Juniper Networks completed the Mist-ificaiton of 128 Technology’s Session Smart Routing portfolio today a little over a year after acquiring the SD-WAN vendor in a deal valued at $450 million.

The updates address day-one operations, including provisioning, deployment, and configuration of SD-WAN gateways, which until now has required 128 Technology’s Smart Conductor.

“Conductor is a great solution. It’s an on-prem solution, but ultimately we want to get folks to the cloud,” Jeff Aaron, VP of enterprise marketing at Juniper, told SDxCentral.

Shortly after acquiring 128 Technology in late 2020, Juniper extended support for Mist WAN Assurance to the platform, which is designed to streamline what the vendor calls day-two operations like anomaly detection, predictive insights, and automated troubleshooting.

With today’s update, customers can now manage their wired, wireless, and SD-WAN appliances entirely from the Mist Cloud or via Juniper’s conversational artificial intelligence (AI) assistant Marvis, the company claims.

In addition to Mist-ifying its Session Smart Routing platform, Juniper also unveiled a pair of SD-WAN gateways — the SSR 120 and 130 — that target small to midsized businesses (SMB).

The devices can be deployed the same way as Mist’s other wireless access points or switches using a claim code located on the back of the appliance. Once registered with the Mist Cloud, the devices automatically download and apply routing and security policy.

Both devices feature multiple WAN link options, including the option of 4G LTE for remote or rural branches with limited network connectivity.

Alongside the appliances, Juniper introduced a new branch security add-on with URL filtering and intrusion detection and prevention system (IDS/IPS) functionality. Juniper claims the add-on eliminates the need for additional security appliances at the branch.

The bundle, in many ways, addresses the lowest common denominator when it comes to branch security functionality.

“IDS, IPS, URL filtering, they're not new. They're not the full suite of security that you need,” Aaron said, alluding to Juniper’s broader security portfolio. However, “by our estimate, for probably 80% of SD-WAN customers, that’s more than enough for what they need to get the job done,” and it doesn't require leaving the Mist ecosystem.

However, he notes, additional security functionality could find its way under the Mist umbrella before long.

The SD-brach segment has grown significantly over the past year as Juniper, Aruba, and Extreme Networks have worked to integrate stronger SD-WAN functionality into their product stacks. All are based around the idea of a centralized — often cloud-based — management platform from which WAN, wireless, and LAN switching appliances and policy can be deployed and managed.

Last year saw the major players in the space expand their management capabilities through the launch of AI operations functionality and the integration of SD-WAN functionality from recent acquisitions.

Aruba completed the integration of Silver Peak’s EdgeConnect platform, which it acquired in a deal valued at nearly $1 billion, into Aruba Central. Meanwhile, Extreme Networks, which previously acquired SD-WAN and cloud management capabilities from Aerohive in 2019, rolled Infovista’s Ipanema SD-WAN division into its product stack for $73 million last summer.

Despite increased competition in the space, Aaron claims Juniper Mist’s product and feature set is well positioned to gain marketshare, especially when it comes to SD-WAN.

“There are three primary areas where we see growth in SD-WAN,” Aaron said. These include among existing Mist customers, enterprises heavily invested in software-as-a-service applications, and from customers looking for converged LAN, wireless, and WAN connectivity.