 Live from Santa Clara in the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE, covering Juniper Nextwork 2016. Brought to you by Juniper. Now, here are your hosts, John Furrier and Stu Miniman. Okay, we're back here live in Silicon Valley. I'm John Furrier, Stu Miniman. We're here at the Juniper Networks NextWorks 16 event and we're live talking to all the smartest people we could find. Of course, we have the Juniper ambassadors here. Always great to get the data. Martin Brown, network security engineer at a tier one service provider. Can't say the name, super confidential, but it's big, they're a tier one. And Kevin Barker, founder and CTO of the Independent Technology Group. Guys, welcome to theCUBE, appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. And tier one, this is really not representing the company actually representing yourself, so it's not a big issue, but the telcos are providing a ton of value today. You don't get any more of the mobile phone. They want more and more. I want more of it faster. I want more access. I want more services. A lot of pressure for content over the top. Okay, how do you do that? How do you get secure? How do you provide more capacity? All that stuff is on the table. Well, I suppose to have more capacity, you just have to have faster core network, faster devices, obviously faster links between the devices and so on. And you can use QS to try and throttle the traffic so it doesn't overload it, but most of the time it's just to do with the fastest equipment. You could possibly afford. So tell us what your role is and what you work on every day. So I'm a network security engineer and what it means is I do implementation. So I build devices according to a design and then I test it, make sure it passes QA before it goes live onto a customer network. And you have to look all the security protocols and what involves the security piece. And audit, I mean is there code involved? You run, take us through that. Yeah, pretty much. We do have a security team that says you must meet these specifications. So I have to go through and make sure that the device meets that particular requirement. So I'll test it personally. Can't go too much into detail of what that involves, but it's really just- Deep packet inspection, of course. You have some books there. Cheris, you got some props there. We have some couple of books that you wrote or what are those books? Yeah, so as a Juniper ambassador, we get to help write books. So this is for the first one. This is for routing. I'm sorry, routing the IP protocol. And then I have the second one, which is migration from Cisco ASA to the Juniper SRX. So the Juniper ambassadors, they all have an opportunity to write these day one books. And one of their ambassadors has written a book for Riley, which is quite a thick book. We'll get the opportunity to do it. And it's actually good fun to do it because it gets to test our knowledge as well as- And you share the data you've expertise. You share those. Correct. And big signing contracts, no more recognition. But this is what the ambassador program's all about, right? Correct, yeah. And it's really for Kudos. It's not really for any particular financial value or financial gain. It's just for our own benefit, really, or to prove our worth. Kevin, what's your story? Tell us your ambassador, CTO. Well, I'm in a slightly different space than Martin. I work on the value-added reseller side, founded this company with a partner of mine 15 years ago. And it's our job to go out and look at the technologies that are in the market, evaluate them. I'm a CTO slash CTE technology evangelist. And so we work with our customers, help them understand their pain points, then go out in the market and look at the solutions that best fit what they're trying to accomplish. And I wear two hats with the ambassador role because we are primarily vendor agnostic, but Ben and Juniper partner for a number of years love their solutions, think that in their spaces they really are the best. So I'm very proud to fill this role and carry forward the Juniper message. And like Martin, participate in writing books and just talking in general. Great, Kevin, yeah, that's a great point. Can you explain a little bit? Because being vendor agnostic, but being an ambassador, this is not, there's so many of these programs out there, maybe some of our audience might not be familiar with the Juniper Ambassador program. Why is it okay for you to do it? Why are you proud to kind of wear the shirt? Sure, and it's a very fine line that you have to be very careful not to cross, especially if you are on the VAR side. Juniper founded the ambassador program I don't know, five or six years ago. It's fairly small. I think there's 22 of us nation or worldwide. It's a global program. And the purpose is really of course to evangelize and tell the Juniper story. And I do have to be very careful to do that within the context of the fact that I am representing multiple vendors. And so it's just being cognizant of the fact that I have to be honest at all times with my customers. I share the fact that I definitely love Juniper, but when we evaluate technology, we do it from the perspective of their problems, not what the vendor wants. It's a small group of people, so it's not like it's like a huge group and everyone gets certification. It's a pretty elite group of people because of that trust factor. Yes it is. We're selected because of the fact that we have deep knowledge of Juniper and we're able to