Juniper Networks announced the first and most comprehensive multivendor lab for validating end-to-end automated AI Data Centre solutions and automated operations with switching, routing, storage and compute solutions from leading vendors, as well as new Juniper Validated Designs (JVDs) that accelerate the time-to-value in deploying AI clusters. In addition, Juniper is releasing new key software enhancements that optimise the performance and management of AI workloads over Ethernet. Through these Operations for AI—Ops4AI—initiatives, Juniper is collaborating closely with a broad range of infrastructure ecosystem partners to enable the best AI workload performance via the most flexible and easiest-to-manage data centre infrastructures.
As a key element of Juniper’s AI-Native Networking Platform, the existing Networking for AI solution consists of a spine-leaf data centre architecture with a foundation of AI-optimised 400G and 800G QFX Series Switches and PTX Series Routers. The solution is secured via high performance firewalls with industry-leading effectiveness and managed via Juniper Apstra
data centre assurance software and the Marvis Virtual Network Assistant (VNA). Juniper Apstra and Marvis provide key Ops4AI capabilities, such as intent-based networking, multivendor switch management, application / flow / workload awareness, AIOps proactive actions and a GenAI conversational interface. With Juniper’s full Networking for AI solution, customers and partners can lower AI training Job Completion Times (JCTs), reduce latency during inferencing and increase GPU utilisation while decreasing deployment times by up to 85 per cent and reducing operations costs by up to 90 per cent in some instances.
To simplify AI clusters and maximise network performance even further, Juniper has added new Ops4AI software enhancements that together offer unique value for customers. The enhancements being announced today include:
- Fabric autotuning for AI: Telemetry from routers and switches are used to automatically calculate and configure optimal parameter settings for congestion control in the fabric using closed-loop automation capability in Juniper Apstra to deliver peak AI workload performance.
- Global load-balancing: An end-to-end view of congestion hotspots in the network (i.e. local and downstream switches) is used to load-balance AI traffic in real-time, delivering lower latency, better network utilisation and reduced JCTs.
- End-to-end visibility from network to SmartNICs: Provides an end-to-end holistic view of the network, including SmartNICs from NVIDIA (BlueField and ConnectX), and others.
Industry’s first multivendor Ops4AI lab to collaborate with ecosystem and validate operations
Openness and collaboration are core to Juniper’s networking mission as they are the only way to move AI Data Centres from their current early adopter stage to effective mass market deployments. End-to-end operations for multivendor AI Data Centre infrastructure has been difficult, leading to vertically integrated AI Data Centre solutions that are vendor-locked and lead-time challenged. As a result, Juniper has launched the industry’s first Ops4AI Lab with participation from Juniper’s partner ecosystem including Broadcom, Intel, NVIDIA, WEKA and other industry leaders. The Ops4AI Lab, located at Juniper’s Sunnyvale, CA corporate headquarters, is open for all qualified customers and partners who want to test their own AI workloads using the most advanced GPU compute, storage technologies, Ethernet-based networking fabrics and automated operations. Ops4AI Lab testing using validated Ethernet fabrics delivers comparable performance to InfiniBand-based AI infrastructure.
Users requesting a slot in the Juniper Ops4AI lab should contact their local Juniper Networks sales team.
Juniper Validated Designs to provide assurance
Juniper Validated Designs are detailed implementation documents that give new customers confidence that the solution and topology they have chosen is well characterised, well tested and repeatable, resulting in faster time to successful deployment. All JVDs are proven integrated solutions, tested in best practice designs based on specific platforms and software versions.
Juniper has released the first pre-validated blueprint specifically for AI data centres, built on NVIDIA A100 and H100 compute, storage from Juniper’s ecosystem partners, and Juniper’s portfolio of data centre leaf and spine switches. This new Ops4AI JVD complements Juniper’s existing JVDs for automated, secure data centres which include QFX and PTX spines, QFX leaf switching, data centre automation, and Juniper’s SRX and vSRX/cSRX solutions for data centre security.
Register for Premier Virtual Networking for AI Event on July 23
Organisations are invited to join theCUBE’s Bob Laliberte and Juniper AI experts on July 23 for Juniper’s Seize the AI Moment virtual event, a deep dive into the rapidly evolving AI Data Centre ecosystem with AMD, Broadcom, ePlus, Intel, WEKA, and AI Data Centre end-users Deutsche Bahn and PayPal. Attendees can learn how these extraordinary industry leaders and customers are creating sustainable, high-performance AI Data Centres purpose-built for today and for the future.
Supporting Quotes
“DeepL is on a mission to break down language barriers for businesses everywhere and over one hundred thousand businesses globally trust us to power their translations. To meet the evolving needs of our business, we required a data centre network that offers higher throughput, scalability, excellent reliability and reasonable total cost of ownership. Juniper’s QFX Switches are central in bolstering our AI workloads, providing robust networking foundation necessary to operate intensive computational demands across our whole infrastructure efficiently.”
- Guido Simon, Director of Engineering, DeepL
“Best-of-breed always wins out, and the same will be true for compute, storage, networking and operations in AI Data Centres. Juniper has made a significant investment in the Ops4AI lab, JVDs, and a new promotional programme to enable our customers and partners to have maximum choice, flexibility and stability in how they build a complete GenAI solution. There has never been a better time to build high-performance, low-latency, multivendor AI Data Centre solutions that are simple, fast and economical to deploy and operate.”
- Praveen Jain, SVP and GM of AI and Data Centre at Juniper Networks
“A new ecosystem of networking, compute and storage is being developed based on the Ethernet protocol to meet the growing needs of on-premises Enterprise AI deployments, which will lead to shifts in the AI infrastructure vendor landscape. IDC estimates that the market for Generative AI data centre ethernet switching will reach ~$9B in 2028 with a CAGR of ~70 percent. Juniper’s approach is spot on to intersect market demand.”
– Vijay Bhagavath, Research VP – Cloud and Datacentre Networks, IDC
“Generative AI is a highly demanding data centre workload, and AI accelerators (xPUs) are at the centre of this. Successful AI solutions rely upon the open, collaborative integration of compute with high-performance networking and storage for reliable, low-latency AI training and inference. Intel is bringing AI everywhere across the enterprise, from the PC to the data centre to the edge, and we are excited to partner with Juniper as their innovation in Ethernet networking is vital to interconnect large AI clusters and optimise job completion times.”
– Justin Hotard, Executive Vice President, Data Centre & AI Group, Intel
“At ePlus, delivering automated, easy-to-deploy, scalable and managed data centre networking solutions is one of our top priorities, especially as we assist our customers in supporting their AI initiatives. As a solution partner, Juniper’s AI-optimised networking integrates well with both our READI network architecture (Resilient, Efficient, Agile, Defencive, Intelligent), as well as our AI Ignite strategy, providing the connective fabric across our compute and storage solutions to achieve seamless connectivity with performance, speed, and efficiency.”
– Ken Farber, President ePlus Software, Strategy, Alliances and Marketing
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