Raj Yavatkar, Chief Technology Officer, Juniper Networks

Juniper Beyond Labs: Innovation for the Future

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Image shows a large capital letter “B” with a rain forest within the letter’s shape. Text below that says, “Juniper Beyond Labs.” The background is all black.

Watch to learn about Juniper Beyond Labs and exciting projects already in the lab.

What is Juniper Beyond Labs? Raj Yavatkar, Chief Technology Officer at Juniper Networks, answers that question, and shares how the lab is accelerating innovation to deliver experience-first networking through the power of collaborative research and minimum viable demos.

For more information visit Juniper Beyond Labs.

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You’ll learn

  • What projects are already being worked on in the lab

  • Examples of how Juniper Beyond Labs is fostering a culture of innovation

Who is this for?

Network Professionals Business Leaders

Host

Raj Yavatkar Headshot
Raj Yavatkar
Chief Technology Officer, Juniper Networks

Transcript

0:04 good morning

0:09 last night everybody had some kind of

0:11 dinner some kind of event I think so I'm

0:13 glad to see people are awake caffeinated

0:16 so very happy to be here to talk about

0:18 uh an initiative and a concept that

0:22 we're launching today at Juniper

0:24 Networks we call it Juniper Beyond labs

0:27 and it's really about how we can

0:30 formalize our history and DNA of

0:33 innovation into really creating a

0:36 structure around which we can partner

0:37 collaborate with the ecosystem to

0:40 continue to innovate for the future

0:43 so I want to start with this quote which

0:45 is very important I think especially

0:48 um that we have Silicon Valley is a

0:50 great example of a graveyard of many

0:53 successful companies

0:55 who ignored this particular advice and

0:59 just see what happened to them so it's

1:01 important I think anytime you are very

1:03 successful to be very paranoid and very

1:07 careful about how did you reinvent

1:09 yourself continuously uh to be able to

1:11 continue to be successful

1:16 and The Innovation matters for the same

1:18 reason as I said you that you know it

1:20 requires you to uh be agile you have to

1:23 continue to reinvent yourself you have

1:25 to find a ways to go about

1:27 it is definitely an engine of growth uh

1:29 people are able to grow because they

1:31 continue to inhibit uh you saw what

1:33 happened with generative AI in the last

1:35 six months it's a biggest disruption

1:37 since the HTTP web browser was invented

1:40 and everyone is scrambling to react to

1:43 that inflection point uh but that's

1:45 going to lead to a lot of growth both

1:47 for existing companies as well as new

1:49 companies and finally differentiation I

1:52 think Innovation is the only way you can

1:54 differentiate you have to stay ahead of

1:55 the curve ahead of the competition and

1:57 so on and uh nowadays the

1:59 differentiation is even more important

2:00 because in a global economy there are

2:03 lots of places around the world where

2:04 Innovation is happening it's no longer

2:05 restricted to industrialized economies

2:08 and Western Nations

2:13 when it comes to Juniper we do believe

2:15 that Innovation is ingrained in our DNA

2:17 because the company started as a

2:19 challenger to an existing company doing

2:21 x86-based routers by introducing very

2:24 Innovative high performance networking

2:26 Asics

2:28 since then we have branched out into

2:30 Network virtualization connected

2:32 security we embed Security in all of the

2:35 portfolio it's a it's an adjective for

2:38 us secure is objectively used for any

2:40 networking product we put out

2:42 uh we have been now leaders in a Gartner

2:46 magic quadrant for three years in a row

2:48 as a Visionary as well as leaders in

2:50 execution in terms of applying machine

2:52 learning and AI uh for cloud managed

2:56 operations of Campus Branch networks

2:58 Wi-Fi and Azure secure Networks

3:03 Cloud native that's one of the

3:04 architectures that we keep on pushing

3:06 because what we do in a physical Network

3:08 infrastructure is equally applicable in

3:10 the cloud so not only that we want to

3:12 provide products for physical Network

3:14 infrastructure in the cloud but also

3:16 when it comes to Virtual networking the

3:18 cloud cloud networking into VPC

3:20 inter-cloud inter-region networking we

3:23 are providing Cloud native uh products

3:25 and finally 5G has really disaggregated

