The non-stop digital revolution demands agile and adaptable data center network infrastructures that seamlessly adjust to evolving business needs, accommodate unforeseen circumstances, support distributed architectures, and mitigate security threats continuously.

For long-term success, IT teams require reliable data center operations to ensure service continuity and availability. As it is, many solutions suffer from excessive complexity, delaying value realization. This article explores how an intent-based approach streamlines data center operations to avoid these common pitfalls.

Defining The Role Of Data Centers

Modern data centers are more than server housings; they form the backbone for cloud computing, big data analytics, web applications, hybrid work models, and the Internet of Things (IoT). This evolution transforms data centers into strategic business assets.

Given their critical role, efficient data center design is essential. Traditional designs, often cobbled together, fall short of today’s demands for reliability and cost-efficiency. An effective data center network solution should focus on these key operational goals:

1. Adoption Of A Unified Management Platform
   A unified management platform allows administrators to oversee all functions from a central interface, simplifying the complex web of data center operations. This integration can reduce the chances of errors, improve response times to issues, and provide a holistic view of the entire data center’s performance and health. By consolidating management tools, organizations can significantly cut down on the time and resources spent on training and maintenance.
2. Extensive Automation
   Automating routine tasks such as system updates, backups, and monitoring can dramatically increase efficiency and reduce human error. Automation also frees up IT staff to focus on more strategic tasks, fostering innovation and improving overall productivity. Additionally, automated systems can respond to issues faster than human operators, minimizing downtime and maintaining higher levels of service reliability.
3. Continuous Performance Validation
   By constantly monitoring performance metrics and comparing them to predefined benchmarks, organizations can identify and address potential issues before they escalate. This proactive approach helps maintain optimal performance, reducing the risk of outages, and ensuring that the infrastructure can handle evolving workloads and demands.
4. Powerful Security Measures
   Real-time alerts enable immediate action, mitigating potential damage and maintaining the integrity and confidentiality of data. Comprehensive security strategies should also include regular updates, patches, and employee training to address new vulnerabilities.
5. Component Integration
   Integrated components eliminate compatibility issues and streamline communication between different parts of the system. This cohesion leads to smoother operations, easier troubleshooting, and more straightforward scalability. When every component, from servers to storage and networking equipment, is designed to work in harmony, the entire data center functions more effectively and efficiently, providing a stable foundation for current and future needs.

These goals might seem daunting, but a trusted and proven IT solutions provider such as WEI can help make each of them achievable.

The Need For An Efficient Data Center Network

Intent-based networking (IBN) streamlines data center management by converting business goals – connectivity, security, and performance – into automated configurations, ensuring consistent service and alignment between design and deployment.

During the design and planning stage, known as Day Zero, data center objectives are established, typically including:

• Scalability: Accommodate growth in traffic, applications, and services without a complete redesign.
• High Availability: Ensure continuous operation with minimal downtime.
• Optimized Performance: Efficiently handle the anticipated load with effective traffic management.
• Energy Efficiency: Reduce operating costs and meet sustainability objectives.
• Automated Operations: Minimize manual intervention and human errors.

Achieving these objectives becomes increasingly challenging during Day 2 operations, and throughout the network lifecycle, due to configuration drift, policy overlaps, and hardware refresh cycles.

IBN continuously validates the network’s configuration against its intended design, swiftly identifying and correcting deviations to enhance agility and operational efficiency. It consolidates tasks into a single program, eliminating the need for disparate tools and boosting reliability and cost-effectiveness. This streamlined approach also ensures consistent performance and frees organizations from costly and prohibitive vendor lock-in.

Choosing The Right Partner And Solution

A user-friendly network management solution enables IT teams to free up resources for strategic initiatives. This efficiency arises from a holistic data center network approach requiring:

• Purpose-Built Software: Avoid using multiple, disjointed products with a single, unified platform.
• Intuitive Interface: Simplify network management with a user-friendly, point-and-click interface.
• Full Lifecycle Support: Manage the entire network lifecycle, from design to ongoing maintenance.
• Automated Operations: Reduce manual tasks and human error.
• Intent-Based Analytics: Gain proactive insights and optimize the network for peak performance.

Juniper Apstra architecture simplifies data center network management with its intent-based platform that automates design, deployment, and operations. It features a user-friendly interface for easy configuration, while also being programmable for large-scale automation and orchestration.

Empower Your Data Center Network

Juniper Apstra streamlines data center network design, configuration, and management. Partnering with a trusted IT provider like WEI ensures you maximize these proven benefits:

• : Centralize design, configuration, and operational policies to align with business goals. Built-in templates further streamline service setup for consistent security and resilience.
• Adaptability For Modern Data Centers: Support multi-vendor environments and integrate with popular cloud management tools like Terraform and Ansible for ultimate flexibility.
• Embedded Zero-Trust Security: Secure the network with zero-trust principles, automatic segmentation, and continuous monitoring.
• : Quickly roll back changes to any previous revision, restoring the network to its former state, and providing confidence to make proactive improvements.
• Data-Driven Insights: Experience significant benefits such as a 70% reduction in Mean Time to Response (MTTR), 80% increase in operational efficiency, 90% decrease in time to delivery, and a 320% return on investment (ROI), with a payback period under six months.

Final Thoughts

Implementing IBN in your data center provides significant operational efficiencies and cost savings throughout its lifecycle. WEI, a trusted Juniper Networks partner, has extensive experience in leveraging Juniper Apstra’s transformative capabilities. Our IBN experts understand your data center’s unique needs and can collaborate to achieve optimal outcomes for your facility and business.

To explore how IBN is designed to streamline data center management and support your organization’s success, contact us today for a consultation.

Next Steps: Juniper Apstra’s intent-based networking platform is a single software solution that streamlines and automates the design, deployment, and ongoing management of data center networks. Apstra features a user-friendly, point-and-click interface and offers a programmable interface option for automating and orchestrating services and networks on a large scale.

