Juniper Networks Fosters Adoption of Network Automation
October 10 2018 - 7:45AM
New engineering community, advanced trainings and
education services give engineers a fast track to automating
day-to-day network operations
(NXTWORK 2018) – Juniper Networks (NYSE:
JNPR), an industry leader in automated, scalable and secure
networks, today announced a breadth of new offerings to accelerate
the industry’s adoption of automation practices. With this latest
announcement, Juniper is unveiling a collaborative community that
includes tools, labs, libraries and an exchange of innovative
applications to accelerate automation adoption for companies
and individuals. Juniper EngNet features access to virtual devices
that run in the cloud, complete with documentation, along with a
full suite of tools to move from manual to automated operations. To
complement Juniper EngNet, Juniper designed NRE Labs, a web-based,
on-demand automation curriculum focused on the emerging network
reliability engineering (NRE) role. Juniper is also announcing
additional professional services to help enterprises break ground
on automated testing, a key thrust for any enterprise looking to
leverage automation to do more in their network.
Despite nearly two decades of industry effort to drive network
automation, network operations are still dominated by manual
operations issued through the command line interface (CLI). Compare
this to a Gartner report that forecasts that “by 2022, only 25
percent of network operations teams will use the CLI as their
primary interface, which is down from more than 70 percent today.”1
Migrating an industry from 70 percent CLI to 70 percent automation
requires industry-wide rethinking of the approach to network
automation. If automation is to become a mainstream practice, the
industry needs to do more than create new products. The success—or
failure—of automation in networking will depend as much on the
people as on the technology. This means that the education and
upskilling of the existing network engineering teams are critical
in modernizing the network to keep pace with advances in compute,
storage, applications, cloud and multicloud.
With the offerings released today, Juniper is making the
individuals behind network operations—not the vendors and their
products—the centerpiece of this industry evolution. Juniper EngNet
and supporting tools and services are about moving individuals
forward in both their skillsets and careers. By providing tools,
virtual resources and a collaborative community for free, Juniper
is putting customers first. Through hands-on practice and
experimentation, these new offerings aim to ease and accelerate the
adoption of automation across network operations, processes and
workflows. This will give NetOps teams an industry advantage by
advancing their automation skills, practices, and processes so that
automation doesn’t remain a mostly specialized practice that only a
select few can leverage.
1 Gartner, “Jump-Start Network Automation to Scale Digital
Initiatives” June 22 2018 A. Lerner, S. Ganguli
News Highlights:
- Juniper EngNet consolidates a full spectrum of
automation tools, resources and social communities into one single
site. The site features API documentation, access to various
Juniper Labs, virtual resources, a learning portal and an
Automation Exchange of useful network automation tools. Juniper
EngNet is aimed at elevating the entire networking community to
move beyond only knowing the incumbent’s CLI knowledge and toward
an automated, abstracted self-driving technology. The networking
community, including Juniper customers and partners, can contribute
to the Automation Exchange within the community.
- NRE Labs provides engineers and network
operators an intuitive in-browser experience with quick-paced and
interactive network automation lessons that focus on real-life
workflows like troubleshooting, verification and configuration.
Inspired by the site reliability engineering (SRE) movement, with
NRE Labs, network reliability engineers can freely practice their
automation proficiency and apply their learnings. In doing so, they
can confidently automate workflows in their own network using the
open tools from the lessons. Built as an open-source project, NRE
Labs can now be accessed by anyone interested in advancing their
automation expertise free of charge.
- Cloud Customer Certification Labs
(CCL) provides users with a platform in the
Juniper cloud to design and run a virtual lab environment
consisting of networking systems, traffic generators and other
network automation tools, such as Juniper’s Network Implementation
and Test Automation (NITA). For users without their own physical
labs or those who want to supplement their labs with Juniper’s
cloud, Cloud CCL provides network engineers with a critical
environment for automated testing and staging.
- Juniper’s extended service offerings provide a
variety of educational, professional and advanced engineering
services to improve network automation capabilities. For example,
Juniper Testing-as-a-Service (TaaS) uses the new Cloud CCL to
replicate customer network topologies, configurations, traffic
flows and real-life environments, validating all planned changes
and to emulate future requirements. Cloud CCL helps users validate
specific functionalities of scheduled upgrades or changes,
mitigating any risk to the production network. Juniper Automation
and DevOps training courses are now also available at introductory
and intermediate levels, along with exams to certify engineers at
JNCIA and JNCIS respectively. Additionally, as part of Juniper’s
global OpenLab Network Automation Throwdown Program, Juniper is
offering new events for network engineers interested in using NRE
Labs and Cloud CCL in person. Learn more about upcoming events
here.
Supporting Quotes: “Imagine a world where car
makers kept pushing out new vehicles every year, but drivers’
education never existed. You’d end up with stagnant automobiles
that no one knows how to drive. Automating the network is no
different. Every year we hear of a new product that can automate
“this” or program “that,” but if you don’t first start with the
people, process and cultural change of automation, then you’ll
never see anyone actually adopt it. Our multifaceted initiative
announced today aims to close the gap between automated product and
automation skillsets to foster adoption across the industry.”
