Juniper Networks today announced that it has acquired WiteSand, a provider of cloud-native zero trust Network Access Control (NAC) solutions. The deal brings a highly experienced engineering team and exceptional technology to Juniper, accelerating the company’s ongoing efforts to deliver a next-generation NAC solution as a key element of their award-winning AI-driven enterprise portfolio.
NAC plays a vital role in many IT environments by identifying which devices can securely connect to a network. But traditional NAC solutions, which leverage on-premises hardware built using monolithic code bases, are often complex to deploy and operate, and can be cost prohibitive to scale. These limitations can be solved by moving NAC operations to the cloud, and leveraging AIOps for automated provisioning, monitoring, analysis and security.
“Both WiteSand and Juniper share a common vision of disrupting the antiquated NAC space with cloud agility and AI-driven intelligence,” said Sujai Hajela, EVP AI-Driven Enterprise, Juniper Networks. “Their premier NAC technology and renowned engineering team are the perfect complement to Juniper’s AI-driven enterprise portfolio, which was recently distinguished as a Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure with furthest scores for both ability to execute and completeness of vision. When NAC is integrated with wireless assurance, wired assurance, WAN assurance, IoT assurance, and indoor location services under a common Mist cloud and AI umbrella, Juniper customers can deliver amazing experiences to their network users, from the client all the way to the cloud.”
“Ever since their acquisition of Mist, Juniper has continued to innovate and differentiate themselves in the market by delivering Experience-First Networking solutions for their customers. As industry research shows, more and more global customers are choosing Juniper as their strategic IT infrastructure partner. It is great to see Juniper taking strategic steps with Network Access Control, and I look forward to seeing them continue to execute on their unique and compelling vision of a unified solution for the AI-driven enterprise,” said Zeus Kerravala, Founder and Principal Analyst, ZK Research.
