Juniper Networks® Introduces First Cloud-Native Access Assurance Service Driven by Mist AI®

Newest addition to the Juniper portfolio combines superior network access control (NAC) and policy enforcement with AI-driven and cloud-native simplicity, insight, flexibility and elastic scale

HONG KONG, May 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR), a leader in secure, AI-driven networks, today announced the latest innovation to its award-winning AI-driven enterprise portfolio, the Juniper Mist® Access Assurance service. This new service leverages Mist AI and a modern microservices cloud to provide a full suite of network access control (NAC) and policy management functions via the same flexible and simple framework already included in Juniper's wired access, wireless access, indoor location, SD-WAN and secure client-to-cloud portfolio. The result is unsurpassed automation, insight and assurance for superior access control and policy enforcement, coupled with exceptional operational savings.

"Network administrators often fear their own legacy NAC solutions because they are built using on-premises overlay hardware, which makes them brittle, complex to deploy and operate, and inherently lacking in both scale and resiliency," said Sudheer Matta, Group VP of Products at Juniper Networks. "The new Juniper Mist Access Assurance service solves this by natively integrating NAC into the network infrastructure, and by leveraging AIOps and a cloud-native architecture to seamlessly set up and operate access management, policy creation and enforcement from anywhere via a familiar interface.  With our groundbreaking Mist AI and microservices cloud, Juniper customers and partners get exceptional client level insights and automation, deployment times that are reduced from months to minutes and cost-effective resiliency and scale. By integrating Mist AI with NAC, Juniper is further expanding the value of the AI-driven enterprise portfolio, while bringing much needed modernization to a key part of the network."

Unique features of the new Juniper Mist Access Assurance service include:

• Granular security: Juniper Mist Access Assurance is natively integrated into the network, as opposed to traditional overlay NAC systems. It provides secure user-, role- and device-based network access aligned with Zero Trust principles enforced for guest, IoT, BYOD and corporate-managed devices. Juniper Mist Access Assurance provides granular network admission controls leveraging the secure 802.1X standard, looking at user/device identity, role and location context to allow for identity-based micro-segmentation and policy assignment.
• AI-driven automation: The Juniper solution provides automated zero-touch network access with fast, one-click device provisioning. In addition, it is 100% programmable, using open APIs for full automation and seamless integration with Juniper Secure Analytics (JSA) and other SIEM or ITSM systems and identity providers for configuration, authentication and real-time data extraction. The Juniper Mist Access Assurance service, like the rest of the Juniper AI-driven enterprise portfolio, is powered by Mist AI and the Marvis Virtual Network Assistant for proactive troubleshooting and self-driving operations to save time and money.
• Cloud-native simplicity, resiliency and scale: Juniper Mist Access Assurance greatly simplifies the administrator experience by combining cloud-based deployment, easy-to-use workflows, simplified policies, API-based automation and troubleshooting for connected devices. A unique microservices-based cloud architecture ensures support for one to tens of thousands of sites, users and devices with exceptional ease and no planned downtime. The service also provides geo-affinity to users for reliable and low-latency access control, which eradacates the need for complex network designs that require multiple on-premises NAC devices and/or load balancers across many data centers. Further, the Juniper® Cloud provides elastic scale, ensuring cost effective growth in conjunction with customer demand.
• Client-to-cloud assurance: Juniper Mist provides a unified cloud-hosted management experience for IT operations across the full network stack, including SD-WAN, SSE, wired and wireless access. By leveraging a common cloud and Mist AI engine, Juniper delivers automation and insight for superior end-to-end user experiences. This includes, for example, unified event correlation, anomaly detection, prescriptive actions and even self-driving network operations. 

The Juniper Mist Access Assurance service works in conjunction with other Juniper Mist Cloud and Connected Security services, including Wired Assurance, Wi-Fi Assurance and Marvis™, the industry's only virtual network assistant driven by Mist AI, as well as Juniper Connected Security services. Marvis combines 7th-generation data science with extensive network (wired/wireless/WAN), location and security domain expertise and a conversational interface to provide exceptional visibility into user experiences and proactive automation to detect and solve problems before users know they exist. Today, Juniper announced new enhancements to Marvis that include LLM (Large Language Models) and support for Zoom, making it even easier to deliver predictable, reliable and measurable user experiences from client to cloud. 

Supporting Quotes

"As enterprises around the globe transform their digital infrastructure, they're increasingly looking for convergence opportunities to fight growing complexity. One specific area of growing convergence is between networking and security. Juniper's new AI-driven Enterprise network access control capability brings networking and security functions together, managed by the powerful cloud-based Mist AI engine. This is a significant advancement for the company that will help organizations accelerate their digital and network transformations."    

-   Brandon Butler, IDC Research Manager, Enterprise Networks

"Juniper Mist Access Assurance service offers incredible performance and scalability. We have been using the Juniper Mist Cloud with wired and wireless solutions for several years. Mist AI makes deployment as simple as just a few clicks and delivers visibility into the full-stack user connectivity experience and improves operational efficiencies. With Access Assurance being released, we can improve service to students and staff. Anticipating significant reductions in both TCO and time from our IT team, it will allow us to focus efforts on our more strategic initiatives."

-  Steve Mitzel, Director of IT at Ashland School District 

Additional Resources

• The Feed: Juniper Mist Access Assurance: Cloud-Based Network Access Control
• Blog: NAC is Back, Better Than Ever! Juniper Mist Access Assurance Redefines NAC with Cloud and AI
• Juniper Mist Access Assurance page
• Marvis product page

About Juniper Networks

Juniper Networks is dedicated to dramatically simplifying network operations and driving superior experiences for end users. Our solutions deliver industry-leading insight, automation, security and AI to drive real business results. We believe that powering connections will bring us closer together while empowering us all to solve the world's greatest challenges of well-being, sustainability and equality. Additional information can be found at Juniper Networks (www.juniper.net) or connect with Juniper on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

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