Download our free tech brief, to learn more about the transformative benefits of Juniper Apstra. Contact our team to help assist you in identifying and realizing the necessary outcomes for your data center and the business it supports.

The post How To Ensure Your Data Center Network Delivers Your Business Goals appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Imagine a data center that hums efficiently and is aligned with your business goals. No more scrambling to fix configuration errors or spending hours troubleshooting mysterious network issues.

As a data center (DC) network engineer, your role sits at the heart of data center operations. Ensuring a reliable, scalable, high-performing network infrastructure is critical for seamless business operations.

This blog post delves into four key best practices designed to empower DC network engineers to achieve peak effectiveness. We also explore how innovative tools like intent-based networking (IBN) can further streamline these practices and elevate your role from network management to strategic architect.

Four Best Practices For Thriving In The Modern Data Center

The best data center network keeps up with the ever-changing needs of the business it supports. If a network is only designed based on technicalities, it misses a big chance to be more functional. To get the most out of your network, here are four effective approaches to focus on:

1. Design For Business Outcomes

The key to an efficient data center network is aligning it with the business it serves – its goals, challenges, and growth plans. A well-designed network is a tool to ensure optimal performance and scalability to meet those needs.

However, network design often prioritizes vendor selection over desired outcomes. This can lead to choices based on relationships or certifications rather than business needs. While vendor differences may seem minor (feature bloat, buggy software), they can force business applications to adapt, thus increasing complexity and risk.

DC network engineers should prioritize business outcomes from the outset, engaging key stakeholders across the organization to understand the business processes the network will support. Leverage these insights to design a network that is not only technically sound but strategically aligned with the business’s success.

2. Automate For Reliability And Repeatability

Automating network tasks offers reliability, repeatability, and efficiency, yet most enterprises still struggle with outdated scripts that need constant updating. Homegrown scripts may address basic network needs, but they lack scalability. Manual configurations, on the other hand, are prone to errors and can lead to inconsistent performance and outages.

Broad and effective network automation hinges on key elements:

• Deep network visibility
• A reliable source of truth for configurations
• Pre-production change testing
• Reliable outcome validation

Well-designed automation tools and scripts should handle routine tasks like configuration management, software updates, and performance monitoring. This approach minimizes human error and frees DC network engineers to focus on strategic initiatives.

3. Validate Early, Deploy Faster

Network success demands continuous validation, not just final testing. This means checking configurations and performance throughout the deployment process.

We’ve all heard stories of typos causing network mayhem; human error is real! To emulate real-world production environments and minimize errors, successful network engineers employ continuous validation techniques. Tools like real-time operating system checks and peer review help catch issues early to minimize potential disruptions. Furthermore, organizations with established ITIL frameworks can leverage change management processes for rigorous scrutiny.

These real-time monitoring tools further empower swift problem identification and resolution which ensures seamless network deployment.

4. Be Proactive, Not Reactive

Unlike reactive management, which waits for problems to erupt, proactive network management anticipates potential issues. It identifies them through monitoring and analysis, addressing the root cause before it disrupts business.

Imagine a switch port with intermittent outages – proactive management would catch the problem this early, preventing a scramble to fix a complete failure later. It also involves regular maintenance schedules to keep software and hardware current, further ensuring network stability and security.

Proactive network management is preventative maintenance for your network and enables your organization to save time, money, and prevent headaches.

The Importance Of Documentation

Meticulous documentation complements all the best practices discussed earlier. It establishes a clear record of configurations, changes made, and the reasoning behind design choices. This comprehensive record proves invaluable for troubleshooting, maintenance, and knowledge transfer, especially during personnel turnover. Standardized tools further enhance access and usability of the documentation.

Let’s face it: documentation requires a lot of work and often gets deprioritized during deployments or crises. However, like any healthy habit, documenting every step (such as diagrams and configuration changes) explains the “what” and “why” of every procedure. This history proves crucial for future modifications, troubleshooting, and audits.

Looking For A Reliable IBN Solution?

Businesses of all sizes depend on their networks to function efficiently, and any downtime has significant consequences. This is where intent-based networking (IBN) comes in. IBN solutions offer a new approach to network management, one that is automated, insightful, and proactive.

While traditional network management relies on manual configuration and troubleshooting, IBN solutions take a more intelligent approach. Let’s identify the key benefits of these platforms, especially how Juniper Apstra supports the four best practices:

1. Network Design: allows DC network engineers to define and implement network designs based on business intent. Apstra translates those goals (intent) into configurations and continuously validates and monitors the network’s state and alignment. The vendor-agnostic approach also gives businesses the freedom to choose the best hardware and software.
2. Automation: Juniper Apstra automates network operations with a comprehensive toolkit, ensuring consistent configurations and a stable network. Its strength lies in reliable automation with built-in safeguards. Apstra catches typos, policy violations, and other issues before they impact production thanks to its complete network state database. This streamlines change management and allows rollbacks for unforeseen issues, delivering dependable and repeatable automation.
3. Analytics And Telemetry: Juniper Apstra leverages real-time data and telemetry to simplify continuous validation. Gaining deep network insights, you can quickly identify and fix issues. Its built-in validation safeguards your network, ensuring it adheres to design intent and performance criteria throughout its lifecycle. Apstra also enforces continuous validation of device changes, preventing errors and aligning new modifications with your desired outcomes. For example, it flags and explains errors like adding a new VLAN to an interface with an existing untagged VLAN. This minimizes mistakes and ensures changes meet your business-defined parameters for reach, performance, security, and compliance.
4. Proactive Approach: Juniper Apstra proactively safeguards networks with advanced monitoring and predictive analytics. It ensures network reliability and business continuity by anticipating issues before they arise. The powerful analytics are useful to monitor device health, identify potential problems, and track resource usage. This empowers network engineers and teams to proactively scale and avoid reactive firefighting.

Additionally, Juniper Apstra supports and simplifies documentation with its powerful reporting and visualization tools. These tools automatically generate detailed reports and diagrams accurately reflecting your network’s current state. This makes it easier to maintain up-to-date documentation.