- Bikash Koley, Chief Technology Officer, Juniper Networks
“For years, the industry has relied on incumbent network vendors
to guide them toward a more automated future. At some point, we
have to realize that this isn’t working. For a company whose
greatest incumbent strength is the CLI, perhaps it’s not even in
their best interest to move the industry forward. It’s time for a
new crop of companies to step in, providing more than just
products. If we are to move forward, we need leadership in both
technology and practice. Today, Juniper Networks is taking an
important step forward for Juniper and all the network operations
teams for whom continued inaction represents an existential
threat.”
- Michael Bushong, Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise
Marketing, Juniper Networks
“Juniper Networks’ consistent support of automation
has enabled us to embrace automation in a straightforward,
cost-efficient way. Automation is now one of the key capabilities
of the team, acting as a multiplier of our work and allowing us to
scale while keeping costs under control. We have turned Juniper's
automation capabilities into a powerful tool to deliver value to
the organization by dramatically reducing configuration
mistakes and time to deliver, ultimately positioning the network
team as a reliable partner for the business."
- Alejandro Salinas, Head of Networking at Groupon
“In a world where more data is being created in a single year
than in the previous 5,000 years combined, network automation is
quickly moving from a nice-to-have prerogative to a must-have
imperative. And while many networking vendors have historically
focused on developing automated products to assist businesses in
keeping up with the pace of change, it's the actual practice of
automation that needs to be addressed if the industry is going to
finally realize its promise. Juniper Networks’ new tools, labs,
educational offerings and collaborative community are a welcome
addition in a monolithic CLI-driven world, providing a gift to the
community of sought-after resources to assist in a successful
automation journey. These resources provide engineers with the
skills and means required to support, manage and accelerate
automation in day-to-day operations, whether your organization is
just starting out or well versed in automation and DevOps
principles. It’s a win-win for the industry.”
- Stefan Fouant, Director of Technology and Cloud Strategy, Sun
Management
“IDC finds that network engineers within enterprises invariably
recognize that network automation is essential to achieving greater
business and operational agility, but they often don’t know where
to begin their journey. In launching Juniper EngNet in conjunction
with NRE labs, Juniper is providing network engineers with an
opportunity to advance their automation skillsets through an
extensive free curriculum, virtual resources, and hands-on
practice, all of which is designed to accelerate adoption of
automation across network operations.”
- Brad Casemore, Research Vice President for Datacenter Networks,
IDC
“Juniper Networks has enabled us to create an entirely automated
network architecture to enable dynamic, real-time connectivity
services. We’ve certainly realized many of the benefits in terms of
operational efficiencies, helping us do more with less and freeing
us up to focus on bigger strategic things that move our business
forward. But we also realize that starting the journey toward
automation can be difficult for many in the industry. We think what
Juniper’s doing with its new Engineering Network is a big step in
the right direction toward making automation easy and accessible
for anyone, especially those just starting their path to full
automation.”
- Chad Milam, President and Chief Operating Officer at
PacketFabric
Additional Resources:
- Blog: A New Anthem for Network Automation by Bikash Koley
- Blog: 5 Steps to Automated NetOps by James Kelly
- Blog: Juniper EngNet and New Automation Offerings: Bringing
Automation to the Masses by Stefan Fouant, Juniper Ambassador
- Juniper Engineer Network website at eng.juniper.net
- NRE Labs at labs.networkreliability.engineering and its
open-source project
- Learn more about Juniper’s new vQFX trial, a new Juniper-hosted
AppFormix trial and a new sales- or partner-curated trial of the
NITA framework at juniper.net/trials and try other virtual products
on Juniper vLabs
- Learn more about Juniper’s OpenLab Network Automation Throwdown
and NRE Throwdown Program events.
- Juniper TaaS and Automation Professional Services
- Juniper Automation Educational Services and Certifications
- Follow Juniper Networks online: Facebook |
Twitter | LinkedIn
- Juniper Blogs and Community: J-Net
- Juniper Education Services and Junos Genius Learning app
- Juniper 1on1 app: Keep up with all things Juniper from your
smartphone. Download the app from iTunes and Google
Play store today.
About Juniper Networks Juniper Networks
simplifies the complexities of networking with products, solutions
and services in the cloud era to transform the way we
connect, work and live. We remove the traditional constraints of
networking to enable our customers and partners to deliver
automated, scalable and secure networks that connect the
world. Additional information can be found at Juniper
Networks (www.juniper.net) or connect with Juniper
on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Juniper Networks, the Juniper Networks logo and Junos are
registered trademarks of Juniper Networks, Inc. and/or its
affiliates in the United States and other countries. Other
names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Media Relations: Stephanie Vanegas Juniper
Networks 408-936-8169 svanegas@juniper.net
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