Ray Mota, CEO, ACG Research

ACG HotSeat: Juniper Networks' Julius Francis and Jai Thattil Discuss the Cloud Metro Space

Industry Voices Cloud Metro
Ray Mota Headshot
An image that shows a drawing of the earth with various lines signifying orbits around the earth. The text says, “VIDEO: ACG Research. HOTSEAT WITH JUNIPER.” Along the bottom the text says, “Cloudification: The effect on metro and RAN to deliver experience-first networking.” Next to that is the ACG Research logo.

Updates on the new metro: Use cases, technologies, and challenges to overcome

The metro can drive new service opportunities for operators and improved experiences for network users. It’s where connectivity, edge hosting, and service experiences converge. At the same time, Open RAN (open radio access network) provides opportunities to optimize the radio resource and deliver innovations faster to end users. Juniper’s Julius Francis and Jai Thattil join ACG Research CEO Ray Mota to discuss the transformation in metro networking and the ORAN space.

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You’ll learn

  • What’s happening in the new metro as it becomes “a new edge”

  • About emerging use cases and technologies

  • The roles Juniper plays in innovating for the Metro space

Who is this for?

Network Professionals Business Leaders

Host

Ray Mota Headshot
Ray Mota
CEO, ACG Research

Guest speakers

Julius Francis Headshot
Julius Francis
Sr. Director of Product Marketing, Juniper Networks
Jai Thattil Headshot
Jai Thattil
Sr. Director of Product Marketing, Juniper Networks

Transcript

0:02 [Music]

