SD-WAN is admittedly hot right now with vendors sprouting like dandelions. Each wants enterprises to connect their branch offices with SD-WAN technology. Juniper today joined the fray. But it says its new Cloud-Enabled Branch (CEB) does much more than SD-WAN.

The CEB includes SD-WAN across branch locations to manage connections, securely. In addition, branches can deploy applications and services from the cloud via an open platform for third party services.

“Yes, we do SD-WAN, but we do much more than SD-WAN,” says Jennifer Blatnik, VP of cloud, enterprise, and security portfolio marketing with Juniper.

The CEB includes Contrail service orchestration, which is designed to support both Juniper and third-party services. The Contrail service orchestrator is one of several tools in the Contrail product family. The orchestrator sits in the  cloud or in the private data center to deliver network services that are built on an open framework.

For SD-WAN capabilities, Juniper combines its Contrail service orchestrator with its NFX platform. Blatnik says NFX is a “unique point of differentiation for us: you can think of this platform as a router, plus switch, plus server in an on-premises device.”

She says the NFX simply plugs in at the premises, and it auto-homes to talk to Contrail.

The CEB provides a consistent user experience across all branch locations and allows each location to take advantage of cloud-hosted applications. The SD-WAN functionality enables enterprises to use various network links as appropriate for different business applications.

The CEB also supports Juniper’s SRX300 security. “If they choose Contrail, they’ll get SD-WAN by utilizing their existing SRX secure branch router, says Blatnik. “It’s a security and routing WAN device all in one.”

Finally, the CEB supports third-party services and applications, such as Ruckus’ wireless LAN controller to manage wireless endpoints at the branch and Silver Peak’s WAN optimization technology.

According to Juniper, its CEB reduces the time to deploy a branch from months to minutes – the time it takes to connect the NFX device and do software loads onto the platform.