Juniper Networks consistently strives to be a thought leader and challenger in the networking industry, which is why we’ve shifted our vision from “digital disruption” to “digital cohesion”. Disruption implies a disturbance or a problem to the norm, and being reactive to things already happening.
In contrast, digital cohesion is a positive point of view that aims to further better our lives through mega-services that connect and assemble independent data from several applications and services. This means that businesses can no longer sell standalone products and services, but rather the overall value and experience derived from the cohesion of data from various sources.
Without the Internet of Things (IoT), digital cohesion would not be relevant or at minimum, significantly impact the realization of the vision. Forecasts for the IoT predict more than 2.3ZB (zettabytes) of data across 35B connected devices by 2020. Imagine this data being catered to individuals as “lifestyle” services that are more intelligent, efficient and reliable. Such services and applications, especially from Web 2.0 companies, are already making progress in this direction.
Before daydreaming of the “oohs and aahs” of digital cohesion*, however, there are four barriers to clear:
- Performance – A digital experience is derived from the ability to process, store and move data so users experience near-instant responses across all their applications and services. The network needs to be able to scale up and out to meet these demands.
- Economics – IT continues to be flooded with rising expectations while spending a majority of effort in maintaining the network. Automation reduces manual work and human error to free up resources for innovation.
- Interoperability – Services and applications will have to be interoperable and open at every layer to deliver the value of mega-services.
- Trust – IoT drives a tighter integration between technology and everyday interactions, forcing security throughout the network to become more critical and necessary than ever.
If digital cohesion is to become a reality, of the four barriers, trust is the one that requires immediate attention. The greater number of connected devices or higher the value of business services, the more attractive those services become to security attacks. All devices pose a threat – just look at the recent Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack that used webcams and digital recorders to cause an Internet outage on the U.S. East Coast across popular sites and services such as Reddit, Spotify and Twitter, to name a few. DDoS attacks are initiated from multiple, distributed sources focusing a great amount of irrelevantly generated traffic to target a victim with the intent to overwhelm their infrastructure or servers. As attacks become smarter, security practices and prevention methods must also evolve to stay one step ahead. The realization now is that networks will never be 100 percent safe from attacks. Instead, finding ways to quickly detect and minimize the damage is paramount. And that is exactly what Juniper can do with its security offerings across its routing, switching and security portfolio.
Junos OS DDoS protection available on the MX and T Series routers enables the router to continue functioning while under an attack. It identifies and suppresses malicious control packets while enabling legitimate control traffic to be processed. Beyond the DDoS protection, Juniper’s Software-defined Secure Network (SDSN) technology provides an end-to-end security solution for private, public or hybrid cloud deployments. Juniper’s security products span the three pillars of policy, detection and enforcement. The solutions are designed with an open and unified architecture that dynamically manages and automates policies to deliver more effective protection while freeing precious security personnel to focus on protecting their organizations. Every element of the network becomes an enforcement point within the network to gain a holistic view and understanding of what is happening.
Juniper offers a portfolio of products designed to build a secure network to make digital cohesion possible. Juniper’s SRX and vSRX Series offers physical and virtual next gen firewalls to detect threats and provide protection at the edge. With the first-in-the industry container-based cSRX Juniper enables high-density, compact firewall deployments for virtual and cloud environments. Leveraging cloud scalability, Juniper offers Sky ATP for detection and protection from unknown advanced malware. Sky ATP works with security devices to analyze traffic coming through and between devices. All of this can be easily managed behind a single pane of glass through Security Director with Policy Enforcer. Together, automated policies are deployed to dynamically orchestrate the detection and quarantine of infected points across firewalls and switches with real-time intelligence from Sky ATP.
Forgot about worrying “if” an attack is approaching. Instead, think about “when” – and then “how” the network responds. Networks should be seen as secure building blocks that enable business growth and innovation. It’s time to focus on managing risk rather than worrying about how specific threats will find vulnerabilities in your network.
With SDSN, Juniper Networks can help you clear the trust barrier and be ready to ride the digital cohesion wave. We are more than excited and happy to accompany you to connect everything and empower everyone.
*For a more in depth presentation about Digital Cohesion, check out the full video from our CEO, Rami Rahim.