0:11 hello and welcome to another episode of

0:13 the deep edge podcast cloudification has

0:15 been having a significant effect on

0:17 metro networking and ran in the network

0:19 to deliver differentiated services for

0:21 improved user experience

0:23 the metro has the potential to drive new

0:25 service opportunities for operators and

0:27 new improved experiences for network

0:29 users

0:30 it will become the place where

0:31 connectivity plus edge hosting plus

0:33 service experience converges while

0:36 openrend provides opportunities to

0:37 optimize the radio resource and deliver

0:40 innovations faster to the end users

0:42 julius francis senior director of

0:45 product marketing from juniper networks

0:47 and jaya that till senior director of

0:50 product marketing from juniper networks

0:52 join our ceo ray moda from acg research

0:56 to discuss the transformation happening

0:57 in metro networking and or on space yeah

1:00 so maybe what we'll do uh julius and jay

1:03 uh for our audience that aren't as

1:05 familiar with you if you don't mind

1:06 going into your background and julius

1:09 maybe you could start first

1:10 yes sure thanks trey um i'm julius

1:13 francis i'm heading up there

1:16 product marketing for juniper's

1:18 automated van business i'm really

1:20 pleased to be part of this discussion

1:22 today uh i'm chaita till i'm leading the

1:25 strategic marketing initiatives for

1:26 service providers

1:27 uh been in the industry for a while

1:29 leading some of the 5g and oran

1:32 activities

1:33 uh as well as like some of the emerging

1:35 technologies excellent so maybe um as

1:38 you know in the hot seat we like to get

1:39 started right away and and recently you

1:42 had this announcement that i was part of

1:44 related to this whole metro area which i

1:47 always thought there was what i call a

1:49 gap of innovation missing in the space

1:51 but when we when we look at the metro

1:53 domain it has the potential to drive

1:55 a lot of service opportunities for

1:57 operators and improve

1:59 you know the experience for these

2:00 network users but i always relate to

2:03 when it gets to a new topic is what are

2:05 some of the applications in the use

2:07 cases are going to drive this metro

2:09 networking

2:11 so thanks for the question ray

2:13 definitely if you before we get to the

2:15 use cases and applications that's

2:17 emerging if you step back and look at

2:19 what's happening in the metro metro is

2:21 becoming a new edge and it has a great

2:25 big growth potential for the service

2:27 providers we take a traditional metro

2:30 it's all about access aggregation it's

2:32 about aggregating the traffic and

2:34 pushing the traffic deep into the

2:36 network network for or for for services

2:40 now that model is transforming

2:43 now

2:43 the metro is about

2:45 connectivity edge cloud hosting and

2:48 service experience are converging more

2:50 workloads are moving in um they're all

2:53 moving in for various reasons about

2:55 greater experience right

2:58 but and also if you look at the

2:59 potential side

3:01 and

3:01 and the data pointing the fact that

3:04 subscribers are willing to pay

3:06 more for the great experience so great

3:08 growth potential great monetization

3:10 potential and and what you're seeing is

3:12 more and more traffic is coming to the

3:15 metro

3:16 at one of your studies seg study

3:18 pointing out more than five acts gonna

3:20 come and stay within the metro and it's

3:23 all pointing the fact that metro is

3:25 transforming

3:26 so given that

3:28 i think the use cases why

3:31 the more of the workloads moving in are

3:33 like mobile streaming is skyrocketing

3:35 right and they all need

3:38 low high bandwidth high error rate

3:41 high bandwidth and low latency

3:43 um and metro is the ideal location for

3:46 that

3:47 arvr

3:48 great uh heavy data streaming type of

3:51 applications ultra mobile and

3:53 relentlessly connected devices these all

3:56 need edge cloud type of metro uh

3:59 location and gaming cdn um so it is

4:03 going to be a very interesting space and

4:05 these are the some of the use cases that

4:06 are driving the need now

4:08 but there are and many of the operators

4:10 are trying to think about building a

4:12 converged metro not only for the use

4:14 cases of today but also cases for

4:16 tomorrow but before i i i end my uh

4:21 answer

4:22 all this

4:23 the question that's going through

4:25 service wireless mind is can i operate

4:28 my current traditional metro

4:31 in a sustainable way the answer is no

4:33 because you have to look at can i

4:35 operate in a high profitable growth can

4:37 i use and sustain the skill staff in a

4:40 manual type of operational model can i

4:42 even sustain a carbon footprint i

4:44 strongly believe that's a new approach

4:46 is needed

4:48 i know i think this is great because you

4:49 touched on the sustainability part of it

4:52 and i think that's something that's not

4:55 talked enough about about creating

4:57 sustainability to be able to be more

4:59 efficient especially after what's

5:01 happened but

5:02 uh maybe

5:03 if we look at some of the discussions

