Product
Juniper Apstra
Juniper Apstra intent-based networking software automates and validates the design, deployment, and operation of data center networks, from Day 0 through Day 2+. The only solution of its kind with multivendor support, Apstra empowers organizations to automate and manage their networks across virtually any data center location, vendor, and topology. Validated templates and zero-touch provisioning ensure reliable data center operations and reduce deployment times, and Apstra’s Freeform capability enables additional customization.
Using a single source of truth, powerful analytics, and root-cause identification, Apstra allows network teams to quickly pinpoint and resolve issues. Apstra also averts outages with predictive insights. The software shortens time to resolution with advanced telemetry and diminishes human error with change control and fast, all-network rollback.
Key Features
- Intent-based automation and continuous Day 0 – Day 2+ validation
- Multivendor support
- Advanced telemetry, policy assurance, and a single source of truth
- Scalability
- Intent Time Voyager rollback
Features + Benefits
Reliable, Automated Operations
Ensure application reliability, reduce human error, and manage workflows easily – even with minimal networking expertise – with Apstra validated reference designs. Intent-based networking software provides predictive analysis, continuous validation, and proactive alerts of anomalies, enabling you to resolve issues before they impact your business.
Simplicity and Flexibility
Avoid vendor lock-in with Apstra’s exclusive vendor-agnostic technology. Simplify data center network design with validated, consistent, and repeatable templates or customize your own design with Apstra’s Freeform capability.
Enhanced Network Compliance
Track the origin of network changes and ensure granular enforcement where needed. You can use intent-based policy assurance, connectivity restrictions for multitenant environments, and enhanced role-based access control (RBAC) to create blueprint-specific roles.
Resource Efficiencies
Empower networking teams to focus on business-critical projects by eliminating tedious manual tasks while ensuring knowledge retention with a single source of truth.
Reliability-Driven Speed
Use repeatable blueprints to maintain consistency, improve reliability, and boost speed. Implement changes quickly and efficiently across multiple vendors and configurations with change control, validation, and compliance auditing. Significantly improve service delivery times, reduce mean time to resolution (MTTR), and shorten maintenance windows.
Apstra Licensing
1/3/5-Year Terms Per Managed Device
Choose the right plan for you or Contact Us
Standard |
Advanced |
Premium |
|
Basic configuration and operations Includes a 6-month Advanced trial:
|
Full operation, assurance, and intent-based analytics All Standard features plus:
|
Large scale, multivendor support, and policy control All Advanced features plus:
|
|
*Fabrics with non-Juniper devices require Premium tier |
Resource Center
Background Information
Analyst Reports
Practical Resources
Training and Community
Community
Webinars
Support
Learn More
Videos
Articles
Press Releases
Blogs
Whitepapers
Infographics
Get the answers to your data center challenges
Get instant, data-backed expert recommendations by answering a few questions in our Data Center Discovery Tool. Share the business case with your team, watch a demo, or call us to learn more.
Try it. Right now.
Demo: The Automated Data Center in Action
Find Apstra in these solutions
Juniper Automation
Juniper builds automation into all products for programmability and offers a suite of tools to help you benefit from automation in your environment. We believe that delivering assured experience is the first (and most important) requirement for your NetOps and DevOps teams.
Data Center Networks
Simplify operations and assure reliability with the modern, automated data center. Juniper helps you automate and continuously validate the entire network lifecycle to ease design, deployment, and operations.
Data Center Interconnect
Juniper’s DCI solutions enable seamless interconnectivity that breaks through traditional scalability limitations, vendor lock-in, and interoperability challenges.
Automated Data Center Fabrics
Standards-based network fabric architectures help your data center scale while increasing reliability and agility through automation. This solution unites the automated and assured operations of Juniper Apstra for multivendor networks with Juniper’s scalable and programmable switching and routing platforms.
Description, Benefits, and Use Cases FAQs
What is Juniper Apstra?
Apstra is data center fabric management and automation software.
What are the benefits of Apstra?
- Apstra delivers reliable data center operations and automation through intent-based networking (IBN).
- Apstra creates a single point of management from Day 0 through Day 2+ operations.
- It’s the only solution in the industry that supports multivendor data centers. It works with equipment and software from companies including Juniper, Cisco, Arista, and SONiC.
- With Apstra, you can validate the design, deployment, and operations of your data center network regardless of the vendor, protocol, and network design, from core to edge.