Furthermore, Apstra’s self-documenting nature continuously collects telemetry data from individual devices. This helps in maintaining a comprehensive record of the network’s overall state. Apstra also stores change logs and version histories, which DC network engineers can use to investigate past changes, understand their impact, and even revert the network to a known good state if necessary.

Final Thoughts

Optimizing data center network management hinges on a commitment to established best practices. This foundation, paired with meticulous documentation, safeguards the preservation and accessibility of institutional knowledge and processes.

Juniper Apstra is a powerful and comprehensive network management solution that supports a data center operations team. By leveraging Apstra’s intent-based networking, automation, and proactive management capabilities, network engineers can seamlessly build robust, efficient networks directly contributing to business value.

WEI’s team of experts provides a comprehensive suite of data center management services to optimize your operations and streamline Apstra implementation. Contact us today to empower your data center and team for success.

Next steps: Download our FREE white paper, to further identify the transformative benefits of Juniper Apstra. Contact our team to help assist you in identifying and realizing the necessary outcomes for your data center and the business it supports.

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The post Four Best Practices Of An Effective Data Center Network Engineer appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

To build a lasting house, you must first build a strong foundation. Without a strong foundation, you cannot build whatever you desire on it. The same principle can be applied to a data center. A data center requires a well-designed and stable infrastructure that offers the required agility to accommodate dynamically changing technology environments. Ultimately, this ensures greater longevity.

Meaningful Intention From Day One

Your company isn’t driven by technology, but by conducting good business. Your company’s mission statement, its goals, and objectives also derive around the intentions of the business. Shouldn’t your data center be driven by those intentions as well? Your competitors have access to the same technology as you. The differentiator today is how your technology is implemented so that it maximizes the full business potential of your organization. In today’s digitally transformed world, your applications are the tools of business. Maximum resiliency of your network infrastructure is critical for the success of your business operations.

Intent-based networking (IBN) utilizes artificial intelligence, machine learning, and orchestration to ensure that the data center remains true to the intentions of the business. is an IBN software-enabled solution that uses automation to prescribe and perform routing tasks and policies so that every component and dependency is on the same page. Should the data center color outside the lines of business intent, Juniper Apstra alerts team members and performs automated remediation if applicable, to ensure that things return as they should.

Purposeful Configuration

Nobody enjoys the process of manually configuring network devices, yet legacy networks rely on this ancient and mundane practice. Ultimately, this action opens the door to human error. Early attempts at automating these tasks were utilizing the same networking approach that required network engineers and administrators to specify configuration as a series of sequenced actions that told devices what they should do. Instead, IBN uses a declarative networking approach that defines the desired result.

Juniper Apstra takes business outcomes described by humans and converts them into configurations that are automatically generated and deployed to their rightful location. Because the system knows the desired outcome for each specific configuration, it continually works to maintain those outcomes through whatever challenge may present itself. Call it configuration with a purpose that is void of fat fingering and neglectful configuration errors that plague manual configuration deployments.

The Main Challenge With Traditional Data Center Implementation

In many ways, the traditional data center was a labyrinth of technology complexity that was comprised of shortcomings. Inefficient design processes made data center management highly reactionary because of elongated time periods required to implement or scale technology. The proprietary nature of legacy data centers resulted in vendor lock that restricted the ability of enterprises to adapt their technology to changing business conditions.

Eventually, these proprietary systems created silos that restricted workflows and required highly specialized skill sets that are now proving difficult to find and retain. IT teams lacked the necessary visibility to truly understand what was happening in a data center that boasted so many moving parts and interdependencies. Even when visibility was attainable, it required IT teams to swivel between multiple admin consoles, creating critical gaps in monitoring abilities.

Day Zero Cost

What does all this have to do with Day Zero costs? Well, everything. According to a recent study by Forrester that examined the economic impact of Juniper Apstra, companies that used Juniper’s IBN data center solution experienced significant cost savings. That’s because scoping and design time were reduced by 60% thanks to the reduced number of FTE hours required to design and prepare for these mammoth projects. This means a faster time to market for your data center and an accelerated ROI. Forrester estimates that the average organization using Juniper Apstra could implement a new data center in half the time of their existing data center, and realize a Zero Day savings rate of $73,000 in the first two years.

Future Dividends of Juniper Apstra

Many investors love stocks that pay tangible dividends because of regular return on investment. It’s the same with Juniper’s IBN approach. By ensuring that every infrastructure device is configured correctly the first time through step-by-step validation, your Juniper Apstra design will continue to pay dividends across the full life of the data center. Enforced and automated validation leads to greater stability and uptime, which means that your mission critical apps are operating more. The Forrester study cited a reduced implementation time by as much as 83%. Additionally, there are the benefits of managing a multivendor solution environment from a single admin console as well as the decreased reliance on IT teams to monitor and troubleshoot the network infrastructure.

Conclusion

Data center efficiency, stability, scalability, and resiliency begins on Day Zero, which is why an IBN approach from the very outset of your next data center project is so critical. Juniper Apstra incorporates AI, network orchestration and machine learning to ensure that every step involved in your next data center implementation is purposely intentioned and validated so that it works for the benefit of your business from beginning to end.

Next Steps: to learn how Juniper Apstra relieves the pain points mentioned above, staying the course with your network, and how to achieve cost savings across your network’s lifecycle.

The post Proving Its Value: A Day Zero Cost Analysis of Juniper Apstra appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Enterprise technology vendors bombard IT leaders everywhere with messaging that emphasizes the value or added value that their solutions provide. However, value is an open-ended term, and as a consequence, eventually loses its effectiveness.

On the other hand, measured value is a whole other matter. The ability to assign a quantitative value to a respective solution allows for more informed decision making. That’s why Juniper Networks commissioned to conduct a Total Economic Impact (TEI) study to examine the potential return on investment (ROI) that an organization might realize from a Juniper Apstra deployment.

