Session Smart™ Networking Platform (PAYG)

My main use case for Juniper Session Smart Router is for our tunnel-based SD-WAN architecture and secure vector routing purpose. It provides the routing decision based on the application sessions rather than packet forwarding alone, so we use SD-WAN as a WAN product.

A specific example of how I used Juniper Session Smart Router in our SD-WAN setup is that we want to create a tunnel-free architecture, making Juniper Session Smart Router a significant differentiator. Most vendors prefer IPsec tunnels, GRE tunnels, or overlay networks, but Juniper provides innovative solutions such as session-aware fabric, secure vector routing, and tunnel-free forwarding. By utilizing this solution, we achieve benefits such as lower latency, better voice quality, and less packet overhead, improving bandwidth utilization generally.

Other use cases include application-aware routing with Juniper Session Smart Router, which understands users, applications, sessions, and services. Instead of merely forwarding packets based on IP routes, this understanding is extremely useful for any M365 solution, including our Teams, Zoom applications, Oracle cloud workloads.

In my opinion, the best feature of Juniper Session Smart Router is its built-in zero-trust design. Most SD-WAN vendors bolt security onto the networking side, but Juniper designed Juniper Session Smart Router around deny-by-default and session authorization, identity-aware routing, and service-centric policies. The architecture aligns naturally with the zero-trust concept.

The WAN performance is probably the strongest area for Juniper Session Smart Router. It excels in multi-cloud connectivity, branch-to-cloud traffic, and real-time applications, so Juniper Session Smart Router often performs better than any traditional IPsec overlay architecture.

Juniper Session Smart Router has positively impacted my organization because we have multi-cloud solutions that are extremely useful for our M365, Teams communication, Zoom communication, SAP applications, and Oracle-based applications. It provides user and application-aware routing-based solutions, allowing us to measure WAN performance, which is the strongest area of this router.

We notice specific improvements in connectivity, particularly with multi-cloud connectivity or multi-cloud applications such as Azure, AWS, or GCP. The WAN performance of Juniper Session Smart Router is apparent, and our branch-to-cloud traffic shows good performance. It often performs better than traditional IPsec overlay architecture with our real-time applications, including SAP applications and Oracle-based applications.

A key area for improvement in Juniper Session Smart Router is its security stack, which is not as robust as Fortinet. This is the biggest weakness, as Juniper Session Smart Router provides routing security and segmentation with zero-trust routing, but it is not a full security platform. Compared to Fortinet, which generally offers next-generation firewall capabilities, Juniper Session Smart Router is quite basic. Features such as IPS or IDS are limited when compared with Fortinet, as are web filtering, sandboxing, and threat intelligence, which are also moderate. However, I find the SD-WAN aspect to be excellent. If security is your primary objective, then Juniper Session Smart Router may lag in that regard.

Regarding needed improvements outside of security, Juniper's SASE maturity is less than that of competing vendors such as Versa, Palo Alto Prisma, Netskope, or Zscaler. While Juniper integrates SD-WAN with SASE offerings, it is generally not viewed as a leader in SASE capabilities.

I do not see any features currently in terms of governance and security regarding Juniper Session Smart Router, as it focuses mainly on routing innovation and solution. Therefore, checking on WAN performance is crucial, but they lack governance and compliance capabilities.

Regarding the accuracy and reliability of output in Juniper Session Smart Router's AI capabilities, it has approximately eighty percent accuracy, which means they are still lagging in the remaining twenty percent. They need to improve their security engine.

I have been using Juniper Session Smart Router for approximately two years.

Juniper Session Smart Router is stable in my experience.

Juniper Session Smart Router's scalability is impressive, and the performance is excellent.

My experience with customer support for Juniper Session Smart Router is that sometimes I feel it is not very proactive or good, but overall, it is acceptable.

We previously used Arista before choosing Juniper Session Smart Router. However, Arista had a complex solution, which prompted our switch to Juniper Session Smart Router.

We have seen a return on investment from using Juniper Session Smart Router, as we have saved money and require fewer employees because routing is managed by this product. We have saved a lot of time in terms of routing.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Juniper Session Smart Router is that pricing is higher compared to other vendors. The main feature we see is WAN performance, which is the only standout feature they have at this moment when compared with the competition.

