Juniper Networks CEO Rami Rahim expects the future of networking to be a “self-driving network” that automatically prevents and addresses disruptions by itself.

“It's probably weird for people to hear the CEO of a networking company say that he wishes the network would go out of the way. But that's exactly what we should be wishing for — the network literally gets out of the way of what we need to do to drive our business and our strategy forward,” Rahim said during his keynote speech at Juniper Global Summit. “I think we're well on our way to make that a reality.”

Despite currently facing a lot of uncertainties, the networking industry is evolving from promising experience-first networking through software and automation into actual deployments, but it’s not done yet, he noted.

“We're just scratching the surface of what is possible. The explosive growth that we're seeing in our business right now, in fact, is just the beginning of what's possible,” Rahim said.

Looking to the future, he expects an automated network similar to the self-driving automobile will free humans from fixing network issues. If “the network essentially gets out of the way, we can focus on what is important, which is driving our business forward, advancing our business strategies, innovating, and keeping the disruptors out of our space.”

In these unknown times, resilience is key to navigating challenges for organizations and the industry, and Juniper approaches it through diversifying its business.

“It's really important to build a resilient company,” Rahim said. “We've always believed that [at] Juniper, resilience comes with diversity in our business.”

In the first fiscal quarter of 2022, the enterprise channel became Juniper's largest customer vertical for the first time in its history. Plus, the vendor’s cloud and enterprise verticals more than made up for slowing service provider sales during the quarter.

“Cloud and enterprise-strength more than offset a modest decline in our service provider vertical, which was due entirely to the timing of shipments as a result of supply chain challenges,” Rahim said during the earnings call.

He pointed out during the keynote that this diversity bolsters resiliency.

“That breadth that we have built in our business with diversity across each of our strategic vertical market segments and strategic solutions, that, to me, is an important part of how you build a resilient company that can withstand challenges,” Rahim said.