Intent-Based Network Optimization with Juniper Routing Director

Reliable connectivity for the AI era

80% of organizations say the network has become more complex in the last two years (TheCube, ZK Research, 2024)

Overcoming the challenges of network complexity and manual operations

Modern transport networks are powered by highly flexible routing platforms, with levels of programmability that can unlock increasingly tailored connectivity services managed entirely remotely. When combined with advanced traffic engineering capabilities, this enables the delivery of SLA guarantees at scale based on KPIs like latency and bandwidth.

With the rapid emergence of new applications like generative AI, that are highly sensitive to latency, reliability and bandwidth, network operations teams today need to rapidly gain granular control over the connectivity they provide. Maintaining optimal performance in large networks, supporting these increasingly diverse and demanding applications, often involves thousands of tunnel path updates per month.

Intent-Based Network Optimization with Juniper® Routing Director (formerly Juniper Paragon Automation) solves this problem by enabling closed-loop automation of traffic engineering, at scale, based in user intent.

The capabilities you need

Repeatable, scalable, autonomous networks built for the real world

Intent-Based Network Optimization with Juniper Routing Director quickly creates new value from modern programmable WAN networking technology while reducing the impact of changing network conditions on critical services.

Our approach to IBN addresses the shortfalls of traditional configuration automation that does not abstract away complexity and therefore cannot easily scale to large networks. It lets you separate the complexity of intent design from day-to-day operations and provides the automation of traffic management needed to maintain user intent under rapidly changing network conditions.

• Model-based, verified intent profiles for reuse at scale: Network experts can specify a wide range of routing configuration options when designing intent models, such as tunnel symmetry, protocols, provisioning methods, priority, maximum delay, packet loss, bandwidth, and others. These models can be simulated and then published, maintained under version control, and reused, reducing human error and time-to-activation.
• Flexible, reliable connectivity services: By separating optimization policies from tunnel profiles, Intent-Based Network Optimization from Juniper Routing Director allows operators to rapidly leverage innovations to enhance performance and resilience, delivering increasingly strict SLA guarantees.
• Geospatial view for explainability and continuous improvement: Routing Director provides filterable, zoomable mapping views to analyze connectivity, inspect past reconfigurations, and track customer networks, offering insights for optimizing intent profiles.

How it works

Design and deploy exceptional services while maintaining user intent with closed-loop automation

Intent-based Network Optimization with Juniper Routing Director provides advanced path computation, intent modeling, and geospatial visualization. It is based on the cloud-native Routing Director platform, scalable for global networks and deployable on-premises or on public cloud instances.

Advanced path computation and optimization

Leveraging decades of experience in building SDN controllers, a powerful path computation engine (PCE) recomputes network tunnels based on user-defined triggers like utilization levels, link delay, packet loss, or failure events. This enables autonomous, closed-loop networking for congestion avoidance, latency-based routing, and autonomous capacity optimization.

Precision intent profile modeling

Engineers can make network intent profiles available to operations teams based on three elements:

• Tunnels: End-to-end connections with predictable performance (speed, latency, packet loss, priority).
• Optimization: Conditions for recalculating tunnels, including triggers, threshold crossings, and time periods.
• Endpoints: A collection of endpoints to which a selected tunnel and optimization profile apply (e.g., all edge routers for a specific enterprise customer).

Operators can select combinations of these intent profiles and provision them in the network.

Core capabilities

• Dynamic network visualization: Operators can visualize active intents and monitor their performance against stated intent.
• Model-based intent profile management: Authorized users create, validate, publish, and update intent profiles (tunnel, optimization, endpoint groups). Operations teams deploy intent instances from published profiles, maintaining configuration integrity and separating it from day-to-day operations.
• Automated reoptimization: Optimization profiles include time-based or event-based triggers. If events cause performance degradation, the network self-optimizes and reroutes connections to maintain user intents.
• Predeployment dry run: Operations teams can visualize how new instances will be instantiated alongside existing services, identifying potential capacity issues before deployment.

Our advantage

One integrated use case based on deep domain expertise

Intent-based network optimization is part of the Juniper Routing Director portfolio. It offers the flexibility for engineers to design connectivity that delivers diverse user intent and the drag-and-drop simplicity for operations teams to quickly validate, deploy, and modify connectivity.

How we deliver

Why Juniper

Decades of industry leadership in one simple solution

With intent-based network optimization, leverage Juniper's decades of expertise at the forefront of WAN routing in a simple-to-use package designed to optimize business outcomes. Deploy any other use cases with your Routing Director instance without additional system implementation.

More information

Find out how you can quickly and easily leverage intent-based network optimization

To learn more about Intent-based network optimization, visit https://www.juniper.net/us/en/solutions/sd-wan.html

For technical data sheets, guides and documentation, visit Juniper Routing Director Documentation | Juniper Networks