Connecting African & Middle Eastern Communities with Secure, Reliable SD-WAN | Juniper Global Summit

00:07 Welcome everyone.

00:08 My name is Sue Graham Johnston and I'm VP

00:11 and general manager at Juniper Networks.

00:14 Joining me today is Marisa Trisolino, who is CEO of CMC Networks.

00:20 Marisa, welcome. And thank you for joining me today.

00:25 Hi Sue.

00:26 Thank you for having me.

00:27 Great seeing you again.

00:29 Always fun to see you and great to have an opportunity to

00:32 talk about all the exciting things we've been doing together.

00:36 So Juniper, through 128 Technology and CMC Networks

00:41 have a strong partnership and we're delivering an innovative

00:44 SD-WAN solution to CMC’s multinational customers.

00:49 Marisa, I'm not sure how many of our

00:52 viewers are going to be familiar with CMC Networks.

00:54 So maybe give us some background and help the audience understand

00:58 what led you to select 128 Technology as your partner.

01:03 Okay.

01:03 Thank you, Sue. That's a great question.

01:05 And you know, it is a good place to start to share

01:09 who we are and what we do, right?

01:11 So CMC Networks

01:13 is a global service provider.

01:15 We've been in the industry for 30 years.

01:18 Our strategic focus is predominantly on African and Middle East,

01:23 where we service in Africa

01:24 alone, 51 countries and 13 countries in the Middle East.

01:28 And you can look at our customer biases.

01:31 It's a mixed bag.

01:32 It includes multinationals governments,

01:35 non-profit organizations, Tier-one providers.

01:39 And we really help our customers extend their Ethernet,

01:42 their MPLS, their Internet capabilities seamlessly across the MEA region.

01:49 And to add just another point, our core network is SDN-enabled,

01:54 and it connects all 51 countries to regional DCS,

01:59 carrier providers and global internet points.

02:03 But you know, having said that, I think it's an interesting fun fact.

02:09 Africa and the Middle East has complex terrain in geographies.

02:15 And that's really where CMC Networks

02:17 stands tall compared to our competitors.

02:20 We have a unique ability to not only provide connectivity

02:24 and services in these remote and challenging locations,

02:27 but we really strive to deliver with the highest level

02:30 of reliability and latency status, right?

02:35 And understanding the needs of SD-WAN,

02:39 African market is critical.

02:41 And, understanding how

02:44 we can deliver on the challenged Africa infrastructure,

02:51 is really where our strengths come from

02:54 and finding the perfect SDN partner,

02:57 which is 128 Technology and Juniper, Right?

03:01 And we have gone back many years

03:03 in this fantastic journey, the 128 Technology and Juniper.

03:09 As you said, we've been in the business for many years.

03:14 But it took us a long time to find the right SDN player.

03:17 And Geoff Dornan, our CTO, really evaluated several SDN players.

03:24 And we were looking for one particular player

03:26 that was as innovative, as feisty,

03:29 as challenging as CMC,

03:32 as our way of looking and interacting in the market.

03:39 And we came across yourselves, Sue, with your leadership

03:43 and Andy, and Pat and the rest of the 128 Technology.

03:47 We came across a fantastic SDN partner like yourselves.

03:54 My motto that I always say, when I go look for a partner to work with,

03:59 we don't want a board that sits across the table from us.

04:01 We're looking for a partner that sits next to us,

04:04 and we're looking into the same direction.

04:06 And we heavily invested in our C-RAN platform,

04:09 which is CMC’s rapid adaptive network, SD platform.

04:14 And yourselves and 128 Technology

04:18 and Juniper has been a key building block in our success story.

04:23 Yeah.

04:23 Thanks, Marisa. I mean, so many great threads to pull on

04:27 in your response, but maybe let's start with,

04:30 the high standards that your customers have.

04:34 Because I think that's part of what makes the joint solution,

04:38 so exceptional.

04:40 So can you talk a little bit about

04:42 what some of these multinationals expect

04:45 and how that compares to kind of what's natively available in Africa?

04:50 And then we can turn to,

04:52 how did we collectively solve for that challenge?