Juniper Apstra is an intent-based networking (IBN) software-based solution that automates and validates everyday processes that make up the design, deployment, and operational stages of a large data center. The stages are often referred to as Day 0 through Day 2+. While it certainly works with other Juniper Network switches and products, it is vendor agnostic, thus providing deployment and management agility for those that utilize it.

In its study, Forrester interviewed four separate enterprises and then aggregated the collected data into a single composite organization. This organization utilized two major production centers, employed 7,500 people, and earned $3 billion in annual revenue. Prior to their Juniper Apstra implementations, all four organizations struggled with the typical challenges faced by many enterprises today:

• Inefficient design processes
• Overreliance on manual configuration tasks
• Endless event tracking
• Perpetual system updates that absorbed too much time away from understaffed IT teams

Day 0: Design Cost Savings

Time is money, especially when quantifying the time spent for an elongated IT project. The Forrester study showed that Juniper Apstra reduced the number of FTE hours required in the design phase of a new data center by 60%. By shrinking requirement scoping and design time, Forrester was able to quantify a savings of $73,000 within the first two years. Much of these savings were due to the preconfigured templates that designers can utilize without any preparation on their part. After all, you don’t want your high-priced engineers creating their own templates.

Day 1: Deployment Savings

Deployments never seem to go as smoothly as expected. Thankfully, Juniper Apstra can ensure that the deployment of your data center goes as planned. That’s because every device configuration is validated before deployment to ensure that the results match the intent of the configuration. Configurations are automatically generated so there’s no opportunity of fat fingering a device. Juniper Apstra also ensures that all cabling is in place correctly.

To sum up Day 1, Apstra eliminates all the “gotchas” that usually plague deployments. And all those “gotchas” represent real, precious dollars. The Forrester study estimates that implementation time can be reduced from 24 hours to 2 hours, per device, equating to a cost savings of $72,000 over the course of three years.

Day 2: Operational Savings

The brunt of savings takes place once the data center is operational, $448,000 to be exact, according to the study. Much of these savings is due to the reduced reliance on senior-level engineers that data centers have traditionally depended on to remain running. Forrester estimates that organizations can expect a 60% reduction in FTE hours, equating to nearly 2,500 labor hours less per year for their composite organization. That’s because so many actions can be automated with the Juniper Apstra platform. No more script writing or swiveling admin consoles to multitask!

Tool Replacement Cost Savings

IT teams have traditionally used multiple third-party tool sets to manage the data center. Forrester assigned a license cost of $80,000 as the average annual license cost per tool. On average, Juniper Apstra replaces two legacy tools that also provide far more functionality. In addition, IT personnel don’t have to be trained in future third party tools and managers don’t have to spend time procuring them. All of this constitutes a sizable expected savings rate of $358,107 over a three-year period.

Creating Real, Measurable Value

The Juniper Apstra intent-based networking solution is an example of the commitment that Juniper has toward creating real, measurable value for its customers. This is substantiated by a study conducted by IDC in which they interviewed companies worldwide that have deployed Juniper products and technology solutions in their data centers. Organizations that participated in the study had just over 5,400 IT users on average and hosted 100 business applications. In addition to non-quantitative benefits such as greater agility and reliability, IDC calculated a savings of $51,121 per 100 internal application users, constituting a $2.77 million savings on average. Study participants experienced a 361% ROI over 5 years, a 56% cost reduction in operational costs and an 11-month payback period.

Conclusion

While value may be a relative term, the measurable value that Juniper delivers with their product line is substantiated and quantified. Juniper Apstra is the latest example of how intent-based networking is revolutionizing how companies design, deploy and manage the modernized data center today. Of course, cost savings should never be the sole reason to decide on a technology solution. The value of Juniper Apstra goes far beyond any quantifiable formula.

Juniper Apstra ensures that the intent of your data center matches your business intentions so that your data center performs as first envisioned. With Juniper Apstra, you can realize the power of intent along with the cost savings of automated analytics. Find out more about this powerful combination by contacting a WEI IBN expert today.

Next Steps: to learn how Juniper Apstra relieves the pain points mentioned above, staying the course with your network, and how to achieve cost savings across your network’s lifecycle.

The post Four Ways IBN Creates Measurable Business Value appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Modernized data centers require a great deal of investment and planning to be implemented and deployed correctly. As an IT leader, you must deploy the data center properly from the outset and ensure that it operates the way it was intended across its entire lifecycle. Otherwise, your enterprise will never realize its full potential and miss out on valuable ROI. While there are many challenges in building, operating, and supporting a data center today, we have identified five highly preventable pain points that companies find themselves struggling with today. The good news is that today’s intent-based networking (IBN) solutions such as Juniper Apstra can permanently relieve these common pain points.

1. Budget and Resource Limitations

Over the past two years, nearly every business has contended with limitations in the form of personnel shortages or limited supply chains. The higher cost of borrowing and financing further accentuates the challenge of starting a new data center project. Companies can no longer afford the traditional practice of overprovisioning. Instead, they need a holistic view that proactively determines predicted demands and match it with proportional resource capacities in real time. Additionally, data centers can no longer be dependent on manual processes because understaffed IT teams don’t have the means to constantly put out fires, troubleshoot, or update systems every day.

By leveraging advanced tool sets that are backed by automated analytics and machine learning, small IT staffs comprised of skilled personnel can get more out of your data center with less. IBN can vastly reduce the time it takes to plan and implement a data center. It can streamline and automate common operational tasks such as:

• Upgrades
• Configuration changes
• Monitoring
• Remediation

As a result, data center operations are no longer limited by your shorthanded IT staff or budget limitations.

2. Agility

Just as server virtualization allowed companies to escape the inelastic nature of hardware systems, companies need to find other ways to inject greater agility into their data centers. The agile approach to software development has accelerated the pace of new releases and updates to systems and applications. Companies must now ensure that their data centers can keep pace as well. Unfortunately, too many companies remain saddled with technical debt, brittle legacy technologies, and poor visibility into their IT estates. But speed is only part of the equation, however. IT teams must have a means of predicting the results of accelerated configuration changes in advance to ensure that new services and configurations are deployed carefully.

