Back to top

Image: Bigstock

Juniper (JNPR) Boosts Low-Cost AI-Driven Enterprise Portfolio

Read MoreHide Full Article

Juniper Networks, Inc. (JNPR - Free Report) recently augmented its AI-driven enterprise portfolio with the latest features to scale up operations and simplify network rollout. The portfolio enhancements are likely to offer greater insight and automation capabilities while increasing operational flexibility and efficiency of network operators.   

Business enterprises have witnessed significant growth in network connectivity over the years, often leading to disparate cost-inefficient infrastructure that required massive, simplified, and upgraded network capabilities to effectively manage the operations. In addition, exponential growth in data demand due to increased work-from-home and extended lockdown restrictions has amplified network pressure, making it imperative for network operators to improve broadband connectivity.    

The company aims to address this issue with its EVPN-VXLAN campus fabric management tools that simplify wired, wireless, and WAN via a common cloud and AIOps engine. Leveraging the existing Juniper platform, the improved fabric offers a common operational framework and a single AI-driven support model where self-driving operations and predictive actions pre-empt problems before they arise. The Juniper Mist solution enables enterprise customers to capitalize on the client-to-cloud differentiation to apply the correct underlying policies in a seamless fashion. The Marvis Actions then offers proactive problem remediation by delivering actionable recommendations to IT managers based on the Mist AI engine feedback, thereby expanding on Juniper’s unique automation abilities. This improves operational flexibility and agility for cost-effective user experiences, avoiding slow response to sudden network changes.

The simplified network traffic management eradicates the complexity associated with multiple networks and delivers optimal bandwidth utilization with reduced latency. In addition to more agile service delivery, better network facilities are likely to offer improved security features for enhanced visibility and customer data protection. This, in turn, is expected to provide shorter time-to-market for new services, while ensuring regulatory compliance and data security.

Juniper is set to capitalize on the growing demand for data center virtualization, cloud computing, and mobile traffic packet/optical convergence. The company is offering new suites of products, such as the T4000 core router, QFX data center platform, ACX and PTX packet/optical solution, among others. With the growing usage of smartphones and tablets, mobile data traffic has gone up. This has resulted in higher demand for advanced networking architecture, which is leading service providers to spend more on routers and switches. Juniper is expected to benefit from the higher spending pattern among carriers to upgrade their networks for supporting the incremental growth in data traffic.

Despite some short-term challenges, particularly within the cloud and service provider verticals, Juniper expects healthy progress in most areas of its business, which augurs well for its long-term growth. The company has made significant changes to its go-to-market structure to better align its sales strategies with each of its core customer verticals. Moreover, several new products are in the pipeline, which are expected to further strengthen its competitive position across service provider, cloud, and enterprise market.

The stock has gained 20.5% over the past year compared with the industry’s rally of 28.6%.
 

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Juniper currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Some other top-ranked stocks in the industry are Clearfield, Inc. (CLFD - Free Report) and InterDigital, Inc. (IDCC - Free Report) sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), and Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM - Free Report) , carrying a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Clearfield delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 49%, on average.

InterDigital has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 15%. It delivered an earnings surprise of 536%, on average, in the trailing four quarters.

Qualcomm has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 21%. It delivered an earnings surprise of 13.5%, on average, in the trailing four quarters.

Published in