Comparing SD-WAN & AI-Driven Access Solutions
SD-WAN solutions for today’s enterprise are not equal. Many assessments narrowly focus on a few traits but miss the bigger picture of delivering better user experiences, simplifying operations and safeguarding all your sites, from client to cloud. You must choose an SD-WAN that supports your business beyond just the WAN with a design that ties the enterprise together. Let’s compare solutions in their breadth and depth of features.
Artificial Intelligence for Network Operations (AIOps)
The networking industry is undergoing a paradigm shift, from the traditional, outdated way of operating networks through CLI to an automated, AIOps approach. It’s simply humanly impossible to rely on log files to troubleshoot and gain insights into network issues given the proliferation of devices, users, applications, bandwidth, IoT, etc. With AIOps, you rely on artificial intelligence and machine learning to resolve needle in a haystack issues and to keep pace with the scale of today’s digitization.
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Value Proposition |
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| Functionalities with AIOps | |||||
| Functionalities with AIOps | |||||
WAN Assurance Visibility into end-user experiences, and shorter mean time to repair MARVIS Virtual Network Assistant providing automated troubleshooting |
Nyansa product aspires to deliver assurance |
No AI/AIOps |
WAN AIOps added in 2022 Works on log files instead of direct telemetry (slower, less accurate responses) Limited Actions No Natural Language Processing (NLP) |
Limited integration of ESP with EdgeConnect WAN product |
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| WAN Service Level Experiences (SLEs) | |||||
| WAN Service Level Experiences (SLEs) | |||||
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Nyansa product aspires to SLEs |
No AI/AIOps |
Limited SLAs for wired and WAN |
Limited integration of ESP with EdgeConnect WAN product |
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| AI-driven insights and assisted actions | |||||
| AI-driven insights and assisted actions | |||||
Deep insights on every aspect of the WAN, from device to WAN links to applications. |
Early stages with Nyansa |
No AI/AIOps |
Actions are only recommended, not proactively taken |
Limited integration of ESP with EdgeConnect WAN product
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| AIOps Virtual Network Assistant (VNA) | |||||
| AIOps Virtual Network Assistant (VNA) | |||||
Integration with Marvis & Mist AI for wired, wireless and WAN Assurance |
Nyansa has yet to deliver on it. |
No AI/AIOps |
No NLP or VNA |
Limited integration of ESP with EdgeConnect WAN product |
WAN Edge Capabilities & Performance
SD-WANs must evolve. Most offerings today rely on cumbersome, expensive tunnels that lack security, add costs, and consume your bandwidth. Instead, Juniper’s Session Smart technology is tunnel free and instead relies on sessions that provide rich, granular data to ensure user experience. When combined with Mist AI, you get a third generation SD-WAN that delivers user experience.
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Value Proposition |
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| User-centric design, optimized for user experience | |||||
| User-centric design, optimized for user experience | |||||
Session-based technology results in better user experience. Deep session-based visibility, insights and fine grain app aware routing. Reduced latency by up to 60%. |
Traditional approached focuses on the network, not the user’s session |
Traditional approached focuses on the network, not the user's session |
Limited focus on user sessions Customer experience rated average |
Traditional approaches focus on the network, not the user’s session. |
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| SD-WAN economics/bandwidth savings | |||||
| SD-WAN economics/bandwidth savings | |||||
Tunnel-less architecture with SVR eliminates overhead resulting in 30-50% bandwidth savings and enables up to 75% reduction in infrastructure costs |
Bandwidth hungry tunnel-based approach. |
Bandwidth hungry tunnel-based approach. |
Bandwidth hungry tunnel-based approach. |
Bandwidth hungry tunnel-based approach. |
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| Intelligent Encryption | |||||
| Intelligent Encryption | |||||
Session Smart Adaptive Encryption conserves bandwidth, so if application traffic is already encrypted no need to encrypt twice. |
Unintelligent encryption. |
Unintelligent encryption. |
Unintelligent encryption. |
Unintelligent encryption. |
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| Breadth of deployment options for hardway and software and universal CPE | |||||
| Breadth of deployment options for hardway and software and universal CPE | |||||
Session Smart Routers are available in dedicated SSR Series appliance, but can also be deployed on whitebox, x86, or as a VNF on NFX. Juniper NFX Series delivers full breadth of connectivity and scale and is widely recognized and deployed. |
Dell EMC Edge appliance |
Cisco 5000 ENCS |
No universal CPE portfolio |
No universal CPE portfolio |
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| SD-WAN Edge for any deployment (supporting small-medium-large deployments) | |||||
| SD-WAN Edge for any deployment (supporting small-medium-large deployments) | |||||
Juniper has a breadth of portfolio ranging from desktop form factors to large campus/enterprise |
WAN edge device with limited routing capabilities |
Large product range, but split product lines with different management solutions |
Difficulty meeting complex networking requirements |
Limited routing capabilities. |
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| Resilient WAN edge design | |||||
| Resilient WAN edge design | |||||
Redundancy at every level (Active/Active, Active/Backup, Datacenter hub, control plane & data plane redundancy) |
Architecture
Many of the solutions today are based on outdated architectures, riddled with technical debt. A modern solution built for today’s cloud era must also be built on a modern day microservices cloud architecture. This ensures agility for your business and allows your network to keep pace with your business operations.