Before choosing Juniper Session Smart Router, we evaluated Cisco, Netskope, and Arista as options.

My advice for others looking into using Juniper Session Smart Router is that if they seek next-generation firewall capabilities, Juniper Session Smart Router only has basic capabilities in that area. They should consider other options such as Fortinet. Features such as IPS are limited, so if that is a requirement, they should look elsewhere. However, if the focus is on SD-WAN solutions, then Juniper Session Smart Router is a good and excellent choice. I have provided this review with an overall rating of six.

Juniper Session Smart Router is deployed at our branches, where we have over 100 branches set up for software-defined wide area networking, connecting to service provider broadband routers, 4G routers, or 5G routers.

A specific example of how I use Juniper Session Smart Router at one of our branch sites is that we have our SD-WAN hub in the data center and Juniper Session Smart Router at each of our branches, connecting to a broadband router to form a VPN with the Juniper hub device in our local data center, thereby connecting users to our data center through the VPN.

Juniper Session Smart Router incorporates the Juniper AI tool via the Juniper Mist platform, providing significant visibility into site operations, including monitoring session numbers, VPN session drops, users, BGP routing, ARP, devices on the LAN, as well as conducting wide area network and LAN packet captures, running periodic speed tests, upgrades, and providing granular details about applications and their performance.

Juniper Session Smart Router offers ease of deployment, allowing for visibility of applications, bandwidth, traffic, LAN, devices, and users' IP addresses, making it not only easy to deploy and manage but also very effective with excellent visibility into the network at each of our branches.

Juniper Session Smart Router has positively impacted my organization by simplifying SD-WAN deployments, allowing us to operate with fewer staff, as its integration with Juniper Mist AI takes on much of the workload, thereby offering reliable performance and stability without software issues.

One area for improvement that I have observed is related to the VPN, where I frequently notice VPN flaps or disconnections between Juniper Session Smart Router and the SD-WAN hub device in the data center, which should be addressed to prevent users from experiencing any downtime.

While everything is graphical and easily visible to troubleshoot issues, improvements could be made around identifying the root cause of VPN session terminations, as real-time insight into the reasons for connection drops would significantly aid network engineers.

I have been using Juniper Session Smart Router for about one year, having recently started the software-defined wide area networking migration in my organization where we are currently deploying them on Juniper SSR.

Juniper Session Smart Router is stable in my experience, although occasional blips happen that are typically unnoticed by users and are often untraceable.

Juniper Session Smart Router demonstrates impressive scalability, allowing for easy management and monitoring of hundreds or even thousands of branches via the Mist AI tool without issue.

My experience with Juniper Session Smart Router customer support has been very positive, as they are responsive to issues, providing solutions quickly, whether related to WAN side problems or software version upgrades.

We have not previously used any different solution before implementing Juniper Session Smart Router as this is our first venture into SD-WAN technology.

Before selecting Juniper Session Smart Router, I evaluated alternatives such as Cisco C-Edge SD-WAN devices, but found them to be significantly more expensive compared to Juniper's offering.

My advice to others considering Juniper Session Smart Router is to ensure it meets their needs for deployment, as it is stable, reliable, and significantly more affordable compared to many competitors.

My company maintains a partnership and reseller relationship with Juniper beyond merely being a customer.

A specific example of how much time or resources I have saved with Juniper Session Smart Router can be seen in our management of over 100 sites with just four or five engineers, which is significant compared to traditional MPLS requiring many more staff and multiple monitoring tools, as we can manage everything through the Mist dashboard without the need to log into devices' CLI.

The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Juniper Session Smart Router fall outside my direct responsibilities, but I believe that utilizing Juniper SSR proves to be more cost-effective than Cisco SD-WAN deployment kits, requiring fewer devices for setup while maintaining reliability.

Although I lack detailed insights about the financial aspects since I am not in the accounts department, I know that the integration of AI has led to approximately 50% savings in terms of employee requirements, which reflects positively on our overall efficiency.

Before selecting Juniper Session Smart Router, I evaluated alternatives such as Cisco C-Edge SD-WAN devices, but found them to be significantly more expensive compared to Juniper's offering.

