Juniper Kicks Off Partner Conference With Host of Announcements

The company announced the Infranet Controller and Infranet Agent -- new solutions designed to support the Enterprise Infranet and bring end-point intelligence into network traffic decisions. Juniper also announced the addition of three new security certification tracks to the Juniper Networks Technical Certification Program (JNTCP) -- intrusion-detection and prevention (IDP), J-series enterprise routing and Secure Access SSL VPN tracks -- as well as a new services affiliation that recognizes and rewards partners for achieving deep levels of expertise in various technologies.

All of these additions fit into the newly unveiled Enterprise Infranet, an architectural approach to securing and assuring the delivery of differentiated applications and services across enterprise networks.

These new arrivals follow on the heels of Juniper's pending acquisitions, announced last week, of WAN optimization technology developer Peribit Networks and application front-end (AFE) developer Redline Networks. The Peribit deal is valued at approximately $337 million in cash, stock and assumed stock options, and the Redline buy will cost Juniper approximately $132 million in cash and assumed stock options.

Company officials will discuss these developments at length when they host about 400 partners in Las Vegas on Monday at a one-day conference. Juniper director of worldwide channel programs Steve Pataky says the services affiliations are designed to help partners expand their services offerings around Juniper's technology.

"It's been clear from the beginning that anything we did in the post-sales world would focus on enabling partners to deliver services," he says. "We want to leverage the channel as our 'go-to' for all post-sales services."

Under the program, Juniper will take existing Select- and Elite-level partners, certify them as having particular technology practices and promote them to the enterprise.

"It's in line with our overall value-based model and reserved for those partners who can demonstrate that they have these certifications," Pataky says. "By promoting them out to the enterprise, we hope to create incremental revenue streams for partners."

He adds that the program could be an opportunity for partners to collaborate with each other on value-add services, and Juniper will look to facilitate these relationships in a "noncompetitive" way.

Partners who have already qualified for the services affiliation program say they're looking forward to the opportunities it might create.

"We're an early member and really excited about it," says Bill Strub, vice president of consulting services and co-founder of Accuvant, a security solutions provider based in Denver. "It will reward us as an organization for having trained and qualified individuals for all of Juniper's product lines."

The addition of the three new security tracks means JNTCP can offer a comprehensive enterprise-routing and security certification program for networking VARs. The new tracks, along with the existing Firewall/VPN track, focus on topics including intrusion-prevention, enterprise-routing, perimeter-security and virtual private networks.

The Infranet Controller and Agent solutions will enable coordination of network enforcement with end-point assessment, user authentication and secure transport, delivering levels of use control and threat control that organizations need to ensure service assurance and availability. The Infranet Controller appliance and Infranet Agent software will enable enterprises to protect their network and client end-points at campus locations and distributed sites; it should have particular appeal to organizations that need to provision ubiquitous network access for mobile users. The Enterprise Infranet Controller, Infranet Agent and ScreenOS upgrade required to enable Infranet Enforcer features are expected to ship in Q3 2005.

This Enterprise Infranet framework creates an IP-based enterprise infrastructure that coordinates network, application and end-point intelligence to support network applications, manage network use and reduce threats, without requiring a forklift upgrade.

Finally, the two pending acquisitions will help bolster Juniper's reach as it pushes its line of IP security and networking products, and positions itself as a best-in-class competitor to Cisco. Peribit's WAN optimization technology enables distributed enterprises to deliver LAN-quality application performance over the WAN. The front-end technology from Redline maximizes the performance, flexibility and scalability of Web-enabled enterprise data centers and sites. (One notable component Juniper still lacks as it tries to match up with Cisco is a comprehensive network switching lineup.)

The Peribit acquisition is expected to close in Q3, and the Redline deal is expected to close in Q2. The combined revenue for both Peribit Networks and Redline Networks was approximately $40 million in 2004.

Accuvant's Strub says he's looking forward to the conference and to seeing what else Juniper can do to build on its channel program's momentum.

"Bob Bruce and Tushar Kothari are doing a very g job of rolling this out; I've seen a number of modifications that get me really excited," he says. "The key players in their organization will be able to sell support services at high levels, which really plays into our strengths."