Juniper Beyond Labs: The Vision

0:12 We know Juniper Beyond Labs is the new initiative from the CTO office focusing on innovation.

0:18 Let's start with, like, what is the vision behind Juniper Beyond Labs?

0:23 So to start with, I want to emphasize that,

0:25 you know, Juniper is known for innovation in transport and core industry.

0:30 So we are not creating innovation for the first time.

0:34 And what we're trying to do with Beyond Labs is go beyond the current product roadmap

0:38 and the next generation to see in sort of three to five years out to see

0:43 what the industry trends are,

0:45 what potential disruptions we have to worry about.

0:47 And in response to that, we want to start exploring new areas for product development.

0:52 Juniper's North Star is experience first.

0:55 We're trying to provide end to end assurance across different domains of networking.

0:59 We started a very good success with MIST Cloud,

1:02 AI Ops managed enterprise tag.

1:05 But now we're trying to extend to data center and WAN and security.

1:09 So one of the path finding areas is end to end assurance.

1:12 What does it take. What do we need to do beyond networking to correlate traffic at the application level,

1:18 virtual networking level, physical networking level.

1:21 So using machine learning, we can correlate and find whether the network is responsible or not.

1:26 Because normally, anytime the problem comes people blame network.

1:30 Yeah. My network is too slow. Network is not working.

1:32 So I call it mean time to innocence.

1:35 Determine whether or not the network is a problem.

1:37 And the second is minimize the amount of time it takes to find the root cause.

1:43 It could be anywhere in the network and application.

1:45 So that's one example of a path finding project.

1:52 What are the key objectives that we want to achieve to address these challenges that we talk about.

1:56 So the first thing we have to do,

1:58 what formalize this process of what I call pathfinding and incubation.

2:01 Right? Because without that formal process,

2:04 you don't know which projects to focus on where to invest when to not invest.

2:08 So one of the challenges we faced is that if we create a funnel of ideas,

2:13 ideas can come from sales, marketing,

2:15 engineers, anywhere. Yeah. How do you decide which ideas to pursue first?

2:20 That's a call I have to make. And then we go decide how long to invest or how much to invest.

2:25 So typical formula is that you have three to four engineers for twelve months,

2:29 did pathfinding, explore the idea,

2:32 create a prototype, and we can try it out before deciding whether we go into incubation.

2:37 The idea should expand the adjacency to our current product portfolio until time.

2:41 You try to expand it out it could be a disruption that you're trying to react to.

2:47 So that's the criteria by which we choose the products.

2:54 Who are some of the partners who we think, like, you know,

2:56 we are are coming in and helping us and collaborating with us

3:00 and to drive the industry forward.

3:03 That's a very good question because there are two kinds of partners.

3:05 One is our big OEMs. Like, you know,

3:08 to take something into enterprise, we need partners like Dell.

3:11 Why Dell? Because they are a big enterprise player with the server,

3:14 very complimentary to what we do. They don't have a networking portfolio.

3:18 They have storage and computing.

3:19 So we are partnering with Dell now to go to enterprise

3:22 and doing some pathfinding work with their CTO office.

3:25 The second kind of partners are startups.

3:28 Some of the startups are also good partners for us.

3:30 So we are partnering with Cohere, Ira Technologies.

3:34 We were also doing some work with Tigera. Why?

3:37 Because they are exploring new areas where we can take advantage of stuff they do.

3:41 And also, I would add the third set of partners,

3:44 which is the research houses, the universities -- That's right.

3:46 -- and others. So it's not like just a typical lab that we others have done.

3:50 That is where we are expanding our R&D activities in collaboration,

3:54 not just with our partners in the industry,

3:57 but also outside of it, trying to bring some of those fresh thinking into that as well.

4:07 What do you think is next for Juniper Beyond Labs?

4:10 So I think the first part I want to address is

4:13 even if we have been doing it formalizing this whole process and creating awareness

4:19 through branding, calling it Beyond Labs is very important.

4:22 Because we do not go out and advertise what innovation we're doing.

4:26 That's important for our customers, partners,

4:29 ecosystem to know. Now the next

4:31 for the Beyond Labs is going to be how do we build upon the success so far?

4:36 To start really looking at new areas where Juniper has not gone before.

4:41 So it's not enough to look at just disruptions.

4:46 Or quantum networking like areas.

4:48 I'm just looking at now that given our ambition in enterprises,

4:53 especially in data centers, Where should we go next?