3:29 how the aggregation points on the

3:31 network from the frontal middle back

3:34 caller coming into either through fixed

3:36 Wireless Wi-Fi cable everything is

3:39 coming to Metro it's a very largely

3:41 distributed network no longer using the

3:44 traditional ring kind of topology and we

3:47 have a cloud Metro portfolio to bring

3:49 principles of cloud native architecture

3:51 to the metro area

3:56 so given that history uh let me play a

4:01 video which really talks about what we

4:03 are trying to achieve this concept

4:05 called Juniper Beyond labs

4:08 Innovation is not just a buzzword here

4:11 at Juniper Networks it's what we do and

4:14 who we are innovators focus on improving

4:17 networks every day relentlessly focus on

4:21 scaling IP networks faster and more

4:23 efficiently than anyone else

4:25 revolutionizing internet security

4:28 reimagining network operations to

4:30 improve the network operator and end the

4:33 user experience

4:34 with active Assurance artificial

4:37 intelligence intent-driven Automation

4:39 and Cloud orchestration for Enterprise

4:42 cloud and service provider networks so

4:45 everyone has a better connected

4:46 experience

4:48 and now Juniper Beyond Labs is

4:51 accelerating Innovation that focuses on

4:53 improving our ability to scale sustain

4:56 and enhance networks for a better user

4:59 experience with a global community of

5:02 Partners we're pioneering research path

5:05 finding new Solutions and engaging with

5:07 thought leaders enabling you to

5:10 experience groundbreaking Innovation

5:12 through proof of Concepts and go to

5:15 market trials collaborate with leading

5:17 academic and Commercial partners and

5:20 deliver sustainable networking

5:22 simplified operations and a better

5:25 networking experience for users

5:29 Juniper Beyond Labs gives you access to

5:31 new research and expert guidance

5:33 providing a community open and willing

5:36 to share ideas shaping the future of our

5:39 industry Juniper Beyond lab is the

5:42 Innovation Hub where real world

5:44 challenges become real-time Solutions

5:47 now is the time to collaborate now is

5:51 the time to innovate now is the time for

5:54 Juniper Beyond labs

6:00 the video really tries to capture what I

6:03 was talking about that how we want to

6:05 use this concept to really partner and

6:06 collaborate with people what I'm going

6:08 to do in the rest of the presentation is

6:10 elaborate and give examples of what

6:12 we're doing and where we invite others

6:14 to join us

6:16 so I think uh there are four pillars to

6:19 this particular concept first is of

6:21 course Innovation we talked about it

6:22 will give some examples the other is

6:24 customer engagement we can engage with

6:26 customers for joint projects like we're

6:28 doing with some of the service providers

6:30 in Europe uh demos at our executive

6:35 briefing Center

6:37 um in some Partnerships in which we do

6:39 join projects so that's the engagement

6:41 the collaboration is also another

6:43 important pillar where we are

6:45 collaborating with companies like Intel

6:46 Dell Rakuten mobile and so on to create

6:50 joint Innovative Innovations to move the

6:53 industry forward we're also

6:54 collaborating with academic Partners

6:56 like Purdue University or a company like

6:58 eurofiber or the government agencies uh

7:02 or a startup like arcade and so on and

7:04 finally sustainability is very important

7:06 just the previous speaker talked about

7:08 need for sustainable networks and one of

7:11 the things I'll talk about with concrete

7:12 examples is what we are trying to do to

7:15 really change the way we think about

7:16 networking especially divided and

7:18 networking data center networking and so

7:20 on

7:24 so I think there are three aspects of

7:26 innovation so I want to go through all

7:27 the four pillars I talked about

7:29 Innovation engagement collaboration and

7:32 sustainability in the area of innovation

7:34 first of all we start with really

7:36 research where we jointly work with

7:39 University

7:40 universities to fund research in

7:42 universities we have done it ourselves

7:44 in the area of silicon photonics Quantum

7:46 networking and so on next is pathfinding

7:49 projects this is concept in which you

7:51 start a project as an exploratory

7:53 project to try out new idea an example

7:55 of such a project which is already

7:57 delivering results in area 5G Oran is

8:01 our Iran intelligence controller which

8:03 is truly in the new operating system for