5:05 going further

5:06 is is that we see this whole

5:07 clarification of the ring right and it's

5:10 helping up the door for disaggregation

5:12 and

5:13 open ran right

5:14 how do you see this transforming the

5:16 network dynamic and what do you feel is

5:19 driving this adoption there

5:21 clarification definitely has transformed

5:23 the ryan uh

5:25 picture overall right it has moved into

5:27 cloud run and then the open run came

5:29 into the picture where you are

5:31 disaggregating the traditionally

5:33 integrated stack into multiple

5:34 components whether it's the

5:37 radio unit control units or distribution

5:40 units all can be now put in different

5:42 places with different vendors so you can

5:45 mix and match how operators are looking

5:47 at the vendor landscape as well

5:50 so it used to be one-winder system now

5:52 moved into multi-vendor ecosystem so

5:54 there are some

5:55 challenges and a lot of opportunities

5:57 coming along with that and i think one

5:59 of the key elements of this

6:00 disaggregation is this decoupling of uh

6:03 run intelligence and the evolution of

6:06 this what we call this brand intelligent

6:08 controller

6:09 and which uses like an aiml to optimize

6:12 the networks and

6:13 this platform now provides a a great

6:17 base and an ecosystem of applications

6:19 that can be onboarded

6:21 so traditionally operators needed to

6:23 rely on the single vendor ecosystem

6:25 where they need to look at their product

6:28 development life cycle to bring an

6:29 innovation with this disaggregation and

6:32 the rig

6:33 you can have these multiple applications

6:35 on board quite quickly and clarification

6:38 is key to that right so rick is designed

6:40 to be cloud native from day one it can

6:43 run on whether service provider is

6:45 private cloud or a hyperscaler public

6:47 cloud

6:48 so this has built a lot more dynamics

6:51 into the ecosystem how you see the

6:53 network from iran perspective the

6:55 disaggregation and not even ecosystem

6:57 has brought so much more innovation into

7:00 the network at the right side

7:03 you know the innovation i think is

7:04 something that definitely it's been

7:06 needed but i think as we

7:08 talk further into that right is you know

7:11 what are what are some of the

7:12 operational challenges and architectures

7:14 that you see because one of the

7:16 things that i always see is when you

7:18 look at

7:18 like automate right and automation is

7:21 what are the use cases that need to be

7:24 automated what are the key challenges

7:26 and drivers and automation that you see

7:28 in the metro any any advice for our

7:30 audience on how to overcome some of

7:33 these challenges as they look to

7:34 transform the metro space

7:36 absolutely uh definitely if you take

7:39 a look at as i earlier mentioned about

7:42 the contrast between a traditional metro

7:45 and what the

7:46 the the cloud metro transformation

7:48 trying to achieve

7:49 you have to look at the differences uh

7:52 all the way not only the operation the

7:54 system and the architecture on the

7:56 operational front um

7:58 in the traditional metrowise it's

8:00 focused mostly on devices and manually

8:04 manual operation and more of diy type of

8:06 model um and the expertise were

8:09 typically tracked within individuals

8:11 that model worked because it's all about

8:14 shifting packets

8:16 but when you now transform the metro to

8:19 deliver that experience now the focus of

8:22 operation should move into service

8:24 experience

8:25 and also the complexity of managing the

8:29 endpoints the devices the service

8:34 layer you have to consider moving the

8:38 metro operations into a more cloud

8:40 delivered as a service because that's

8:42 the only way you could as an operator

8:45 now could focus on operating the cloud

8:47 metro rather than

8:50 getting drawn in the complexity of the

8:51 automation toolset itself and and that

8:54 and also

8:56 you have to start thinking about

8:58 bringing the ai ops models because think

9:00 about these are distributed clouds uh

9:04 and the workloads are moving in there

9:06 and things are getting connected in a

9:09 rapid manner

9:11 and you don't want any degradation of

9:13 services

9:14 impacting the service experience and

9:17 which leads to churn

9:19 the important is to

9:21 keep the ai ops more of a

9:24 more of a predictive nature and

9:26 remediate issues

9:28 as i mentioned on the system side

9:30 definitely i think

9:32 in the previous systems and platforms

9:34 all about traffic aggregation

9:37 monolithic power designs

9:39 but now you have to make choices on

9:41 systems that deliver a richness on

9:44 on routing

9:45 which can help you scale

9:47 better and also

9:49 provide network slicing better

9:52 and also energy efficiencies keep kept

9:54 uh you have to really think in some of

9:56 the design choices you make on the

9:58 platforms as going forward

10:00 um and and

10:02 and bring future proofing that platforms

10:04 because as we talked about these

10:06 networks are not only for today but also

10:08 for tomorrow and finally on architecture