The unique aspects of Juniper that stand out for me are the ease of deployment and management, as you can deploy Juniper Session Smart Router at a site in just five minutes and gain considerable visibility.

The integration with Juniper Mist significantly automates many previously manual tasks, enhancing network management operations for branches, especially when managing hundreds or thousands of branches.

I have not delved deeply into Juniper Session Smart Router's AI capabilities related to governance and security, but I find it integrative with platforms including Azure and AWS, ensuring safe logins and minimal issues regarding security or data leakage as of now.

The accuracy and reliability of Juniper Session Smart Router's AI capabilities have proven dependable as it provides real-time results and detailed data through various graphs on the Mist portal concerning bandwidth, sessions, users, and application specifics.

I recommend discussing the training available on the Juniper portal for SSR and SD-WAN, as I believe specific training for SD-WAN and Juniper SSR would be valuable, especially if offered for free.

I would rate this product a nine out of ten.

Juniper Session Smart Router is used by our clients for specific purposes in their operations. As someone involved with the product for more than 10 years, I have significant experience with it. The biggest advantage of Juniper Session Smart Router that really stands out is its reliability and performance.

I work with other vendors today, including Microsoft and others.

When collecting reviews, we also ask about disadvantages. There is nothing in Juniper Session Smart Router that I dislike, and I cannot identify anything they need to improve.

I have been using Juniper Session Smart Router for more than 10 years.

I have never experienced any glitches or latency issues. Everyone that we know is happy with the product. We are satisfied, they are satisfied. We do not require that much support.

There are no issues. Everyone that we know is happy with the product. We are satisfied, they are satisfied. We do not require that much support. There are relatively smaller issues and concerns.

Juniper Session Smart Router has a strong community presence in the market, unlike some other products where community engagement is almost nonexistent.

Juniper Session Smart Router is different from other products in that the community is robust and active. The community is not almost down to zero, so Juniper Session Smart Router stands out positively in that regard. This does not change my overall impression about the product, so it is not that difficult to recommend.

The typical use case is to manage the data center fabric.

The best feature is the easiest way to deploy configuration and also back up them, and also to roll back quickly if there's an incident.

We have a better view with all this complexity because we have some probes that monitor the response time, and we can see quickly if there's an integration and so on.

We have many controllers, so we deploy a controller by pods. So we have a nice view, and we're thinking about collecting everything in one controller, but we didn't decide that yet.

We have NetFlow included.

They have some improvement to do, so I would say seven.

I found some weaknesses on their hardware. They are sometimes breaking very often.

I would say about seven years in total.

In general, they are robust and reliable, so I would say eight is a good mark.

Customer service rating: 4

From a different vendor.

It was quite straightforward.

I did the architecture and the deployment.

Juniper Session Smart Router is a controller for managing devices. We have real-time analytics through the IBA Probes. For troubleshooting, we have direct access to them. As we use other vendors, we are running also the SASE with another provider. We have the response time, also latency and so on. There are other considerations, but I didn't think about everything right now. My overall rating for this product is 7.

I have not tested Sophos on a larger scale, as I use Sophos in a very office environment and Juniper in telecom.

Because we have Juniper switches and Juniper firewalls, we have not centralized them really. I do not prefer centralizing things, as I feel that if someone gains access, they have so much information about my network. This is a personal feeling rather than a professional one.

I do use its real-time analytics and visibility features, but I still prefer Sophos to that.

Real-time notifications are where Sophos beats Juniper.

For telecom companies, I think zero-trust segmentation is the way to go because if you allow anything that you do not understand, then it becomes a problem. I am all for zero-trust.

Juniper Session Smart Router could improve its documentation to become more competitive.

It has very little documentation, and you have to rely mainly so much on support to do something, which I feel should not be that way. Otherwise, functionality-wise, I feel it is perfect.

It is way high and expensive; that is why most of my clients on the lower end, I cannot suggest Juniper. It is too pricey.

Of late, I am seeing them changing the interface; the UI is changing, and that is a good thing. But still, I feel you can standardize the syntax to be in line with the rest of them.

I have been using Juniper Session Smart Router for seven years.