8:05 an open disaggregated RAM and that

8:08 allows us to interoperate with anybody's

8:11 radio stack as well as allow third-party

8:13 ecosystem of application developers to

8:15 start delivering value just like what

8:18 Apple App Store did in the area of

8:20 mobile phones similar concept exists in

8:22 Oram

8:23 then lastly the thought leadership which

8:26 comes in a variety of forms such as as I

8:28 mentioned demos join projects pocs we

8:31 also started dialogues our speaker

8:34 series where we bring in experts from

8:36 outside to talk about

8:39 Innovation or what they are doing where

8:42 the industry should go so those are the

8:44 three really aspects of how we want to

8:46 push the innovation

8:48 the next thing is

8:50 how do we go about Innovation right how

8:52 do we get the ideas so if you look at

8:54 the right hand the left hand side it

8:55 talks about where you get the funnel of

8:58 ideas they can come from customers

9:00 industry needs and trains our partners

9:03 as I mentioned our own engineering teams

9:05 sales teams architecture teams our

9:08 strategy team and in general the

9:10 ecosystem you take those ideas and first

9:13 thing you do is that you allocate three

9:15 for resources for ideation of that idea

9:17 to convert that idea into something that

9:21 could become a project

9:22 and part of that exploration is to do

9:26 what I call minimum viable demo it's not

9:28 a minimum viable project it's not a

9:30 science fair demo that you can show and

9:32 throw it over the wall but it's a

9:34 minimum viable demo in the sense that

9:35 you create sufficient level of detail in

9:39 a prototype that you can actually deploy

9:40 in a customer environment to try it out

9:43 and get feedback and if it that passes

9:46 the muster then you go to the next step

9:49 to make it into actual business or a

9:51 product so that's the really the flow of

9:54 innovation from ideas all the way to

9:58 proof of concept Pilots to actual

10:00 products is how the Innovation funnel

10:02 works

10:05 and here's an example of these different

10:07 phases of innovation in action on the

10:10 left hand side you have ideation so for

10:12 example we're working on what we call

10:13 end-to-end Assurance no matter which

10:15 part of the network you operate in from

10:17 client to Cloud so you could be in a

10:19 campus Branch network Wi-Fi network

10:21 access network sd-ban data center or a

10:24 van transport Network across those all

10:27 the way up to the cloud we want to

10:29 deliver a notion of end-to-end assurance

10:32 that you can get both as SLS but also

10:36 secure uh high performance capabilities

10:39 that are guaranteed uh in the end-to-end

10:41 action manner that's a that's an example

10:43 of something at the ideation stage next

10:46 is what we have been doing in the area

10:47 of quantum key distribution right where

10:50 we partner with another company to apply

10:52 concepts of quantum networking for

10:54 Quantum key distribution so we can have

10:57 a security distribution which will not

10:59 have the problems of man in the middle

11:01 attack

11:02 ah we have also started looking at Cloud

11:05 connect as a service yesterday some of

11:08 the speakers talked about her hybrid or

11:09 multi-cloud connectivity is a must for

11:11 Enterprises they will continue to have

11:14 on-prem applications infrastructure but

11:16 they also host some SAS applications in

11:18 multiple clouds multiple regions

11:20 multiple zones to interconnect all of

11:22 those to Virtual networking and physical

11:24 networking requires creating a fabric

11:27 which is completely you can build

11:29 transparently and automatically so that

11:31 customers can focus on their security

11:33 postures and where they want

11:35 applications to deploy

11:37 finally private 5G that's a area where

11:41 given our strengths in Wi-Fi we are

11:44 partnering with third parties so that we

11:46 can deliver private 5G now if you go to

11:49 the right you can say we are at a stage

11:51 where we made the decision with respect

11:52 to whether to go no go in terms of

11:54 actual products like ran SMU or Rick run

11:57 intelligence controller and finally we

11:59 already have shipping and deployed in

12:01 rakutan Mobile in Japan Juniper Cloud

12:03 native router which is a virtualized

12:05 cell set router which is also applicable

12:07 when you move mobile packet goes to

12:09 hyperscale you can provide that kind of

12:11 connectivity even a virtual Cloud

