Juniper Apstra Datasheet

Operators frequently find themselves drowning in telemetry data collected by their managed systems. Apstra’s intent-based analytics let you define expert-level rules and embed them into the network management system, ensuring that system checks are continuously running and updated immediately with any network changes.

Apstra was designed to handle the largest data centers in the world, supporting hundreds of thousands of connected servers. This is achieved through support for 3-stage or 5-stage Clos IP fabrics with EVPN-Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) deployed as the overlay. Apstra also supports smaller fabric designs. In edge data centers, for example, only a couple of switches are deployed, but the number of deployments is large and highly distributed. Apstra can easily consolidate all operations across the edge data centers into a single management interface. 

Regardless of the number and scale of deployments, is focused on intent and on translating that intent to configuration. Operators can easily make changes to these roles, driving large-scale changes to configurations across multiple vendors and network designs. To satisfy these demands, Apstra is built with a high-throughput, highly scalable graph datastore that tracks all changes in real time, relieving the organization from having to manage individual IP addresses or configurations. This allows operators to focus on business-specific needs rather than low-level troubleshooting or reconfiguring of the network management system following every network change.

Apstra solves the deployment and operational complexity of next-generation data center networks by providing easy-to-deploy and highly validated fabric reference designs that can be used for any network size and cover  multiple use cases. However, some data centers may require specific or out-of-the-box topologies, protocols, or architectures that are not addressed by these templates. 

Apstra’s  “freeform reference design” allows you to build the design you want, how you want it. You can leverage any feature, protocol, or architecture that fits your deployment scenario. Freeform presents an interactive canvas to visually design or model any arbitrary network topology. The configuration is administered via Configuration Templates that grant you complete control over the configuration on the devices. 

You can still leverage the same simple and powerful life-cycle management features from device operating system upgrades, simple device deployments, pre-deployment data center modeling, device telemetry, analytics dashboards, to powerful Intent-Based Analytics and Intent Time Voyager.

A key operational feature for any network operator is rapidly recovering from human error. This is typically a complex, vendor-specific process that requires a complete understanding of the full state of all boxes and their relationships to each other at certain points in time. The Intent Time Voyager feature speeds time to resolution by enabling the operator to move the entire state of the network (intent, configuration, and continuous validations) backward or forward with a few simple clicks, returning it to a specific point in time. This unique ability is enabled by its foundational intent-based approach, including its SSOT and assurance validations.

As networks expand and applications require greater geographic diversity, a number of vendor-specific proprietary features have been introduced to address stretched Layer 2 domains and active/active topologies. Apstra supports an industry-standard EVPN-VXLAN overlay that extends Layer 2 application segments outside of the Apstra-managed topology. This allows architects to integrate multiple disparate computing centers for effective load balancing, legacy migration, disaster recovery, or resource sharing.

Apstra security policy provides a simple user interface and API that allows users to define policies to control the flow of traffic between virtual networks, IP endpoints, and routing zones. The policy is automatically applied as an L3 ACL on the relevant enforcement points, radically simplifying the management and reducing the size of access control lists. Furthermore, Apstra can detect conflicts when multiple policies are applied within a blueprint overlap and automatically resolve the conflicts based on user settings such as “more specific first“ or “more generic first“. Users can search existing policies based on source/destination object and by type of traffic (protocol and port number) to determine if a certain traffic flow is affected by any active policies.

Apstra offers the industry’s first and only vendor-agnostic intent-based networking platform, allowing enterprises to design a network without consideration for the hardware platforms that will eventually be deployed. The tools used to design and manage the network are the same, regardless of which vendor hardware or network operating system is ultimately selected. This translates to a massive reduction in OpEx by eliminating the need to maintain staff expertise in multiple platforms and vendor nuances. There is also an opportunity to reduce CapEx by allowing all modern vendors to be considered for inclusion in an Apstra-managed environment.

Apstra tightly integrates with VMware NSX-T and VMware vCenter to provide network operators visibility into virtual workloads and networks. The built-in validation speeds up the troubleshooting of virtual networking, port-group/fabric VLAN/Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) mismatch, and VM traffic issues. Remediation workflows help users resolve misconfiguration of VLANs faster by automatically suggesting the correct network fabric changes.

Apstra software offers flexible connectivity configuration options for servers, firewalls, and external routers. These connectivity options can be quickly attached to any port in the fabric, with deterministic configuration to ensure that all protocols are properly functioning. Apstra also supports complete flexibility in the fabric design via a “Freeform” template, to manage less conventional and/or legacy architectures.

Please contact your Juniper sales representative for information on ordering Juniper Apstra. 

At Juniper Networks, we are dedicated to dramatically simplifying network operations and driving superior experiences for end-users. Our solutions deliver industry-leading insight, automation, security, and assurance to drive real business results. We believe that powering connections will bring us closer together while empowering us all to solve the world’s greatest challenges of well-being, sustainability, and equality.

1000699 - 008 - EN JAN 2023