It is scalable, but it is scaling upwards. The only reason I say enterprise is because those people usually have the budget for it, and because it is what I have used in large enterprises, it is what I usually fall back to.

It is good and perfect, but I do not prefer relying on support. I prefer knowing that they are available rather than having to contact them to fix things for me.

Juniper Session Smart Router is not easy to implement; its syntax is totally different, and it is not very easy to implement. If I had to implement things, I would choose Sophos over anything.

We are using it as a DNG. This means all subscriber PPPoE sessions or ILS Smart VPN connections are terminated through the access network to this BNG, Uniphore BNG. From there, they are managed.

Everything has been fine. Although we did not explore much about the solution, they provided us with a customized product according to our requirements. It was very well executed.

I did not find any problem with Juniper. Regarding improvement, we still need to see what it can do.

I have used Juniper for around five years.

We have a limited edition, so we did not use much of the resource capacity. We have our licenses only for the limited edition, and we did not address that yet. As and when licenses are included, we think it will improve scalability.

Customer service is very prompt.

The installation took around three days. I managed the deployment, and the delay was only due to physical arrangements.

Each installation per area or per field or per session involves around two people.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate the solution nine.

We use Juniper Session Smart Router to streamline and automate our operations across nearly 3,000 global branches.

We replaced outdated routers with a more flexible and automated design, involving access and channel boxes at the network edge. These routers efficiently handle point-of-sale and online transactions, automatically balancing the load and routing traffic based on available bandwidth. Our goal is to eliminate manual configuration, allowing the devices to smartly filter and route various types of data traffic. This upgrade ensures our network is more responsive, handling transactions seamlessly and optimizing overall performance.

The most valuable feature of Juniper Session Smart Router is its unique SDR channel. Unlike other SD-WAN solutions using IPsec, Juniper sends secure IP packets without adding extra headers, saving bandwidth. This unique approach ensures a secure connection from our stores to the data center, all within Juniper devices. There is no unnecessary overhead for bulk traffic.

Juniper Session Smart Router could be better in terms of software performance. Sometimes, there are glitches, especially with MTU issues that affect application communication, although this seems to be a common problem across various SD-WAN solutions, not just Juniper. Another thing that could be improved is the setup process. It would be great if configuring the SSR could be simpler, like making firmware updates to the 128 version without the need for complex linking with interfaces. Also, reducing the delay in reflecting interface changes on the GUI would make the user experience smoother.

I have been working with Juniper Session Smart Router for almost four years.

The stability of Juniper Session Smart Router has been a bit inconsistent. While issues do crop up regularly, I wouldn't solely blame the box itself. It seems like the lack of robust support is hindering the device from reaching its full potential. For instance, in a recent MTA issue, we were advised to upgrade to a new version, only to discover another bug that hampers the device's performance in a mixed environment. Overall, I would rate the stability at a six out of ten.

I would rate the scalability as a nine out of ten. It is quite scalable. In our organization, we use Juniper Session Smart Router across 4,000 sites, totaling around 40,000 users when considering redundancy.

I would rate Juniper's support team as a five out of ten. In comparison to other support teams I have worked with, they could improve. Many engineers, including those with several years of experience, find the support lacking in expertise. The team often relies on generic information from guides and searches, rather than providing specific solutions to the problem at hand. It seems like they might need better training or a more efficient process to address issues promptly. Overall, it takes them some time to get to the root of the problem, which can be frustrating.

The initial setup of this router is a bit complex even for experienced engineers. It runs on Linux and requires extra steps for configuration. The blasting process, where you load the software, often gets stuck, and we end up doing it a few times. It is not very reliable, and even Juniper tech support hasn't given a clear fix. Both the setup steps and software stability can be a bit of a hassle. Deploying Juniper Session Smart Router takes some time. After all the planning and documentation are done, it usually takes more than a week or around ten days to get the connector set up on our on-premises data center.

Juniper Session Smart Router is not significantly cheaper than, for example, Cisco.

My advice for others considering Juniper Session Smart Router is to improve the GUI-based management. Right now, it heavily relies on CLI, which can be less reliable and time-consuming. Overall, I would rate Juniper Session Smart Router as an eight out of ten. While it has some good new features, the overall performance could be better.