Cloud Metro innovation

Juniper Networks has introduced 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.

Today’s 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 ¹ 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 Family² 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 Assurance³ 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 Security⁴ 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 ACX 7000 devices.

Juniper Networks 400G ZR/ZR+ optics⁵ 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.