CTO Raj Yavatkar discusses 'pathfinding' strategy to turn ideas into networking reality.

0:00 foreign

0:01 [Applause]

0:05 G Event in Austin Texas I'm Phil Harvey

0:09 editor at Light reading and joining me

0:11 is rajkar from Juniper Networks Raj

0:15 thanks so much for making the time for

0:16 us well thank you Finn great to see you

0:18 again and uh I'm uh excited to talk

0:22 about Juniper's announcement of a new uh

0:26 lab new lab environment so tell me a

0:29 little bit about uh uh Beyond labs and

0:32 and first of all what it is and then

0:35 maybe who it's for sure so I think uh

0:38 Jennifer if you know that we always

0:40 Innovative in routing and started out as

0:43 a Telco company but now we have expanded

0:45 a lot to Data Center Enterprises and

0:48 part of my um agenda initiative at

0:51 Juniper is to also invest in Innovative

0:54 stuff exploration of energy ideas beyond

0:57 the roadmap so beyond Labs is the

1:00 initiative which really is both physical

1:02 labs in Sunnyvale Westford Mass as well

1:06 as Bangalore okay

1:07 to host Innovative projects which are

1:10 independent of the product roadmap but

1:12 allow us to explore new ideas new

1:15 Concepts working ourselves working with

1:17 Partners working with Academia and so on

1:20 and Customs okay so yeah the so the the

1:22 the who's at four is a great uh question

1:26 then because it's it's really it's for

1:29 Juniper for the industry but it doesn't

1:32 sound like you've got it locked in it's

1:34 not just a customer focused lab it's

1:36 really about the exploration of ideas

1:38 overall yeah with the hope I guess that

1:40 those lead to some products something

1:43 commercial down the road

1:45 um but yeah it's interesting to start

1:47 out with such a broad uh uh you know

1:50 canvas I guess

1:52 um in this you know I guess the next

1:55 logical question then would be about the

1:57 timing well why now that's that's a very

2:00 good question so I think one of the

2:01 things I realized that I've been at

2:03 Juniper number three years

2:04 I started initially internally an

2:07 initiative called pathfinding which

2:09 allows you to collect ideas from

2:11 anywhere in the company sales marketing

2:13 Engineers product management and we

2:17 started looking at those ideas and

2:19 create pathfinding projects to explore

2:21 those ideas to see whether there's a

2:22 business value or not customer value or

2:24 not so I wanted to formalize that

2:26 especially as we started partnering with

2:28 outside Academia companies like Intel

2:31 and Dell and some customers our

2:33 customers have Innovation Labs there is

2:36 very good at Synergy for them to come in

2:38 and also explore with us so formalizing

2:40 this as an initiative helps us do this

2:42 oh that's great yeah because I I've

2:44 noticed about you know various corporate

2:47 Labs you know have have it means

2:49 different things depending on the

2:51 company you know most of the time it

2:52 does mean you know testing for uh

2:55 immediate product sets or maybe new Next

2:57 Generation product sets and their

2:59 customers or their Partners

3:01 um this sounds like it has

3:03 some of that but also a much kind of

3:07 broader scope in terms of where the

3:10 ideas could come from exactly ideas

3:11 could come from where they could go The

3:13 Innovation sometimes could lead to maybe

3:16 only Publications or patterns but not

3:17 actual commercials that's why I spent

3:19 time at Intel where I founded a lab

3:22 called systems Architecture Lab for it

3:23 it was exactly similar to that it's

3:26 about 200 people exploring completely

3:28 new technology starting from thermal

3:30 cooling all the way to mobile sensors

3:34 and so on many of those are not going to

3:36 result in products necessarily but it

3:38 allows our customers our partners to

3:40 also become more successful right a

3:43 similar idea here okay now this is a

3:46 question perfect for you because you've

3:48 been in the industry a while and you may

3:50 remember some of the changes that have

3:52 happened here but I want to get you to

3:54 comment on the state of r d and the

3:55 industry generally because it sort of it

3:59 seemed like over a period of 20 years it

4:00 got pushed from the service providers

4:02 they sort of pushed it out to the

4:04 equipment vendors as equipment vendors

4:06 Consolidated and and you know kind of

4:09 streamline their operations especially

4:11 the larger ones

4:13 some of that r d got the capability got

4:15 lost you know not that it's not there

4:17 but that it's not uh the same proportion

4:21 of spending and resources that it used

4:23 to be how do you see that sort of uh

4:27 changing as

4:29 the technologies that we're using become