Only intelligent automation can keep pace with the fluid nature of software code. Because Juniper Apstra is technology agnostic, it can orchestrate multiple devices using prescribed templates and automation. Proposed designs and configuration changes can also be validated prior to deployment, giving admin teams the proper insight into the impact of those changes. This ensures that the end results are indeed matching the original intentions. Data centers might be composed of brick and mortar, but IBN will elasticize them.

3. Poor Reliability

Manually dependent processes are suspect to human error. That’s just a fact. A frivolous fat finger configuration mistake could invoke real consequences that disrupt your enterprise’s critical workflows. Human dependency also occurs when configurations aren’t documented or mapped out. Thus, when a key member of your team leaves, a valuable knowledge base walks out the door with them. Given this transient era of employment, perhaps this pain point rings a little louder.

can improve datacenter reliability by taking the human element out of as many basic processes as possible. By automating and validating these tasks, the chance of error is vastly reduced. Once deployed, every validated change is documented as part of a bigger process that maps out the entire inner workings of your data center. This gives all members of your staff equal access to all information.

4. Slow Deployments

Slow and steady is no longer applicable in a 24/7 world. You must stay ahead of your competition, both from a business perspective as well as a technological one. Being towards the end of the pack results in lost opportunities and increased costs. Whether you need to implement an entire data center or deploy a simple system update, Juniper Apstra can reduce the necessary provisioning time to get the job done quickly, while ensuring that it is done correctly as well.

5. Lack of Infrastructure choice

Everyone likes having options no matter the scenario. Options create opportunities that lead to success. Unfortunately, when you let a single vendor dictate your technology choices, you essentially surrender your freedom of choice. Contrary to what they believe, what is good for your top vendor isn’t necessarily good for you. There is real value in having a system controller for your data center, but only if it has the flexibility to support multiple vendors and devices. Juniper Apstra integrates with some of the biggest vendor names in the hardware and software industries including Cisco, Arista, Microsoft, Cumulus Networks, and of course, Juniper Networks.

Conclusion

You may not be currently contending with all these common pain points, but there’s probably one or two worth relating to. And as every scenario can be different, you probably have other pain points not mentioned here. Whatever the case, an IBN approach can help you alleviate them. IBN is a new concept, and one that can’t be fully understood in a single blog. That’s why we invite you to speak with one of our IBN experts at WEI that can fully explain this new empowering way to design, implement and manage next data center project.

Next Steps: to learn how Juniper Apstra relieves the pain points mentioned above, staying the course with your network, and how to achieve cost savings across your network’s lifecycle.

The post Five Data Center Pain Points That IBN Solves appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Ethernet VPN-Virtual Extensible LAN (EVPN-VXLAN) is a network virtualization technology that supports large enterprise and multi-tenant environments. While single-vendor, chassis-based technologies may suffice for most traditional campus network architectures, they are not agile enough to support the scalability and expanding needs of today’s modern enterprises. EVPN-VXLAN/IP enables businesses to virtually connect geographically dispersed locations using Layer 2 (L2) bridging. It is ideal for data center interconnections, large campus environments, cloud-ready networks, and environments required to support substantially large numbers of endpoint devices.

What is EVPN-VXLAN?

Just as TCP/IP is a suite composed of the TCP and IP protocols, EVPN and VXLAN are separate components in themselves. EVPN serves as the control plane, using BPG extensions to transmit MAC address information. By moving the MAC learning process to the control plane, it avoids the flooding that is characteristic of traditional L2 networks in which the MAC tables must be constantly updated. It serves as a unifying overlay that accommodates resources from different data centers in much the same way that application containers float across virtual host servers.

VXLAN is an industry standard virtualization overlay protocol that expands the L2 network address space from 4,000 separate identities to 16 million. It is vendor neutral and switches that support it encapsulate L2 frames into L3 packets. VXLAN networks utilize spine-leaf switch architectures. Spine layer switches are used to pass traffic through leaf switches and are not VXLAN aware. On the other hand, leaf layer switches perform the VXLAN functionality and interconnect the spine to the array of endpoints. This dual layer topology is better suited for east-west traffic flows and provides increased redundancy as every leaf switch connects to every spine switch. It also negates the need for the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) configuration while still preventing loops.

Advantages of EVPN-VXLAN

A network overlay approach is essential in the era of computer mobility. This sense of mobility isn’t just present amongst client devices, but applications as well. Today’s applications are deployed onto virtual machines or containers that can stretch across multiple locations. This necessitates the need for a seamless mobility model that is flexible enough to continually support communications between application endpoints. This is regardless of where they are at the time. Pertinent advantages of EVPN/VXLAN/IP include:

1. Scalability: EVPN/VXLAN/IP makes it easy to add core, distribution, and access switches to the network without redesigning the underlaying network, allowing a campus fabric to significantly scale out to accommodate the influx of additional endpoints and traffic.
2. Flexibility: The open standards-based architecture of EVPN/VXLAN/IP ensures backwards and forwards interoperability, This makes it is easy to integrate into multiple networks.
3. Greater Security: Granular network segmentation of devices along with the ability to create group-based security policies provide greater control of end-user traffic while limiting the attack radius of suspicious traffic.
4. Improved Performance and Resiliency: Latency is reduced as every destination within the spine-leaf topology is never more than two hops away. Due to multiple active-active redundant links, the failure of a single spine or leaf will not disrupt the network.
5. Simplicity: Operational complexity is reduced as IT can easily configure the same VLANs across multiple buildings and sites.

Juniper Apstra Automated Data Center Migration Service

Planning a migration to a large enterprise environment that utilizes EVPN-VXLAN/IP is a mammoth endeavor and implementing one for the first time instills a substantial learning curve. The good news is that can make it easier regardless of your experience with network overlays. The service gives your IT team access to data center deployment experts who employ proven, best practice implementation methodologies and tools. The result is faster completion times, reduced deployment risks, and reduced costs. The Juniper Apstra service supports multiple migration scenarios:

• Move an existing Juniper EVPN-VXLAN/IP fabric data center network to one that is managed with Juniper Apstra.
• Upgrade from an existing legacy Juniper non-IP fabric data center to an EVPN-VXLAN/IP fabric data center managed with Juniper Apstra.
• Transition an existing non-Juniper fabric production data center to a Juniper EVPN-VXLAN/IP fabric data center managed with Juniper.