- Apstra accelerates everyday operations with a single source of truth, powerful analytics that identify and resolve issues before they happen, and root-cause identification for accelerated MTTR.
What new use cases does the latest release of Apstra support?
Apstra 4.1.1 introduces a new reference design called Freeform, which supports any topology, any protocol, and any network design, including custom designs. This feature is an addition to the existing Apstra data center reference designs and benefits those looking for a user-friendly and highly flexible solution to automate and manage Juniper-based data center networks. Read datasheet
Who should deploy Apstra 4.1.1?
- Any customer wishing to use Apstra in an environment that previously wasn’t an architectural fit for Apstra data center reference designs should consider deploying 4.1.1 to take advantage of the new Freeform capability.
- If you have a topology other than a 3/5-stage, spine-leaf, or collapsed fabric that previously precluded you from adopting Juniper Apstra, you can adopt the 4.1.1 version to gain Apstra capabilities.
- Existing Apstra customers can upgrade to gain additional new features, bug fixes, and updates to supported devices and network operating system versions; see Apstra 4.1.1 Release Notes for a complete list.
What devices does Apstra support?
Apstra software runs in multivendor data centers with equipment from Juniper, Cisco, and Arista and those running SONiC open-source networking operating system software. See the full list of supported environments here.
What topologies does Apstra support?
Apstra empowers organizations to automate and manage their networks across virtually any data center location, vendor, and topology, from core to edge.
What are Apstra reference designs?
Apstra provides 3/5-stage, spine-leaf, collapsed fabric, and Freeform reference designs. Apstra uses reference designs to address the composition challenge of creating a coherent data center network that’s bigger than the sum of its functioning components. A reference design defines how the business intent of the user is mapped to enforcement mechanisms and what expectations must be satisfied for the intent to be deemed fulfilled.
What are some common Apstra use cases?
- Data center network lifecycle management. This use case is enabled by design tools, configuration management, and advanced troubleshooting capabilities that work across any network topology and a variety of vendor platforms.
- Data center network operational visualization and monitoring with intent-based analytics
- Data center network operating system upgrade management
- Protection from configuration and change management errors with data center configuration rollback tools
- Unified lifecycle management of data centers from a single centralized tool
- Data center network outage root-cause analysis for accelerated MTTR
- Data center interconnect (DCI) lifecycle management
- Data center security policy evaluation and assurance
- Configuration and event correlation between VMware environments and data center networks
- Data center network capacity planning and utilization monitoring
Purchasing Options FAQs
What license options are available for Apstra?
Juniper offers a three-tiered licensing subscription model, enabling you to choose the one that best suits your needs and unlocks the greatest value for your investment.
- Tier 1: Standard, which includes basic configurations and operation
- Tier 2: Advanced, which includes all the features in Standard and supports full operation, assurance, and advanced intent-based analytics (IBA)
- Tier 3: Premium, which includes all the features in Advanced and supports large-scale multivendor environments and policy control.
Contact your Juniper sales representative to discuss the appropriate license tier for your data center.
What license tier is required if I need to manage multiple vendors?
The Premium license tier includes support for both Juniper and non-Juniper devices. The Standard and Advanced tiers provide support for managing Juniper devices only.
Deployment Requirements and Considerations FAQs
What are the installation requirements for Apstra?
Customers have a choice of hardware and virtual platform. View Apstra supported hypervisors, versions, and recommended VM resources here.
Where can I get help with deploying Apstra?
Juniper has a full slate of training and professional services available to meet your needs. Consult your Juniper Sales Representative for more information.
Does Apstra support brownfield environments?
Yes, and Juniper and partners can provide professional services to assist.
How do I upgrade to the latest Apstra release?
Refer to the Apstra user guide for upgrade procedures. Note that since the Apstra platform is a management tool and does not operate in the network data plane, upgrades will not impact network traffic.
What external server virtualization and workload management systems does Apstra integrate with?
Apstra integrates with VMware NSX-T and VMware vCenter to provide visibility and configuration validation to both network operators and VMware operators. This integration speeds the resolution of any mismatches among port groups, fabric VLANs, and Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) configurations and also accelerates the troubleshooting of any virtual networking and VM traffic issues. Remediation workflows help resolve VLAN misconfigurations faster by automatically suggesting the correct network fabric changes.
What are best practices for Apstra deployment and Apstra-managed network designs?
Installation, user, and developer guides, implementation best practices, and additional support resources can be found here.