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Value Proposition |
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| Design architected for Cloud Era | |||||
| Design architected for Cloud Era | |||||
Modern microservices based cloud architecture:
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First generation cloud. |
Meraki:
Cisco:
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Fragmented cloud offering an on-premise solution CLI based |
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| Scalability | |||||
| Scalability | |||||
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Multitenant and multi-site scale requires adding many orchestrators and gateways. |
Scaling is complex and requires managing vManage, vBond and vSmart components in the management and control plane. Cisco recommends Meraki for Lean IT, meaning there is a forklift software and hardware upgrade to its full featured SD-WAN. |
Can’t do complex networking at scale: no real switching or routing features. Failover is seconds, not milliseconds |
Scaling based on cloud VPC performance |
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| Automation versatility (APIs, Plugins for extension) | |||||
| Automation versatility (APIs, Plugins for extension) | |||||
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Basic APIs to Velocloud Orchestrator |
Rest APIs available with Devnet support |
Complexity due to dependence on multiple python modules. |
RESTful APIs available. |
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| Agility | |||||
| Agility | |||||
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First generation cloud. Lacks a microservices based cloud architecture. |
Meraki:
Cisco:
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Fragmented cloud offering |
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| Deployment Flexibility | |||||
| Deployment Flexibility | |||||
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Virtual controllers hosted in co-located data centers |
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| Multi-tenancy | |||||
| Multi-tenancy | |||||
Hierarchical multi-tenancy for multiple providers, enterprises, and departments, all from one Juniper Mist AI account for Wi-Fi, wired and SD-WAN networks with configurable RBAC, all from a single login. Enables easy management of large organizations and MSPs. |
Multitenant cloud gateways and orchestrators. See “Scale” rating, where accommodating many tenants requires many on-premises software instances. LAN n/a. |
One vSmart per customer and limited number of customers per v/Bond per vManage. With alternative option, Meraki, multitenancy is not possible. |
Switching between tenant views |
Limited RBAC and no multilayer tenant management. |
Client to Cloud
Your SD-WAN solution should help provide a complete picture of your users’ experience, from client to cloud. Hence a complete solution should provide insights and troubleshooting from the moment your users connect to the Wi-Fi, which passes traffic to your wired network and then out to the WAN. It should correlate across all these connections in the network and resolve issues like, “Why is my Zoom call breaking up?.”
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Value Proposition |
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| AIOps | |||||
| AIOps | |||||
Driven by Mist AI, get insights and automated troubleshooting that correlates across all point in the network What is AIOps? |
Nyansa product aspires to deliver assurance |
No AI/AIOps |
New, limited AIOps No microservices |
Basic capabilities including recommendations rather than remediations with multiple dashboards for the user to solve network issues on their own. No VNA, and lack of time for effective machine learning. |
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| User Experience | |||||
| User Experience | |||||
Wi-Fi, Wired and WAN Assurance driven by Mist AI ensures the best experience for every user, every minute. |
Nyansa product aspires to deliver assurance |
Severely limited insight into user experience. |
Rated average |
Severely limited insight into user experience. Many features demand CLI templates. |
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| Security | |||||
| Security | |||||
Juniper Connected Security and Zero Trust capabilities ensures that all applications, users, devices, data is secured and safeguarded against all threats. |
Not an established security vendor and must rely on 3rd party technology for complete advanced security. |
ISE and Stealthwatch. Integration with Open DNS |
Limited integration with SSE |
Not an established security vendor and must rely on 3rd party technology for complete advanced security. |
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| Integrated Wired Access Switching | |||||
| Integrated Wired Access Switching | |||||
Mist AI configures and operates all aspects of the EX Series wired access network with support for any campus architecture including Virtual Chassis, ESI- LAG, MC-LAG, or EVPN-VXLAN |
No LAN management |
Customers must still choose between two solution types: Software Defined Access for vs Cloud-based |
Limited swtiching platforms with inferior stacking solution |
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| Integrated Wi-Fi | |||||
| Integrated Wi-Fi | |||||
World class AI- driven wireless and BLE location technology operation and configuration driven by Mist AI, with AI- driven insights, monitoring and remediation |
No LAN or wireless management |
Split between Meraki and DNA Lacks a true AIOps solution for insights, monitoring, and remediation. |
Not strong in wireless networking Lacks full AIOps for insights, monitoring, and remediation. |
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