4:32 you know more complex and then involve a

4:35 lot more companies to pull it off that's

4:38 right so I think there are two things

4:39 right one is that you're right corporate

4:41 RND functions cannot be simply looking

4:43 Inward and at the narrow lens of what

4:47 the company needs you have to look at

4:48 the larger ecosystem one thing at

4:50 Juniper we have done we are expanding we

4:52 are expanding to Enterprise and data

4:54 centers we actually have software

4:55 products which are Cloud powered like

4:58 SAS application we have our missed Wi-Fi

5:00 solution purely machine learning based

5:02 doing self-driving networks when you do

5:05 that kind of exploration the r d changes

5:07 it's no longer coming from customer

5:10 gives me requirement this is my roadmap

5:12 now you have to look at a broader

5:14 spectrum and say how can I take

5:16 advantage of Explorations happening

5:17 we'll give you one example uh we are

5:20 doing a project with a company startup

5:22 in UK and a British government to apply

5:24 Quantum Computing to Quantum key

5:26 distribution

5:29 as long as we talked about computer

5:31 security we're talking about the man in

5:33 the middle uh attack right key

5:35 distribution we found out this company

5:37 has a very cool technology applicable

5:39 today it doesn't require too many qubits

5:42 but I'll use the quantum Computing for

5:44 key distribution in a way you cannot

5:46 compromise it it's almost like a Star

5:48 Trek we've been looking at you know how

5:51 you regenerate the thing it's doing the

5:53 similar thing so that's an example of a

5:55 project like that we can explore right

5:57 this kind of mix yeah that makes sense

5:59 yeah especially because the yeah the

6:01 security Quantum security is going to

6:03 become of a much louder technology in

6:06 the next few years because of the uh you

6:09 know the information traversing our

6:11 networks and how we need to you know

6:13 stay ahead of uh of of possible attacks

6:16 and things like that so so interesting

6:18 that that's that's being looked at as

6:19 well uh what do you think is you know

6:22 what are what are some of the other uh

6:24 uh areas of interest that that you have

6:27 for this I mean not putting you on the

6:31 spot to to say a commitment to anything

6:33 but just areas you might be exploring so

6:35 I think one of the biggest areas I hear

6:37 from customers especially Enterprise

6:38 customers also complexity

6:40 networking has become more important and

6:43 now you have people using networks in

6:46 the cloud on-prem and in between so in

6:49 this hybrid multi-cloud world the skill

6:51 sets are not there right complexity is

6:53 there so one of the biggest area is to

6:55 how do we simplify that

6:57 apply machine learning AI techniques

6:59 other things so that you can make it

7:01 simpler to automation so that's one area

7:03 which is very Broad and open-ended the

7:06 second one which we already went public

7:07 with we have been trying to do some new

7:10 groundbreaking work with Cloud native

7:12 router for cloud networking because

7:13 people use cloud

7:15 IP networking and cloud is very simple

7:17 but when you take classical Telco

7:20 applications to the public Cloud unit

7:23 carrier grade Network that doesn't exist

7:24 how do you provide that okay we are also

7:27 very active in orac to create research

7:30 which has got Awards in mwc and all so

7:33 those are some of the areas we're going

7:34 to look which are more Greenfield more

7:37 open-ended but I think they have a

7:39 purpose they have a goal in mind that

7:41 how do we really automate the network

7:43 get the network out of the way that's

7:45 the really the goal right yeah

7:47 interesting yeah and uh so uh

7:50 I had it how mad are you gonna get if we

7:54 keep calling Juniper a router company

7:56 can we we have to we have to change our

7:59 uh change how we how we refer to you

8:01 guys now we are very proud We Are rooted

8:03 in the router company so we are not

8:04 going to give up that DNA but at the

8:06 same time as we expect meet uh

8:09 Enterprise uh you might be surprised to

8:11 know

8:12 four of the fortune 10 companies use our

8:14 Wi-Fi products they expanded that to his

8:16 Divine and campus Branch so we are

8:18 really showing that sort of that so I do

8:20 believe that networking is ubiquitous

8:22 and as a networking company I like to

8:25 use two adjectives secure and assured we

8:28 want to provide that across the Spectrum

8:30 I want to be known for that but we're

8:32 not forgetting that we are started as an

8:34 outer where you came from okay well

8:35 thanks uh thanks so much for uh for for

8:37 your time today and good luck with

8:39 Beyond Labs thank you