12:13 environment

12:14 so this is sort of a pipeline or a

12:17 different stages of uh innovation in

12:19 action with real examples that I have

12:24 as I said the second is experience right

12:26 how do we engage with customers so

12:28 here's an examples we have of course

12:30 been engaging with our customers in our

12:32 EBC we have multiple centers in Westford

12:35 Mass Bangalore and Sunnyvale we of

12:38 course participate in events like this

12:40 or a host of our own events and their

12:42 demos so that's the model of Engagement

12:45 next thing is sustainability

12:48 so one thing I want to talk about

12:50 sustainability is that it's extremely

12:52 important not just from customer point

12:54 of view it's our ethical and business

12:57 responsibility to the planet to make

12:59 sure that we design products uh for

13:01 networking which are sustainable and one

13:03 of the things you'll notice that in the

13:05 area of data center in the Computing

13:06 industry uh sustainability has been part

13:10 of that the platforms for quite some

13:13 time there are industry benchmarks so

13:14 you can cannot simply make claims of

13:17 sustainability without having benchmarks

13:18 to measure against networking lag stores

13:20 so one of the things we are starting is

13:22 working with other people we Define

13:25 those benchmarks so we can start

13:26 measuring sustainability of our products

13:28 and services

13:29 so here's only some examples of

13:31 sustainability that we are looking at

13:32 look at the ran intelligence controller

13:35 Ram consumes approximately 70 of the

13:38 energy so the Energy Efficiency that is

13:41 very important so one of the things we

13:42 are working with our partners like Ira

13:44 Technologies and others how to apply

13:46 machine learning to get Energy savings

13:49 you are on top of the Run intelligence

13:52 controller uh of course you can do

13:54 internet link energy metering to get

13:56 idea about how much energy you spent per

13:59 bit of Transport across an internet

14:01 uh we have some low power Network

14:03 initiatives Cloud native routing which

14:05 moves routing to the cloud native

14:07 architecture resulting in lots of

14:09 savings and finally AI based automation

14:11 which can also lead to a saving energy

14:17 and here's an example if you take a big

14:19 chassis based router which has lots of

14:21 line cards and fabric cards to connect

14:23 the line cards together the whole

14:25 capacity might be more than terabits per

14:27 second

14:28 now when the network is not being

14:30 utilized say more than 20 percent in

14:32 middle of the night or even 30 40

14:33 percent there's no reason that all the

14:36 parts of this router should be active

14:38 and burning energy

14:39 so one of the things you can do is that

14:41 selectively turn off some fabric cards

14:43 you cannot turn off the line cards where

14:45 the ports are because the packets can

14:47 traffic can come anytime but you can

14:49 still save significant amount of energy

14:51 in the fabric in the back plane of the

14:54 router similarly in the control plane

14:56 you run the control plane protocol stair

14:58 they usually run on x86 architecture

15:01 Intel provides lots of Peace States and

15:03 C States so they save energy that sort

15:05 of thing can be utilized so this is an

15:07 example of how as together all of us in

15:10 networking industry can make networking

15:12 routing switching more sustainable

15:18 finally collaboration collaboration

15:20 comes in many different forms customers

15:22 we are already having examples of

15:24 customers shown here they are

15:25 collaborating with them in innovating or

15:28 pushing the frontiers of knowledge

15:30 academic we have started collaboration

15:32 with many universities such as Purdue

15:34 stand for Berkeley and so on where we

15:37 find the University Research which is

15:40 completely a sponsored research with no

15:43 strings attached they're free to do

15:45 their research bring the ideas for

15:46 forward but that way we can push the

15:49 knowledge of apprentice of knowledge and

15:52 finally industry Partners I have listed

15:54 a lot of them here and we have active

15:56 participation and partnership with all

15:58 of them

16:00 so the reason uh the collaboration is

16:02 important is that any company is not

16:04 going to be able to make inroads and

16:07 react to Industry trains ah by itself by

16:10 collaborating across the whole ecosystem

