the Mist™ platform Edge
Extending the power of the microservices cloud to the campus enables new applications at the network edge.

Overview:

the Mist™ platform Edge extends our microservices architecture to the campus, bringing agility and scale while enabling new applications at the edge. The Mist™ platform Edge uses The Mist™ platform Cloud and its distributed software architecture for scalable and resilient operations, management, troubleshooting, and analytics — all without the need for legacy wireless controllers.

Juniper AI-Driven Enterprise

the Mist™ platform has brought true innovation to the wireless space with the world’s first AI-driven wireless LAN (WLAN).

Our AI-driven network makes Wi-Fi predictable, reliable, and measurable, offering unprecedented visibility into the user experience through customizable service-level expectation (SLE) metrics. Proactive, AI-driven automation and self-healing replace time-consuming manual tasks, lowering Wi-Fi operational costs and saving substantial time and money.

Juniper also brings enterprise-grade Wi-Fi, Bluetooth® Low Energy (BLE), and IoT together so businesses can increase the value of their wireless networks through personalized location services, such as wayfinding, proximity notifications, and asset location. With Mist’s patented virtual BLE (vBLE) technology, no battery beacons or manual calibration are required.

All operations are managed via Juniper’s open and programmable microservices cloud architecture driven by Mist AI™. This delivers maximum scalability and performance while also bringing DevOps agility to wireless networking and location services.

The Mist™ platform Cloud Architecture

The Mist™ platform cloud relies on a microservices architecture to deliver unparalleled network scalability and resiliency. Our AI engine helps lower operational costs and delivers valuable network insights, using data science to analyze large amounts of rich metadata collected from Mist Access Points, Mist Edge appliances, and Juniper and third-party Ethernet switches.

Juniper Access Point Family

The Juniper enterprise-grade access point family consists of:

• AP12, AP32, AP33, AP43, and AP63 Series, which support 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6), Bluetooth LE, and IoT
• AP21, AP41, and AP61 Series, which support 802.11ac Wave2, Bluetooth LE, and IoT
• BT11, which supports Bluetooth LE

These access points are all built on a real-time microservices platform and are managed by The Mist™ platform cloud.

the Mist™ platform Edge

Some microservices require specific functions be handled onpremises, due to bandwidth, latency, or architecture requirements. the Mist™ platform Edge extends select microservices to the customer premises while using The Mist™ platform cloud and its distributed software architecture for scalable and resilient operations, management, troubleshooting, and analytics. Now customers have the flexibility to deploy a hybrid architecture that extends processing and AI to the network edge.

The Mist™ platform Edge architecture offers several key benefits:

• Agility to develop and deploy new microservices rapidly
• Scalable platform to meet demands of small and large campuses
• Deployment and management simplicity, with zero-touch configuration and cloud management

the Mist™ platform Edge is deployed as a standalone appliance with multiple variants for different size deployments. A software-only virtual machine (VM) solution will be available in the near future for added design flexibility.

Features & Benefits:

Extension of Microservices to Customer Premises

For large campus networks, Edge provides seamless roaming through on-premises tunnel termination of traffic to and from access points.

the Mist™ platform Edge extends virtual LANs (VLANs) to distributed branches and telecommuters to replace remote virtual private network (VPN) technology. Provides dynamic traffic segmentation for IoT devices. Split tunneling allows for guest access and corporate traffic.

High Availability and Clustering

the Mist™ platform Edge supports an elastically scalable cluster (with options for backup clusters) composed of an unlimited number of nodes within a cluster. The Mist™ platform Edge cluster design for the tunneling microservice is guided by the aggregate capacity considerations based on number of access points, number of clients, and throughput expectations.

Tunneling Microservices

One of the microservices available on The Mist™ platform Edge platform is a tunneling service. It enables customers to make a seamless transition from their existing centralized data plane with legacy controller architectures to the modern microservices driven by the Mist AI cloud without affecting network design.

The access points use standards-based L2TPv3 technology to tunnel traffic to and from The Mist™ platform Edge for selected WLANs. This provides the network design flexibility to use a combination of distributed and centralized data planes, where needed, to meet customer requirements. A deployment with the Mist™ platform Edge can support locally bridged and tunneled WLANs.

The service enables you to preserve the VLAN configuration at your edge switches while transitioning to a Mist microservices cloud architecture. You accomplish this by tunneling your traffic through a centralized cluster of the Mist™ platform Edge devices while maintaining the ability to separate SSIDs and users onto different VLANs. The service also supports seamless mobility for devices running latency-sensitive applications, allowing them to maintain performance as they roam across the campus. A the Mist™ platform Edge cluster will operate intelligently to deliver scalable and reliable performance by optimizing broadcast and multicast traffic delivery.

Configuration of the tunnels is also simplified through the power of The Mist™ platform cloud and its zero-touch provisioning capabilities.

There are several common use cases for the tunneling microservice:

• Seamless roaming for large campus networks through onpremises tunnel termination of traffic to/from access points
• Split tunneling for guest access and corporate traffic
• Dynamic traffic segmentation for IoT devices
• Extending VLANs to distributed branches and telecommuters to replace remote VPN technology

Specifications:

the Mist™ platform Edge Appliance Models Specifications
	ME-X1	ME-X5	ME-X5-M	ME-X10
Max AP	500	5,000	5,000	10,000
Max Client	5,000	50,000	50,000	100,000
Max Throughput	2 Gbps	20 Gbps	40 Gbps	40 Gbps
Interface	Dual-Port 1GbE (Data) and Dual-Port 1GbE	Dual-Port 10GbE SFP+ (Data) and Dual-Port 1GbE	Quad-Port 10GbE SFP+ (Data) and Dual-Port 10GbE SFP+	Quad-Port 10GbE SFP+ (Data) and Dual-Port 10GbE SFP+
Power Supply	Single, Cabled Power Supply, 250W	Dual, Hot-Plug, Redundant Power Supply (1+1), 750W	Dual, Hot-Plug, Redundant Power Supply (1+1), 750W	Dual, Hot-Plug, Redundant Power Supply (1+1), 750W
Dimensions	17.1″ (W) x 17.1″ (D) x 1.75″ (H)	18.98″ (W) x 31.8″ (D) x 1.69″ (H)	18.98″ (W) x 31.8″ (D) x 1.69″ (H)	18.98″ (W) x 31.8″ (D) x 1.69″ (H)

Documentation:

Download the the Mist™ platform™ Edge Datasheet (PDF).

Download the Enabling the AI-Driven Enterprise (PDF).