Overall, Juniper made a smart choice in pulling the trigger on acquiring Apastra. Data center environments will require Apstra AOS-enabled IBN intelligence to handle the fast-emerging demands, such as compute-intensive AI/ML workloads, HPC clusters, and 5G-IoT builds, on their resources (e.g., DCIs, 400G upgrades). In the near future, however, the main portfolio development and marketing question for Juniper is “How soon is now” in orchestrating all of its recent acquisition pieces into a more cohesive, fully integrated data center networking proposition that challenges Cisco more broadly and directly.
Juniper Acquires 128 Technology to Swiftly Differentiate its SD-WAN Portfolio but Must Prove Market Readiness
Juniper’s acquisition of 128 Technology is essential to providing enduring and strategic differentiation in the SD-WAN market segment. Juniper gains 128T’s distinct session-smart networking capabilities designed to enable enterprises and CSPs to produce a user experience-centric fabric for WAN connectivity which is efficient, agile, and secure. However, Juniper needs to first demonstrate that its AI-driven SD-WAN proposition is substantially differentiated from established SD-WAN solutions to warrant accelerated consideration. Next Juniper needs to show it can quickly integrate 128T’s session-smart capabilities into its relatively new AI-driven SD-WAN approach. Rivals will fully challenge Juniper’s ability to rapidly execute 128T portfolio integration and make inroads with its latecomer SD-WAN proposition.
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