Harnessing this level of expertise in your next project also ensures that your future network environment remains aligned with assigned priorities such as minimal downtime and secure but efficient traffic flows.

Conclusion

In the same way that EVPN/VXLAN/IP segments and simplifies even the largest of networks, Juniper Apstra breaks down your next fabric data center project into distinct phases that make help ensure that your project is completed in an orderly fashion. Because Juniper Apstra is an , your next data center is sure to align with the business objectives of your organization. Learn how Juniper and EVPN/VXLAN/IP can add scalability, simplicity, and security to your next data center fabric.

Next Steps: Whether you are responding to evolving workloads and performance needs or changing scalability and resiliency requirements, chances are your enterprise will undergo a data center migration at some point. Download our white paper, and learn:

• The challenges of inevitable data center migrations
• How to incrementally build and validate blueprints
• How Juniper Apstra executes your intent
• Apstra automated data center deployment service

The post 5 Advantages Of A Juniper EVPN-VXLAN/IP Network appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and There’s a great deal of complexity and moving parts to consider along with many potential pain points that cause delays. That’s why the design phase is so critical. Whether you are constructing a data center or erecting a building, you need a blueprint to guide your crew throughout the process. A data center blueprint is more than just drawing equipment racks with mounted devices. It needs to include granular details such as IP address pools, VLAN IDs, routing protocols, and security policies – all of which must be pushed out in the form of configuration settings for all interconnected devices.

Sounds like an arduous process, doesn’t it? It can be if you don’t have a system in place to guide you. We’ve identified to be that essential system that provides the needed guidance, however. It’s an intent-based multi-vendor solution that automates and validates the process of designing and deploying your next data center project. Juniper Apstra will also assist you in operating and managing your data center throughout its life cycle, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet.

The Basic Process of Juniper Apstra

There are two fundamental aspects of the intent-based networking platform for creating a blueprint: intent fulfillment and intent assurance. Intent fulfillment means defining what the intent is so that the data center aligns properly with business objectives. Meanwhile, intent assurance involves validating the design elements before any configurations or settings are deployed. The entire process can be segmented into these five steps:

1. Define the intent for the project.
2. Translate intent into a series of prescriptive network configurations.
3. Verify that the changes are valid prior to deployment.
4. Deploy the verified configurations.
5. Monitor the network state to ensure continuous compliance with the intent and make changes, if necessary.

Juniper Apstra installs on more than just one virtual machine and is accessed using a web browser. You then start the blueprint creation process using preconfigured or custom templates. As the blueprint is created, Apstra creates the necessary configurations for your devices.

Designing Your Switches and Servers

The initial design steps are created using an abstraction layer that eliminates vendor dependencies. Here, you will define your spine and leaf switches as well as your servers as logical devices. For switches, you will specify details such as port count, port speed, and how the ports are to be used. For instance, you can require that the highest port number of every switch should always use 10 GB. Once these specifications are defined, you can choose amongst a list of multiple switch vendor models that comply with your stated specifications. You can then move on to servers. You only need to create one logical server to represent each server type, so you specify the details just once.

Designing Your Racks

Once your logical switches and servers are created you can go about laying out your racks. You can do this using existing templates, which you can modify to your needs. Like servers, you can design a rack once and use that design as many times as needed from then on. You can start inserting your spine and leaf switches followed by your servers. Once a rack has been completed, Apstra validates the number of available switchports to match your connectivity requirements and ensure that all servers have a connection. Once a rack is completed, you can save it as a template to be used again.

Defining Resource Pools

All your devices need their underlying resources pools. Apstra has four types of resource pools: IPv4 addresses, IPv6 addresses, ASN numbers and VLAN IDs. These pools will later be assigned to devices during the deployment stage. You define IPv4 addresses for things such as loopback IPs for BGP Router IDs and link IPs between switches. There are nifty status indicators that will let you know things like how many IP addresses within a subnet are being used. ASN pools are used for your inter-autonomous routing. Once completed, you can then create your routing policies that govern the movement of traffic throughout the data center.

The Final Blueprint

The final blueprint is comprised of the completed data center templates you created throughout the design process. Think of each template as an instance of the final design, with each instance containing the involved configurations that will be deployed. The design process is performed in blueprint staged view, which means that changes are not applied until committed. Only at that point will the incremental configurations be pushed out to your chosen devices using zero-touch-provisioning. The entire process from start to finish is designed for minimal manual intervention.

Conclusion

Designing a future data center is certainly a daunting task, but Juniper Apstra takes the intimidation away by guiding you through the entire process using an inviting GUI. For complex enterprises, cloud providers and service providers deploying more complex EVPN-VXLAN/IP fabric data centers, there is Juniper’s Apstra Automated Data Center Deployment Service. This proven service gives you access to highly experienced data center deployment experts who assist you when needed. Whatever your future data center migration demands, Juniper has the tools to simply and accelerate your project, while ensuring that it meets or exceeds its intended purpose.

Next Steps: Whether you are responding to evolving workloads and performance needs or changing scalability and resiliency requirements, chances are your enterprise will undergo a data center migration at some point. Download our white paper, and learn:

• The challenges of inevitable data center migrations
• How to incrementally build and validate blueprints
• How Juniper Apstra executes your intent
• Apstra automated data center deployment service

The post 5 Ways to Segment Your Next Data Migration Project appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

A data migration project is a huge undertaking. It’s a consuming venture that absorbs considerable resources to complete, which is why you must get it right. So, how will you conclude whether the project was a success or not? There will be multiple determining factors such as whether timetables and schedules were met and if the project stayed within budget. However, there’s one overriding measurement of success that is the most important of all: Does it achieve the business objectives that it was aligned with? In other words, will it fulfill its intended purpose? That’s what truly matters.

