CMC Networks picks Juniper Networks to provide AI-Driven SD-WAN Solution

Juniper Networks announced that CMC Networks is the first partner to offer a managed AI-driven SD-WAN solution in Africa. A dynamic and self-optimizing network will deliver a superior experience to CMC’s customers, allowing them to easily modify their services, add new locations and spin up and down network speeds. Time-to-market is significantly reduced, enabling CMC to provision services faster.

By leveraging Juniper’s unique Session Smart Router technology driven by Mist AI, CMC is delivering a unique tunnelless solution that is designed for scale and agility, coupled with automated provisioning, management and troubleshooting for maximum uptime, superior performance of real-time traffic and lower operating costs in both rural and urban environments.

"Juniper’s AI-driven SD-WAN solution, powered by our Session Smart Router and Mist AI, enables us to be laser-focused on optimizing user experience. We recognized early that networks must be application-aware to support the demands of the evolving enterprise and to deliver the highest levels of user experience. Juniper ticks all the necessary boxes by delivering on the promise of a truly intelligent network that adapts as user requirements change. Juniper is thrilled that our innovative work with CMC has yielded this much-needed solution to enable consistent and excellent user experiences, even in the most challenging geographies, and we look forward to continued collaboration," said Sue Graham Johnston, Vice President and General Manager, Juniper Networks.

CMC chose the Session Smart Router and standardized on Juniper’s STEP (Service and Topology Exchange Protocol) in order to navigate network traffic with real-time data information. This allows accurate and immediate decision making autonomously, minimizing delays to ensure that network traffic arrives at its destination in the most efficient way possible. This helps to ensure that CMC’s customers receive a SD-WAN service that is high-performing, secure and reliable.

The Juniper solution includes Secure Vector Routing (SVR), a transformational new intelligent routing architecture that enables CMC’s network to differentiate the way it delivers applications and services to end users. The SVR allows a network to identify problems and automatically decide the most effective path to re-route traffic. This supports business applications without user intervention, in support of the best possible user experience.

The Juniper Session Smart Router (SSR) fuels an advanced, service-centric networking solution and Mist AI engine that takes software-defined routing and SD-WAN to a new level. The SSR enables agile, secure, and resilient WAN connectivity. With tunnelless SSR technology, each session is secured with zero trust access by default, providing the highest level of security. Additionally, eliminating tunnel overhead increases bandwidth capacity and enables an improved user experience.

CMC has been rolling out Session Smart Routers in Africa for the last three years, leveraging the organization’s scale and footprint to enable digital transformation across the region. In the future, the company plans to broaden its footprint into additional regions and deliver even more AI-driven managed services powered by Juniper, including wireless access.

CMC is in the process of planning the rollout of additional cloud-hosted services driven by Mist AI, including WAN Assurance and the Marvis™ Virtual Network Assistant. These further streamline the deployment, operations and troubleshooting of its AI-driven SD-WAN environment with zero touch provisioning, customizable service levels, self-driving operations and AI-driven support to proactively address problems before customers even know they exist.

“SD-WAN is not a new technology and every SD-WAN player gives customers speed and power on the network. However, digital transformation strategies require a high level of intelligence, support and the ability to underpin business-critical applications - attributes that many SD-WAN vendors can’t provide. Juniper’s AI-driven SD-WAN gives CMC a level of intelligence and operational insight that we haven’t seen before,” said Geoff Dornan, Chief Technology Officer, CMC Networks.