16:12 we can all benefit that's the idea

16:16 so I think if you look at our partners

16:18 and there are some of the codes shared

16:19 from Academia from industry Partners

16:22 customers and so on uh who are very

16:25 happy to join us in the journey

16:27 and every Partners here and they come

16:31 from a spectrum of different companies

16:33 and customers as well as Academia

16:38 so finally I think I have my call to

16:40 action for all of you is that join us in

16:43 terms of exploring the possibilities

16:45 so that we can shape the future of our

16:47 industry and we are

16:50 truly innovating tomorrow's Network

16:52 today and we want to do that through

16:54 collaboration

16:56 focus on sustainable networks which is

16:58 no longer a slogan it's a reality a

17:00 necessity that we owe it to the planet

17:02 and finally provide a better connected

17:05 experience across client client to cloud

17:08 or into an assured experience

17:12 thank you

17:15 great

17:16 thank you very much Raj and I'm happy

17:19 that we can take a few questions thank

17:20 you for making the time you said

17:22 collaborate collaborate collaborate does

17:25 that also mean revenue share in sharing

17:28 the IPR as well that's it I think when

17:31 you talk about uh me I think one of the

17:34 things to remember is that if you look

17:36 at cgpp like bodies they have already

17:38 created a very good framework for

17:40 sharing IPR right we do that on an r d

17:43 basis it's enable non-discriminary same

17:45 thing we have to apply across the

17:47 Spectrum yeah and what about the culture

17:50 really you talked a little bit about

17:51 this but can we go a little bit deeper

17:52 about what type of you know how do you

17:55 really change the culture to be more

17:57 co-creation and just looking not just

18:00 within but without how do you do that so

18:02 I think little quick wins you can apply

18:05 to the audience with many times you have

18:06 to take a leap of faith right so I think

18:08 the examples they can give to our

18:09 partnership with Intel for example Adele

18:11 where we are co-creating and these are

18:14 larger companies which are willing to

18:16 share ideas and IPR to co-create same

18:19 thing we are doing with some of our

18:20 customers in Europe where we are jointly

18:22 creating uh some new ideas yeah okay any

18:25 questions from the audience ladies and

18:27 gentlemen you should take this

18:28 opportunity to speak and ask directly

18:31 from someone who's been driving

18:33 Innovation across the world but let me

18:36 just ask a cheeky question uh which is

18:39 um do you think that there's a greater

18:40 will for innovation in some parts of the

18:43 world versus others

18:46 yes and no I think it's changing you're

18:48 like traditionally we Associated Western

18:51 Nations or U.S North America Europe with

18:55 Innovation but I just came back from

18:57 Bangalore and I was also uh visiting

19:00 some parts of Asia I think the internet

19:03 and Richard the availability of mobile

19:05 networks and all these applications make

19:07 it easier for people to start innovating

19:09 in different parts of the world and

19:11 sometimes the Innovation for the local

19:12 conditions is very different than what

19:15 we think of the Innovation that's

19:16 another thing okay what do you mean by

19:17 that house so I think uh an example I'll

19:20 give you that you know in a developing

19:23 country like India for example found

19:25 that Innovation focus is more in terms

19:28 of doing more with less in terms of any

19:32 part of the network so for example

19:34 simple things like data center design

19:36 they are looking at it using much less

19:39 resources and still be able to

19:41 efficiently run data centers which is

19:43 I'm really glad you mentioned India the

19:45 first perhaps the fastest growing 5G 5

19:48 GSA Market in the world right now is

19:50 there a few weeks ago myself my goodness

19:52 Innovation is coming from the

19:54 Enterprises as well not just the

19:56 technology companies they've got plenty

19:58 of ambition yeah a lot of innovative

20:00 ambition so it has to be a group across

20:03 different groups right that's right okay

20:05 well brilliant thank you very much for

20:07 your time unless we have any other

20:08 questions I'll say thank you very much

20:10 you're around for the rest of the big

20:11 five correct thanks thank you so much

20:13 for your contribution thank you

20:18 foreign

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