10:10 front you have to think about

10:12 convergence you have to think about how

10:14 am i going to actively assure

10:16 the services that i am enabling on this

10:19 uh network and finally it's all about

10:22 bringing zero trust security because

10:23 security is empowerment and power

10:25 important and it cannot be an

10:27 afterthought it needs to be built in i

10:29 think the addressing some of these

10:31 challenges but but jay do you see

10:33 similar challenges going on in the

10:35 overran space do you think the whole

10:37 clarification will help break down some

10:39 of those barriers

10:41 clarification is definitely bringing

10:42 down the barriers but i think like the

10:44 biggest challenge that orion has its

10:46 adoption itself right the technology is

10:49 still

10:50 at a very early stage but also if you

10:52 look from an operator perspective you

10:54 really don't want to rip and replace

10:57 this huge install base that you have

10:59 been investing for decades so to speak

11:02 so they are really looking at it as like

11:04 a piece me piece by piece

11:06 upgrade to the technology for specific

11:08 use cases and don't want to go for a

11:10 major overhaul then the biggest

11:12 challenge is the integration of course

11:14 by desegregation you opened up the

11:16 ecosystem you're bringing in more

11:18 players that also means like operators

11:21 don't get a single throat to choke when

11:23 something goes wrong so the integration

11:26 is definitely a key area and automation

11:28 has simplified a lot of it it's not like

11:30 how it used to be but with automation

11:32 and open apis you have managed to bring

11:34 multiple vendors together and some of

11:36 the vendors are already coming with the

11:38 pre-integrated solution so that is

11:40 helping automation together with

11:42 clarification but then there is another

11:44 part which is the standardization aspect

11:47 you really need to get those standard

11:49 specs

11:50 for each of those interfaces that we are

11:51 talking about and that effort is still

11:54 ongoing right with oran alliance and

11:55 others

11:56 but again i'll go back to the

11:58 opportunity side where you can bring in

12:00 these use cases that you can onboard

12:02 quite quickly

12:04 bringing efficiency you can steer the

12:06 traffic you can look into the slicing

12:08 you can assure like you know who you are

12:09 delivering when

12:11 switch off some of the towers if you are

12:13 not using them that way like you know

12:14 saving energy

12:16 and resources so there are several

12:18 opportunities and the biggest one i'm

12:20 seeing with the automation coming into

12:21 the picture is

12:23 pulling together the

12:24 ipv and the right side and bringing it

12:27 all together from an entrance slicing

12:28 perspective and that automation helped

12:30 you to manage and orchestrate from an

12:32 end-to-end perspective right so there

12:34 are a lot of benefits that is happening

12:36 the barriers are still there but it is

12:38 slowly brought down by clarification and

12:40 automation

12:42 yeah no this is good that you're seeing

12:44 because i'm seeing similar things from

12:46 that area

12:47 and i think the fact that automation

12:49 playing a big role will help reduce

12:51 the whole concept of

12:53 what we see moving forward there but

12:56 when we look at it from a juniper

12:58 perspective what role does juniper play

13:01 in innovating for this particular space

13:04 so

13:05 definitely

13:06 you saw us launching our cloud metro

13:09 solution in the market on july 1st it

13:12 wasn't an exciting um uh innovative

13:15 solution that we are bringing in because

13:17 what we have articulated so far is about

13:20 it's a new approach needed and we see a

13:23 new way uh

13:25 to approach uh solutions that is needed

13:27 rather than leasing platforms so in our

13:30 launch we are based pretty much

13:33 launching a new category for a

13:34 sustainable metro business growth i

13:36 think we addressing our solution in

13:38 three folds right first of all is

13:39 sustainable operation we are bringing in

13:42 paragon automation

13:43 as a cloud service

13:46 so taking away the complexity of

13:47 managing operating and moving away from

13:49 diy type of models and with with that we

13:53 are bringing ai enabled

13:56 to offer that ai ops capabilities and we

13:59 just on that launch day we demonstrated

14:02 our

14:03 device on boarding couple top one of the

14:06 top use cases uh designed by our service

14:09 provider customers

14:10 and second it's about sustainable

14:13 systems and before i move into the

14:15 sustainable systems the main thing about

14:17 the business outcomes that operators are

14:20 looking for and what we are delivering

14:22 with our paragon automation service is

14:24 about 50 reduction in deployment time

14:27 that's key when and then 70

14:30 faster new use case deployment these are

14:33 some of the rapid changes

14:36 service providers are looking for and

14:38 also 40 cost reduction these are key

14:40 outcomes and when it comes to operations

14:43 on the system from we have delivered

