Partner POV | Accelerating AI-Native Networking Leadership

Article written by Rami Rahim, CEO, Juniper Networks.  

Juniper Networks was born just as the Internet was about to explode. And in many ways, the Internet would not be what it is today without Juniper.

I joined this company as a junior engineer in the 90's. Together with a small team, we invented a new breed of router that helped the internet scale, enabled the dot-com boom and spurred innovation like the world had never seen. Since then, embracing change, disrupting the status quo and solving the hard problems that arise in every new technology shift have been firmly embedded in our DNA.

Now, AI is here. And it's here in a big way. I believe it's the biggest inflection since the dawn of the Internet itself – with implications for how we live, work and play, as well as the technology we make.

Seven years ago, Juniper started taking steps to capture the opportunity. With leading AIOps, we reduced manual work, sped deployments and crushed time-consuming trouble tickets for our customers. We have shifted the perception of what a network can and should be – and have seen great success. In fact, revenue from our products that leverage this AI have grown nearly 100% year-over-year for the last two reported quarters. And we're starting to see early momentum from our investments in enabling and automating AI data centers, including those handling emerging AI training and inference models.

At Juniper, "AI" stands for "All In."

And we recognize that taking full advantage of a once-in-a-generation opportunity requires that we continue to make big and bold moves to truly go all in on AI.

That is why I'm so excited that we have entered into a definitive agreement for HPE to acquire Juniper.

This combination will supercharge our offerings in AI-native networking. Together, we will accelerate innovation at every layer: compute, storage and networking; silicon, systems and software; campus and branch, data center and the wide area network.

This combination with HPE is expected to enable us to deliver more comprehensive, more competitive, truly end-to-end experience-first AI-native solutions.

• End-to-end secure and assured connectivity including WLAN, Wired, secure SD-WAN, network access control, location services and cloud delivered security with leading Mist AIOps that gives enterprise the flexibility to embrace AI and cloud at their own pace based on business objectives. Furthermore, customers will be able to embrace SASE and Zero Trust architectures.
• Differentiated network-as-a-service (NaaS) offering By bringing together HPE GreenLake with the unique AI capabilities of Juniper's Mist, the combined company will have an incredibly exciting ability to offer NaaS to our customers in a very comprehensive way.
• AI Data Center with comprehensive and data center solutions including compute, storage, and networking. HPE brings years of experience in high-performance computing, including interconnect technologies like Slingshot, liquid cooling solutions and GPU servers that all apply to the current AI data center revolution. By combining with our intent-based automation solution Apstra that has already been simplifying customers' DC operations around the world, and our QFX switches and PTX series routers, we will be positioned to be a pioneer in the development of a comprehensive solution for customers building AI data centers.
• End-to-end Wide Area Networking portfolio to efficiently deploy automated networks across the core, edge and metro while assuring experiences. We have a strong base of service provider, cloud and enterprise WAN customers and we see a great opportunity to offer more extensive end-to-end solutions and expand our presence with these valued customers.

So, make no mistake – this is not just a bet for the enterprise segment. This combination is expected to dramatically increase the global footprint and reach across ALL customer verticals, including cloud, service provider and enterprise. This reach provides us with the ability to collect, protect, analyze and act on much deeper aggregated telemetry across a broader installed base, which will seek to drive even better end-user experiences and streamlined network operations.

HPE is a values-oriented and people-oriented company, like Juniper. In sharing a strong track record for sustainability, a focus on diversity and inclusion, and a deep-rooted passion for innovation, HPE is a natural partner for us in this next chapter.

I believe our spirit and drive that's gotten us to this point will only strengthen now with HPE. As we enter our next era to continue building on our established position in AI-native networks, we will do so with a renewed sense of speed and scale to meet today's evolving demands for network experiences.

The sky is the limit for all of us, and I'm so excited about what this next chapter with HPE will bring as we position ourselves as an industry leader together.