Juniper Networks staved off another quarter of COVID-19-related supply chain shortages to post third-quarter 2020 revenues of $1.13 billion, which were flat year over year.

CEO Rami Rahim pointed to "better-than-expected" performance in the company's service provider and enterprise verticals, which grew 5% and 0.5%, respectively, compared to last year.

"Orders once again exceeded our expectations, particularly in our enterprise business, which saw double-digital order growth year over year, despite the challenging macro backdrop," he said on Tuesday's earnings call, according to a transcript.

According to Rahim, this performance was helped by "improved momentum in the U.S. and Asia," which he said helped to offset weakness in the European market.

"Order growth was solid and exceeded our expectations, particularly in the North American enterprise and U.S. federal vertical," he added.

Meanwhile, Juniper's Mist platform — acquired for $405 million last year — continued to be a bright spot in the company's portfolio.

"Mist reported another record quarter with new logos once again growing more than 100% year over year, and orders rising more than a 180% year over year," said Rahim.

Juniper has, in Rahim's own words, worked to "Mistify" more of the company's portfolio. And 128 Technology, which Juniper acquired in a $450 million deal announced last week, appears destined to get the Mist AI treatment as well.

"Our agreement to acquire 128 Technology represents the next step in our AI-driven enterprise evolution," Rahim said. "128 Technology's user-centric SD-WAN is a perfect complement to our AI-driven enterprise solution, delivering our market-leading insights and automation from clients to cloud."

While Juniper's revenues were flat, up just over $5,000 year over year, CFO Ken Miller celebrated the victory. "Revenue was up slightly, showing year-over-year growth for the first time this year," he said.

According to Miller, the revenue growth, however slight, was despite continued supply chain constraints that have extended lead times on certain products.

Longer lead times have driven a backlog of orders, which gives Miller confidence that Juniper is on the road to recovery.

Some growth in the company's service provider and enterprise verticals — 8% and 11% sequentially — helped to offset an 11% quarterly decline in cloud provider revenues from Q2 to Q3. However, long term, Miller expects cloud sales to recover and continued growth in enterprise, while service provider revenues are expected to decline slightly in Q4.

Juniper's routing business saw growth during the quarter and year over year, up 7% sequentially and 6% compared to last year. Meanwhile, its switching business increased 8% sequentially but declined 6% year over year. The company's security business took a bigger hit, declining 9% sequentially and 23% year over year.

As the pandemic begins to subside, Miller expects Juniper will return to organic revenue growth on a full-year basis.

"Assuming the pending acquisition of 128 Technology closes, we expect near a point of additional revenue growth, which we expect to be weighted towards the second half of 2021," he added.