Marvis Learns New Tricks

Juniper Networks is making a couple Juniper Mist Wired Assurance and Marvis VNA related announcements today, and they hired me to help explain why these enhancements are important. There will be lots of detailed release notes covering the in’s and out’s of the new features and functionality being introduced. But not here. Instead, I’d like to start with the basics and then provide what I feel is important context, along with my opinion on why these announcements are important and how they fit into Juniper’s most recent foray into the enterprise.

So, first, what’s new:

1. NEW AI-Driven Campus Fabrics deployed and managed by the Juniper Mist Cloud
2. NEW Marvis Actions covering Wired, Wireless and WAN

And now, what’s important:

Experience-First Networking

If you’ve heard me talk about the evolution of networking you’ve probably heard me say that “the first 30 years of networking was all about figuring out if it would work, the second 30 years was focused on making sure it did actually work, and now we’re in a new phase that’s all about quality of experience – how well it works, instead of just red/green or up/down.” Maybe Juniper was listening, or maybe great minds think alike. In any case, you’ve likely already heard folks at Juniper talking about “Experience-First Networking.”

One of the things I like about the Juniper Networks’ vision for experience-first networking is that they are focused on both network users and network operators. It reminds me of Richard Branson’s philosophy: “If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.” While the end-user experience is what matters, making it easier to operate the network even as it becomes larger and more complex (operator experience) ultimately leads to a more secure and stable network (user experience).

Another thing I like about this approach is that it is outcome-focused, rather than technology- or trend- focused. Experience-first networking is a goal, not a tool – and that is the right focus. So many companies now are yelling about AI and AIOps that it can be hard to sort the signal from the noise. And that makes it refreshing to see Juniper (a pioneer of AIOps) focused on client outcomes, rather than the buzzword du jour. It also gives me hope that they will not see the world through the lens of an “AI hammer” – and instead use other tools when they are more appropriate, all in the pursuit of an ever-better experience.

Now I hear you saying; “Okay, Chris, experience-first networking is a cool philosophy, but what has it done for me lately?” And I’m glad you asked! Let’s look at the pair of announcements that have been under strict embargo until today (14 September 2021):

Campus Fabrics

First up are the new AI-driven campus fabrics that can now be deployed and managed through the Juniper Mist Cloud. You probably know that Juniper Mist Wired Assurance (which now has been extended to include QFX 5110/5120 in addition to the existing EX’s) is already part of the Juniper AI-Driven portfolio and part of what completes the Juniper rally cry of “experience-first networking, from client to cloud.” But what is a campus fabric, and why should you care?

For me, network fabrics are all about making our networks more performant, more agile, more secure, and more scalable. A good fabric eliminates loops while also eliminating “hidden bandwidth” due to blocked ports. A good fabric eliminates the need to string VLANs hop-by-hop across your network as well as the requirement to build ever-larger ACLs on ever-more individual switches. A good fabric should have no problem dealing with mobility and with IoT, etc; it should allow any device to connect anywhere and instantly have the right connectivity.

EVPN-VXLAN is the de facto standard for building secure, standards-based network fabrics in the data center and through its success there, many enterprises are now starting to deploy it in their campus as well. As an aside, VM and container mobility (and proliferation) in a DC look a lot like personal device and IoT mobility (and proliferation) in the campus. However, there is one drawback – EVPN-VXLAN can be quite complicated to get configured properly. After all, all that operational complexity has to be hidden somewhere, right?

That, of course, is what makes this announcement so exciting. By expanding Juniper Mist Wired Assurance to support EVPN-VXLAN campus fabric management, the team at Juniper has eliminated much of the inherent risk in deploying and managing a new network architecture. I’ve seen the demo and I was impressed. First, you choose from one of four EVPN-VXLAN campus architectures.

Then you add your switches (which can be done by scanning a claim code on your mobile phone) and assign them roles within the architecture. Next you add your networks, and here you can combine micro and macro-segmentation using VLANs, VRFs, VxLANs, and VxLAN-GBP (group based policy). Then you add the physical connections between the switches and apply. Within minutes your entire greenfield campus fabric is up and running. And to help keep it running, Juniper includes matching service level expectations (SLE) for things like throughput, successful connections, and switch health.

Marvis Actions

Speaking of keeping it running, the second of today’s announcements is all about those day 2 operations (Juniper defines day 0 as design, day 1 as deploy, and day 2 as operate).

We know that Marvis VNA is designed to be a conversational assistant working alongside the team, but what are Marvis Actions? To quote the folks at Juniper Mist; Marvis Actions are how they proactively turn “root cause into human action.”

And Marvis Actions have come a long way since they were first released about two years ago. Today’s announcement includes additional “actions” covering Wireless, Wired, and WAN – further bolstering the Juniper “client-to-cloud” coverage for experience-first networking.

Here’s a full list of the new-today Marvis Actions:

Wireless

• Persistently Failing Wireless Clients
• AP Bad Cable
• ARP, DNS Anomaly Detection
• Coverage Hole (holes, client impact)
• RF Capacity

Wired

• Persistently Failing Wired Clients
• Continuous port flap on EX
• 3rd party bad cable validation

SD-WAN

• Bad WAN uplink on SRX

The Bottom Line

Juniper Networks is approaching the emergent AI-Driven Enterprise in the right way by focusing on user and operator experience over specific tools or trends. This “Experience-First Networking, Client to Cloud” approach was further bolstered today with two Juniper Mist announcements. First, that AI-Driven Campus Fabrics leveraging ZTP and EVPN-VXLAN can now be deployed and managed by the Juniper Mist Cloud. And second, that Juniper Mist has added a long list of new Marvis Actions to proactively highlight user-impacting issues across the organization, including wired, wireless, and (SD-)WAN.

Read the full official announcement from Juniper Networks?here.