If this is your deciding element, then it is critical to accurately define what those intentions are. But that’s only half the equation. Once defined, you need a way to translate those intentions into the network and system configurations that will ensure that all datacenter components work collectively to achieve those intentions. This means that configurations now have a purpose beyond technical requirements. It means that business intent should drive them. Welcome to the intent-based datacenter.

Intent-Based Networking

Let’s first talk about the concept of the intent-based network (IBN). According to , IBN is a software-enabled automation process that uses high levels of intelligence, analytics, and orchestration to improve network operations and uptime. Its premise is simple. Operators state the business objectives that must be met, and the IBN translates those objectives into the required configurations that are then deployed throughout the network. This conversion process is completed without human intervention. Gone are the days when datacenter management relied on CLI commands, scripts, and SNMP managers. IBN replaces those labor intensive and unscalable approaches with automated intelligence, thus lessoning the dependence on highly trained specialists.

SDN Evolves Into IBN

IBN is considered the next evolutionary step of software-defined networking (SDN). SDN utilized software-based controllers within a central controller that communicated with the underlying network using application programming interfaces (APIs). This software-based architecture made the network nimbler and gave admins the ability to control all network components through a single pane of glass. This gave us the software-defined datacenter in which virtualized components were provisioned, monitored, and managed programmatically.

SDN could provision additional resources, servers, or bandwidth to accommodate dynamic workloads without human intervention. IBN goes beyond the task of configuring network changes to accommodate the adjusting needs of workloads. It adjusts to the dynamic nature of your business objectives. Once configuration changes are deployed, they are validated to determine if they are achieving their intended purpose and alter them if necessary. IBN will then continue to monitor and verify that the intent of those configurations are continually being met and act accordingly if not. If the desired intent isn’t being met, the IBN system can take corrective action, which could include the modification of a QoS policy, VLAN or ACL. The result is not only a more objective-based network, but a more compliant one as well.

IBN simplifies troubleshooting with its ability to perform root cause analysis thanks to powerful analytics. Its boundless visibility across the IT estate allows it to keep operators aware of what’s happening in the network in real time. Don’t think of IBN as a giant alert mechanism, however. It can discern what’s important and what’s just noise so IT personnel aren’t inundated with alerts.

IBN isn’t about technology for the sake of technology. It’s about preventing your network from straying off the disciplined path that aligns with the needs of the business. It’s a business-first mindset of creating, operating, and managing your network.

Do Right From The Start

While IBN provides the automation and intelligence to ensure that your network is working as intended, the creation of a new datacenter presents the invaluable opportunity to define what its purposeful objectives are at the very beginning. That’s where comes in. Juniper Apstra is a multi-vendor, intent-based networking software solution that both automates and validates the processes of designing, implementing, and operating a datacenter. It converts the stated intent of the project and converts it into objects, which are then translated into configurations that are deployed to all the systems across the network.

Juniper Apstra takes you through the entire design process step by step, from designing your rack space to creating your VLANs and security policies. Because your migration project isn’t Apstra’s first rodeo, architects and administrators can use existing templates or choose from vetted configuration options to accelerate the design process. Every configuration is validated before giving the go ahead for deployment. This limits the impact and scope of a possible failure following the initial deployment. If need be, configurations can be instantly rolled back or rolled forward on command.

Conclusion

The age of intent-based networking is here, and it represents a new era in which the datacenter and the business work cohesively with one another. The only way to truly ensure that your future network is intention-based is to integrate it from the very beginning starting with the design process. Juniper is a leader in intent-based networking technology and Apstra is the tool that ensures that your datacenter operates with business intended purpose.

Next Steps: Whether you are responding to evolving workloads and performance needs or changing scalability and resiliency requirements, chances are your enterprise will undergo a data center migration at some point. Download our white paper, and learn:

• The challenges of inevitable data center migrations
• How to incrementally build and validate blueprints
• How Juniper Apstra executes your intent
• Apstra automated data center deployment service

The post Simplify Your Next Data Migration Project With Intent-Based Networking appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

On September 28, 2021, HPE announced a for HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform. This platform provides customers with unmatched capabilities to power digital transformation for their applications and data.

These modernizations will further accelerate HPE’s transition to a cloud services company, and give customers greater choice and freedom for their business and IT strategy in the hybrid work environment.

This announcement represents HPE’s entry into three large, high-growth software markets – unified analytics, data protection, and Adoption Framework.

What The New Cloud Services Are

The three new offerings, which add to the growing platform of HPE GreenLake cloud services, allow customers to innovate with agility at lower costs.

The new innovations are as follows:

• : Open and unified analytics cloud services to modernize all data and applications everywhere – on-premises, at the edge, and in the cloud. HPE GreenLake for analytics will be available in the beginning of 2022.
• : Disaster recovery and backup cloud services to help customers address ransomware head-on and secure data from edge-to-cloud. HPE GreenLake for data protection will be available in the beginning of 2022.
• : A comprehensive, proven set of methodologies, expertise, and automation tools to accelerate and de-risk the path to a cloud experience everywhere. The HPE Edge-to-Cloud Adoption Framework is available now.

How HPE GreenLake Analytics Are Optimized For Hybrid Environments

This is HPE GreenLake’s first cloud-native unified analytics and data cloud services optimized for hybrid environments. The analytics enable customers to accelerate modernization initiatives. They are built to be cloud-native which avoids complex data migrations to the public cloud. Now analytics and data science teams can leverage the industry’s first cloud-native solution on premises, scale up Apache Spark lakehouses, and speed up AI and ML workflows.

Included in the new are:

• HPE Ezmeral Unified Analytics: Modernized analytics and data lakehouse platform optimized for on-premises deployment.

• HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric Object Store: Kubernetes-native object store optimized for analytics performance, providing access to all data sets within edge to cloud.
• Expanding HPE Ezmeral Partner Ecosystem: Delivers a rapidly growing set of successful solutions from ISV partners that enable customers to build their analytics engines.