04:56 Okay, well, you know, any customer,

05:02 I think you don't necessarily have to be an African and Middle East,

05:05 but any customer is looking for the cheapest solution,

05:09 the most reliable solution and the best latency that you can find.

05:15 If you combine that, and you combine the tremendous growth that

05:23 everybody's experiencing on the data boost,

05:27 on the internet requirements that are coming out,

05:30 and then you look at where CMC is based

05:32 and what we are servicing in Africa and the Middle East,

05:36 and then you bring in the tremendous support from 128 Technology and Juniper.

05:41 And you, you bring that all together. You have a perfect solution.

05:45 However, let me just take a step back and say,

05:48 and explain a little bit about the scope and scale of

05:52 how big the African continent is, and the Middle East.

05:58 So you're looking at it at a continent.

06:01 That's got about 1.3 billion people.

06:03 There are 54 distinct countries in Africa alone,

06:07 and CMC services, 51 of them, right?

06:10 If you look at, the US can comfortably fit in Africa at least three times.

06:16 So it is a very, very large geography.

06:20 And there's an abundance of resource and wealth going on in Africa.

06:24 But having said that the internet and data traffic is catching up,

06:33 it's catching up very, very fast.

06:35 And it's said that, I think 2027,

06:40 the traffic in Africa will outgrow the Europe and the US,

06:45 so we've got so many supplement cables coming out, and

06:49 local content that there's going to be an explosion.

06:54 Now, when you look at the scale and the size of Africa,

06:57 and you look at the growing traffic,

06:59 and you see how long does WAN links are,

07:02 then you can very, very easily understand the complexities.

07:07 How the distance can impact the performance

07:10 and reliability of the connectivity.

07:13 And this is especially true outside of Metro areas of main cities.

07:17 So there are these non-urban areas that are faced

07:20 with extremely high cost and low quality links.

07:22 And in most cases, internet is the most feasible option.

07:25 And then that's where Juniper 128 Technology comes in

07:29 and helps resolve this very, very complex situation.

07:33 Absolutely. And you and I have shared a lot of stories.

07:37 I mean, first of all, I always loved working with you

07:40 because I get to put another pin in the map.

07:42 Every time we go into a different country together.

07:46 Let's talk about, what are some of the attributes of

07:50 Session Smart Routing that differentiate Juniper's solution

07:55 from all the other SD-WAN solutions in the marketplace?

08:00 Well, SD-WAN has been around for a very, very long time,

08:07 but what does every SD-WAN player partner give? Any customer,

08:13 it gives speed and power on the network.

08:15 And I think the question that we need to really ask here is,

08:19 what is the level of intelligence?

08:21 Does your SD-WAN partner provide a level of intelligence?

08:25 Does SD-WAN partner provide the support,

08:28 the new requirements of critical business applications

08:31 and digital transformation strategies require.

08:34 And I think that

08:35 is what the big different range this year is for 128 Technology and Juniper.

08:40 It's you give CMC the level of intelligence and insight to a network

08:46 that has not been seen before, right?

08:49 And I just want to give a few attributes,

08:51 you know, this several but top three or four,

08:54 it is the intelligent secure vector routing.

08:57 This alone allows a network to identify the problem and

09:02 automatically decide to the best, most effective route possible.

09:07 And this supports the business application without any user intervention.

09:11 And this is just phenomenal.

09:14 Secondly, you don't require a VPN technology no longer, it's all tunneless.

09:18 And this technology in choosing of each session is secured providing

09:22 into any military grade security with the zero trust policy.

09:28 And going back to the tunneless technology,

09:32 this allows the pull bandwidth capacity

09:35 for the link to be used, there’s no deep it overhead.

09:38 And there's no loss in the available bandwidth for the application,

09:43 it just gives such a fantastic experience to the user.

09:48 So we've always joked about it, but there are no hidden additional features

09:53 in the license cost. The price includes all the features enabled by default.

09:58 This is a key differentiator for us.

10:01 Yeah, absolutely.

10:02 And I think from our perspective, helping people understand

10:07 the benefits of tunneless in challenging environments, like what you face,

10:11 delivering a pan African and pan Middle Eastern solution.

10:16 It's just a terrific demonstration of our capability and the session orientation,

10:23 which allows you to have these solutions for your customers

10:27 that truly differentiate the user's experience

10:31 in a way that no other technology can.

