Juniper Networks Opens Software-Defined Security Ecosystem

When it comes to IT security, there’s a marked preference for best of breed technologies given everything that is at stake. Juniper Networks today extended its Software-Defined Secure Networks (SDSN) platform in a way that promises to make it simpler to enforce security policy across switches from multiple vendors as well as multiple cloud services using machine learning algorithms.

Mihir Maniar, vice president of security product management for Juniper Networks, says in addition to making SDSN compatible with switches from Cisco, the SDSN platform can now also automatically apply security policies to NSX network virtualization software from VMware. On the public cloud front, IT organizations can now manage Juniper Networks firewalls deployed on Microsoft Azure clouds.

In addition, Juniper Networks has published an application programming interface (API) through which additional third-party products can be integrated with the SDSN platform.

“We have the ability to correlate security information across an open ecosystem of vendors,” says Maniar.

Finally, Juniper Networks is extending the threat prevention service it provides as a cloud service to be able to detect malware embedded in email systems.

Conventional wisdom holds that benefitting from software-defined networks requires IT organizations to standardize on offerings from a single vendor. But Ben Franklin once observed that those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither. Given how particular IT security professionals can be about the security technologies deployed inside their organization, that may be one debate that is best avoided.