How HPE GreenLake Data Protection Innovation Protects Customers’ Data

Within the September 28 , HPE entered the rapidly growing data protection As-a-Service market with HPE GreenLake for data protection. The new cloud services are designed to modernize data protection, overcome ransomware attacks, and deliver faster data recovery.

The new include:

• HPE Backup and Recovery Service: Backup as a service offering that provides policy-based automation to backup and protect customers’ virtual machines across hybrid cloud environments, eliminating the complexities of managing backup hardware
• HPE GreenLake for Disaster Recovery: HPE plans to deliver Zerto’s industry-leading disaster recovery as a service through HPE GreenLake to help customers recover in minutes from ransomware attacks.

How HPE Adoption Framework Accelerates Cloud Experience

HPE has also a proven set of methodologies and automation tools to enable enterprises to take a data-driven approach to achieve the optimal operation model across all hybrid work environments – the HPE Edge-to-Cloud Adoption Framework.

The HPE Edge-to-Cloud Adoption Framework leverages HPE’s expertise in delivering solutions on-premises to meet a broad range of business needs for customers across the globe. HPE has identified multiple critical areas that enterprises should consider and measure to accomplish an effective cloud operating system.

Are You Interested In HPE’s New Cloud Services?

HPE is a global edge-to-cloud company helping organizations accelerate outcomes by unlocking value from all of their data. Built on decades of reimagining and innovating, HPE delivers unique, open and intelligent technology solutions. HPE’s new cloud services for the HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform allows customers to accelerate innovation, deliver compelling experiences, and achieve high-level business outcomes. If you’re ready to make the change now, contact WEI to begin building a custom solution for your business.

NEXT STEPS: this executive brief to learn the power of the OpEX model for IT investments and find the middle ground for future It investments.

The post HPE Announces New Comprehensive Cloud Services For the HPE GreenLake Platform appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Even as we conquer one technology and discover all the different ways we can bend it to our will, another comes along and the cycle begins anew. For today’s enterprises edge computing represents a great leap forward in data processing.

In this article, we’ll offer a high-level overview of the edge, explain why your enterprise should take advantage of the benefits of edge computing, and three tips to help you get your edge strategy started.

What Is Edge Computing?

Understanding exactly what the edge encompasses is the first step to devising your own edge strategy. That said, the definition of edge computing is a bit nebulous, with organizations often defining exactly what constitutes as “the edge” based on their own computing environments and their specific organizations.

That said, the fundamental principle of edge computing remains the same: Bringing computation and data storage closer to the sources of data, which is turns speeds up processing time and improves data-related productivity.

In a recent report commissioned by Dell, the technology was described as:

“Edge computing” is a term that encompasses a broad array of execution venues, including devices and equipment with embedded compute, adjacent computing devices that augment compute-constrained endpoints, gateways to legacy equipment, and proximate compute resources in closets, cages and within the network operator infrastructure. Edge computing also includes hyperconverged infrastructure that integrates and virtualizes key components of IT infrastructure including storage, networking and compute.”

The bottom line is that while the exact definition and application of the edge can differ, enterprises are all searching for the same things when they utilize it: increased agility, productivity, and a reduction in the time spent processing data before it can be properly utilized.

Why Your Enterprise Needs To Embrace Edge Computing

Now that we’ve explained what the edge is, let’s delve into why enterprises are so keen on employing their own edge strategies.

Some of the motivation can be attributed to seeking a competitive advantage, the same reason any new technology is adopted once it’s been proven to be effective.

Other reasons enterprises are seeking out edge computing are the specific benefits offered by the edge.

As shared by Dell, these benefits include:

• Reduced latency – Through edge computing, the latency inherent to physical distance can be overcome.
• Bandwidth conservation – The locations that need the edge the most often have limited WAN bandwidth. By processing data locally, enterprises can extract the maximum business value from it.
• Operational technology (OT) connectivity – Enterprises in some industries require specific compute devices in order to acquire data and pass control information. Edge computing can help support the needs of these businesses.
• Business process availability – Critical tasks undertaken at the edge need to be able to continue even during network outages or other crisis situations. Edge computing can ensure that these locations, whether a factory, retail location, or hospital, can continue to operate even during outages.
• Data sovereignty – Depending on the industry and location, the movement of some types of data may be restricted. Edge computing can help enterprises overcome these restrictions and still leverage the data produced.

3 Tips for Building Your Edge Computing Strategy

Once it’s decided that an enterprise should move forward in adopting an edge strategy, the next step to plot the path forward. Like any other technology, adopting it without a proper plan in place can reduce the technology’s effectiveness in the long-term. So, what do enterprises need to keep in mind for their edge strategy?

1. Plan your strategy around your specific business goals. Every enterprise is different and edge strategies are not one size fits all. Keep your specific targeted business outcomes in mind when designing your strategy and you can ensure that your edge strategy will drive your business forward.
2. Be efficient when designing your infrastructure. The edge is all about consolidating and looking for opportunities to save on resources to improve agility and productivity. By integrating your data streams, your edge infrastructure can also take advantage of the existing edge data.
3. Keep the future in mind. Your edge strategy shouldn’t just be planned for the here and now, it should also take the future into consideration. Consider what the growth of your enterprise will mean for your edge strategy and plan accordingly. Planning now will pay dividends down the line.

Do You Need Help on Your Journey to the Edge?

is committed to helping enterprises transform the way they do business. To support this, Dell offers a broad range of applicable for a variety of industries and that can meet the unique requirements of your enterprise. The best part? You can leverage WEI’s expertise across Dell’s portfolio of infrastructure solutions to help determine the best solution for your business. WEI is here to help set you up for success with your edge computing strategy.

NEXT STEPS: Adoption of hyperconverged infrastructure solutions are on the rise as more and more enterprise businesses see the benefits first hand. Check out our tech brief below that features several of the reasons our customers choose VxRail for HCI. (No forms required!)

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