convey that knowledge and a big part of the program is participating in the global community of technology, network, security folk and discussing with them, not just Juniper as a manufacturer, but we share problems, we have various channels of our own where we discuss what's going on within our organization. So we're able to also feed off of each other and then we push out using things like the Juniper forums where again there's a global community that comes there for advice and we post there and share our stories. So it's obviously an honor for you to be recognized by the Ambassador for this in Juniper, but also as independent and being agnostic. It also kind of is important because it shows that Juniper's done a good job in your mind because you kind of agree to be on that program. But let's talk about the customer view because you're in the front lines. At the end of the day the customer is making choices of multiple vendors. In some case there's a lot of multi-vendor. How do they get the security mindset to, how do you talk about security to the customer because they have to validate apps that come from multiple sources. They got to run on the Juniper networks. How do they make sure that the stuff's secure? I mean how do you advise your clients when they say hey I want to make sure all the apps that come in to my network are completely secure? Well from our perspective as a company that works with a lot of companies what we first do with customers is talk to them and help them understand what the real threat risk is and what the threat vectors are that they have to worry about. So you can sit there and create a idyllic model where they've got every single piece of hardware, software to protect every single component in this massive $10 million defense and depth strategy. But is it applicable? So what is the nature of their business? What are the, where are the attackers going to come in and what do they have to worry about? Do they have a lot of intellectual property they have to protect? And so we go through that with them first as the first step. And from there we can start to understand where their pain points are and also where the weaknesses are within their existing security infrastructure and then craft a solution that fills those holes and then help them implement it and then understand it, get the proper training so they can carry it forward. Where do you see Juniper winning? I mean, because Juniper has a lot of strengths and they have a lot of competition as well. Where is Juniper winning and why are they winning in the customer environment? Well I think in, obviously Juniper has a very, very strong presence in the routing, switching space, in the carrier space, companies like the unnamed one that Martin works for. We don't deal there. We deal in what I call mid-tier enterprise, right? So the companies that have 5,000 to 500 seats and we've done very, very well with their switching lines as they brought those forward. And I think a key component and one of the strengths of Juniper today is their understanding that the world is changing not just cloud but also we're moving to a virtualized environment. So software as a service is becoming more and more important delivering network function virtualization and Juniper is showing a leadership role not only with virtualizing their software, their firewalling software, their routing, switching software but also with tools like Juniper Contrail that provide the underpinnings for people to build these overlay networks and put in place virtualized load balancers and other tools such as that. So they're offering their software up to the overlays and giving some people some software rather than just a box solution. Absolutely and that's a key element to their future success in my opinion. Martin, how does certifications fit into your role? Have you done any certifications while you're here at the show? Absolutely, yes. I took an exam about half an hour ago just before this interview and... How do you think you did? Good? I didn't pass. And I know I didn't pass. Oh boy. And that's fine. It's okay. Because the way I look at it in the certification is not just to see how an employer knows how you perform but it's to know how yourself performs. If you take an exam and you know that your multicast isn't quite up to scratch you know where to certify. And there are some people out there in the industry that cheat on these exams. You know, they go on the internet and they can download answers and they can start cheating on these exams and try and pass that way. And Juniper is actually very good. They do try and spot the people that try and cheat and do their best to prevent it or just disqualify people and say you can no longer take our certifications. So... So they're hardcore on the certifications then? Absolutely. And it helps in several ways obviously to make sure that your employees have the correct knowledge that you know that you yourself have the correct knowledge but they also give incentives as well to various partners as far as discounts and so on are concerned and different levels of partnership. So you're going to go back and take the test you've got some areas to work on? Oh yeah. I think tomorrow... I had to take the driving test in California when I moved out here 18 years ago. I'm like... I almost didn't pass that. I was driving for years. Yeah, but this is important. Security's involved. So the whole cheating thing, I mean it used to be like certifications was kind of like a rubber stamp