10:34 And what's been exciting to me recently are our conversations

10:38 about your aspirations for CMC Networks and how you're really

10:44 embracing AI and using that to differentiate your core offering.

10:51 I think people would find that very exciting.

10:53 Can you share your vision of what you're driving and where CMC is headed?

10:58 Oh, absolutely.

10:59 I'm very excited about this.

11:01 I mean, this is going to be a feature

11:03 and a new enhancement on the CMC C-RAN solution.

11:07 You know, we're talking about STEP, the Service and Topology Exchange Protocol.

11:11 This is going to revolutionize the entire network in Africa network.

11:16 And this is just a phenomenal

11:21 milestone for us.

11:22 It was a very exciting time.

11:24 And you know, Sue, with the tremendous work that you've done with the two teams

11:27 and the companies, it's really going to make, it's a game changer.

11:31 And I think the best way I can probably explain,

11:34 this AI STEP phenomena that's coming our way is to use an analogy,

11:40 and compare it to the Waze app.

11:42 Now it provides a similar function

11:44 to Waze in the real time world traffic management use case.

11:49 So just like Waze have the visibility and indicate

11:52 the least congested routes when it comes to vehicle traffic,

11:56 STEP can automatically select path based on least congestion,

12:01 shortest path, cost-effectiveness, and availability.

12:04 This is going to be a game changer in the SDN world.

12:07 And I get excited every time I speak about it, right?

12:10 This is going to enable our CMC C-RAN routers to dynamically learn connectivity

12:16 and service information within any network.

12:18 It's going to be so simple, so efficient and so reliable.

12:22 I think the benefits of STEP is highly beneficial to any of our customers,

12:28 and it's going to help our enterprises, spin up and down locations

12:34 for existing service bandwidth on roads, any new services

12:38 and remove or modify existing services.

12:42 I mean, the speed to market it's going to be reduced significantly.

12:48 I think just overall a very dynamic itself optimizing network,

12:53 which goes, it's going to enable our customers to get the network,

12:56 to do what the business needs and that's the importance.

13:01 Excellent.

13:02 I think with that, Marisa, we probably have time

13:05 for one more question before we wrap up here.

13:08 So let's go with the big picture and Africa, I mean,

13:11 you've talked about the explosive growth,

13:15 all of the investment that's coming into the continent,

13:18 the challenges of meeting that aspiration.

13:21 So what do you think is next for the industry?

13:23 What's next for the continent?

13:25 Leave us with kind of your big picture vision thoughts.

13:29 Well, I think the industry, the telco industry, everything,

13:33 it's moving at a pace just because of, I think,

13:37 the pandemic has accelerated everybody's thinking, right?

13:40 That everybody makes a joke that the best CTO is COVID,

13:43 because you just had to really move fast.

13:47 In generally speaking, I think everybody is just the key focus here

13:51 is on borderless edge for the enterprise space.

13:54 SD-WAN and SASE merging to delivery on a curbed native consumption of

13:59 service in a very secure manner,

14:01 no matter where the end user connects from.

14:04 The other big talk of the town is LEO constellations, right?

14:09 African, I can explain, you can fit Western Europe,

14:16 China, India, Japan, US into the continent of Africa.

14:20 It's so big.

14:21 So that LEO constellation for satellite connectivity

14:25 and how we are going to play with an underlay connectivity to

14:29 complement our C-RAN evolution platform

14:32 and deliver an experience based network

14:34 from any remote possible location on this wonderful, large African continent.

14:39 That's our vision.

14:40 We're so pleased to be your partner in delivering

14:44 that Experience-First network,

14:46 and you really take advantage of our core innovation, the reliability,

14:52 the security, the low latency, low overhead.

14:55 It will all of the attributes that make us a terrific partnership.

14:59 So with that,

15:01 I'm just extremely grateful for the time that you've spent with us today.

15:04 It's been exciting to hear about what you've done

15:08 and where you see the industry headed.

15:10 So thanks again for your time.

15:12 Thank you, Sue.

15:13 Thank you for having me and hope to see you in person one of these days.

15:16 Absolutely.