Juniper Networks upgrades its Apstra intent-based networking software

Juniper Networks is releasing the latest version of its Apstra intent-based networking software that includes new monitoring features and configuration templates as well as better integration with VMware’s NSX virtualization and security platform.

In January, Juniper bought Apstra and its Apstra Operating System (AOS), which was developed from the start to support IBN features. Once deployed, AOS—now just called Apstra—keeps a real-time repository of configuration, telemetry and validation information to ensure the network is doing what customers want it to do. Apstra also includes automation features to provide consistent network and security policies for workloads across physical and virtual infrastructures.

Apstra’s intent-based analytics performs regular network checks to safeguard configurations and is hardware agnostic so it can be integrated to work with products from Cisco, Arista, Dell, Microsoft, and Nvidia/Cumulus. Prior to its purchase, Apstra had a strong integration with Juniper networking products.

With the release of Apstra 4.0, Juniper has bolstered its IBN capabilities with new customizable and reusable network templates. 

“The idea is to make it easier for customers to add devices or workloads as they need to, and the Apstra system ensures they work across the entire network fabric without any problems and without the manual intervention required in the past—it’s really a leap-forward in IBN configuration,” said Mansour Karam, founder and president of Apstra.

The operating system also support tags that label all manner of physical and logical network components to define where data should flow, apply policies or filter certain traffic—all with the goal of validating that the customer’s intent is being carried out on the networkt, Karam said.