these days. Anyone who wanted it could get a certification. This brings up the question of the trust on the human side, right? So we're talking about automation. Is that because they're hardcore on that piece? They want to make sure that people are completely certified or is it just more of a strict standards? Is the security piece important there? I think so, yes. Because if you're implementing a change you want to make sure that you're doing it correctly. You know, you've not suddenly left a gaping hole in your network that an attacker can come in and start taking control. So yeah, again that's how you need to have the complete trust that you know that that person can do it and they've done it correctly. Because I have to say a question, do you know on where's Juniper winning and where are they winning and why from your perspective? What makes their product so good? I think from the enterprise side, their throughput, their speed of their routers, their speed of the switches is above competitors and certainly they have the fastest firewall as was discussed in one of the presentations today. So on that side, yeah, the pure throughput is definitely one of their strong points. And how about on the service provider side and anything that jumped out there? Is it the NFV leadership? What's the indicator on that piece of their business? Sorry, not sure what you mean by. No, I mean, obviously the enterprise, you mentioned the firewall for the telcos. What's the big upside for those guys? Where's the advantage there? From my point of view, the firewall I think really would be for any customer solutions to secure their, the cloud and host inside. But from the telco side, really that's the core networks. So it would be the routers and the switches certainly that would be the best. Okay, Kevin, question on mobile. Mobile's been big. Everyone on the mobile, we see the spearfishing comments earlier. Speak to obviously inside with attachments, but also mobile access, the Android malware. What is all out there? How has that impact your conversation with customers? And how are they using Juniper? And how are they using security to give more choice for people to use the phone that they want, the same time worrying about what's on those devices and how it gets into the network? Well, it's a significant problem. We used to have an internal slogan when we talked about what we would take to customers. And we said our job was to protect from the edge to the endpoint. And the reality is that there is no longer an edge and we have to protect our customers and help them protect their end customers, their employees, all the way across the network. And the network now spans from your phone to your house, to your desktop, to your laptop, to the data center, and everything in between. So it's a very, very large challenge. And a big part of what we try and do is educate our customers about what it means to be secure. And that involves educating their employees, making them very aware of the risks. But the reality is even when you do go through that education process, we're human. It's in our nature to be friendly, to talk to strangers, to do all those things our parents told us never to do. And so inherently we are that weakest link in that sense when it comes to security. So we have to look at tools that our vendor providers bring forward to help secure the network and the devices that are on it. Things that Juniper is doing that to me are quite exciting is the recent release over the last year or so of the Sky ATP product and the ability to integrate feeds from various end point devices and tie them in so that you're creating a holistic security strategy. The firewall can't protect it by itself, right? So you've got all these piecemeal components and being able to bring them together and let them communicate and share the threat data and then have the network devices react in an automated fashion as much as possible so we're not waiting. I mean, one of the presentations this morning by the CEO of Mandy and another Kevin, great name, was the fact that these large multinational global companies like Martin's get four to five million threats a day. There's no way you can handle that from a person perspective. It has to be automated. It has to be automated, yes, I totally agree. It's massive. Guys, thanks so much for sharing, Kevin Martin. Thanks for coming on, appreciate it. Final word, quick plug for the ambassador program. How's it going? Any updates? How do you feel about it? Martin, you want to take that one? Go ahead. I just absolutely love the ambassador program. I mean, I think we, at the moment we're pretty full but we probably are looking at recruiting a few extra members if people want to start maybe helping on the forums and showing their interest. Only the elite though. Only the very best of the best. And only those that truly want to use Martin's word share and communicate and be part of a community because that's really what it's all about. To make it better. The sharing is the key thing right now in Secure. There's no more trend no one's talking about people actually sharing data, recipes, stuff, successes, best practice and data. We'll never beat the bad guys if we don't. Great stuff, guys. Thanks so much, Kevin and Martin. Thanks for coming on, appreciate it. It's theCUBE live in Silicon Valley. I'm John Furrier with Stu Miniman. Back with more live coverage of NextWorks 2016, Juniper Networks annual user conference. We'll be right back with more after this short break.