14:46 four news platforms all the way from

14:49 sell side routers to access to

14:51 aggregation to preact

14:54 and these systems are designed with

14:59 efficiency space and efficiency in mind

15:02 and when it comes to space and

15:04 efficiencies we are

15:06 we deliver the highest portfolio scale

15:09 all the way up to 345 terabytes per

15:11 second a massive capacity

15:14 and then high capacity per slot all the

15:16 way to 21.6 terabytes high port

15:19 flexibility um and most important thing

15:22 i want to highlight is about some of the

15:24 power innovation adaptive power

15:26 innovation what we have done we have

15:27 created a modular

15:29 removable power shelves and we paid

15:31 attention attention to uh our

15:35 chassis design in airflow and how we

15:37 cool the systems and also some of the

15:39 innovations on how do we turn off some

15:41 unused packet forwarding engines and

15:43 software functions these all points

15:46 points to

15:47 almost up to 77

15:49 lower power consumptions sustainability

15:51 right

15:52 uh space efficiency all the way to 64

15:54 percent and almost a lower tco cost to

15:57 70

15:58 so these are key business outcomes um we

16:02 delivered through our platforms and

16:04 systems and finally on the architectural

16:07 front we are embedding

16:09 our active assurance agents directly

16:12 into juno's evolved operating system

16:13 that means all these active service

16:15 instruments is available in all our

16:17 platforms

16:19 this means service product providers can

16:20 now actively

16:22 assure and validate all the services

16:25 proactively

16:27 and then finally zero trust security we

16:30 are securing the devices

16:33 and software

16:35 so cryptographically we are embedding

16:37 the device identity right into the

16:39 devices so this makes

16:41 service providers can build a secure

16:44 infrastructure and we are not stopping

16:46 with that we also delivered

16:49 the data security

16:52 data addressed and data in transit

16:55 and finally i also wanted to uh mention

16:57 that with this launch we also

17:00 delivered introduced

17:03 juniper branded co-developed 400 gig crc

17:07 opera zr plus coherent pluggable optics

17:09 so with this juniper is really taking a

17:12 a business outcome based approach

17:15 and thinking cloud metro transformation

17:18 as a solution set

17:19 addressing operation system and

17:21 architecture

17:22 to deliver the real outcomes that is

17:24 needed right into the cloud network

17:26 space

17:27 and jay what are your thoughts on this

17:29 related to o-ring

17:30 yeah for us it's simply to be an

17:32 independent platform provider with a

17:34 wider ecosystem uh that's that's the

17:37 goal um julius was talking about how

17:39 paragon automation is being used in the

17:42 cloud metro we want to extend that to

17:45 to the ryan as well to make sure we can

17:47 provide that end-to-end smo and it's as

17:49 a key provider of that

17:51 um we have been like since our

17:53 acquisition of rick from next year we

17:56 have been working on getting that

17:58 ecosystem ready and we've been building

17:59 that one by one we worked with intel

18:02 rakutan bringing brought in like some of

18:05 the

18:06 cloud native networking

18:08 then we had

18:09 the radio vendors like parallel wireless

18:11 and cancer systems then the technology

18:13 specialists and testers like keysights

18:15 and vrw so we have been shipping away

18:17 from that ecosystem and building that

18:19 wider ecosystem that is needed

18:21 then you must have seen like some of the

18:23 recent announcements that we did with

18:25 vodafone and turk telecontents of the

18:27 trials

18:28 so our focus has been to build this rig

18:31 together with the partners focus on the

18:33 key use cases and also work with oran

18:35 alliance in terms of developing the

18:37 specs and be the

18:39 key driver for what standardization is

18:41 going to be when it's finally done so

18:43 this is where we have been focusing so

18:45 far on

18:46 you know this is excellent i mean i

18:48 think what i like about it is the

18:49 comprehensiveness

18:51 of this it isn't just say here's a

18:53 strategy of position there's there's new

18:55 products there's a part about ai ops

18:58 simplification there's the use cases

19:00 that yourself and jay actually our

19:03 audience is going to give you

19:04 [Applause]

19:06 a round of applause for them so i it

19:08 wasn't too bad being in the hot seat was

19:10 it

19:11 not not really at all absolutely i think

19:14 we enjoyed the discussion is the needed

19:16 uh needed discussions uh especially in

19:19 this transformative stage yeah so and i

19:21 think there's some papers also that um

19:24 for the audience we could provide in the

19:25 link that they could download a look at

19:28 some of the details and go deeper dive

19:30 into some of the tco some of the

19:32 findings and some of the architectural

19:34 stuff so you're officially off the hot

19:36 seat jay and julius thanks for joining

19:40 thank you very much appreciate it

19:45 [Music]

19:53 you

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