When I was offered my role at Juniper to take on the new developer initiative, I was ecstatic at the possibilities it offered me. The businesses I like to work for and work with have dynamic people, great products, and disruptive ideas. Juniper offered me the opportunity to lead one of these disruptive ideas, The Juniper Developer Network (JDN), and as you all know by now, I jumped at it. :)
Today, I'd like to talk about the beta version of JDN, why we have it, and why it's so important to the bigger picture of how the networking paradigm is shifting - and why it's time to join the revolution developing with the Junos Developer Platform.
What JDN Offers:
JDN is a robust technical community (we have over 500 development organizations involved) for developers wanting to build new networking applications with Junos and the Junos Space SDK. We offer:
- Products: Get the Junos and Junos Space SDKs. Our APIs give you the ability to build innovative applications for your network, so check them out. With the Junos Space SDK, we're development language agnostic - you can use Java, PHP, Python, Ruby, .NET, and more to develop with our RESTful APIs. A huge plus.
- A Network Application Gallery: From management and monitoring to performance and more, we have the network applications you need to be successful. Or, if you have applications you'd like to sell, we've got an easy upload component for you to get your application or service listed in the App Gallery.
- Code & APIs: We’ve got great code and components to dive into and download for use in your applications.
- Training: Check out our learning resources for information on training, case studies, and more.
- Community & Development Partners: We’re working with the best of the best when it comes to partnering with great development organizations, consultants, and community partners. Check out the resources they have to offer you.
- Direct help from Experts to get started building your Application. Simply email us at helpmebuildmyapp@juniper.net and we'll get back to you on ideas, technical questions, and more.
What JDN offers doesn't end there. Not only is it products and educational material for folks building applications, but we have The Junos Marketplace so developers that have built great applications with our SDKs now have the ability to post these to get extra publicity, including access to new customers, Juniper partners and customers, and potential revenue from selling these applications. Right now we have what is called a "try-and-buy" where you can go to the Gallery to get access to trial versions of the applications you're interested in, and if you like them, work with either us or the developer who built them to purchase. Longer term, we will be implementing a commerce component to sell these applications and services directly from the site. We know getting new customers is important, and to do this you need more visibility for your applications and services. With the Application Gallery, we're here to provide that for you.
With JDN & new technologies, we're making development easier and your solutions smarter. In addition in our Technologies section we talk about some of the new things we're working on to make our network systems smarter, such as protocols like OpenFlow and ALTO. Although as developers you don't need to fully understand these to utilize them (we're working on building these into our routers and switches so it "just works" for you) what they do is make applications run faster and take better paths through the network for optimal delivery of your applications. It also allows for new insertion points to happen in the network for revenue generating services. We call this "Programmable Networks" as essentially it allows you to program from the software level how your networks work, run, scale, and more. It allows innovation to happen bi-directionally with the network informing your applications and vice-versa - your applications delivering information into the network for better solutions all around.
With Programmable Networks, smarter Juniper systems enable better software apps and services because of better data to use in applications (through our Junos and Junos Space APIs), faster ways for your applications to get through the network and to the end-users, and better customer and subscriber experiences - along with more potential to create revenue generating services.
At the end of the day, our #1 job is to help make developers, partners, academia, enterprises, service providers, and ISVs successful whether they are building applications to use in their own environments, building applications to sell and promote, or want a network solution for their needs from our App Gallery.
Now this is beta. There are a few kinks we are working out. Because of certain IP restrictions, it takes a sign-up to get our products (which are free). We're working internally to minimize this. I like products to be free and easy to access, so know that we are working on making this a reality. There are a few other minor things we are working on as well, which you'll see on the site.
What we would really *love* is your feedback. We're not "launching" a community here, we're building one. And to build it the right way we need your input on what you'd like to see on the site, improvements we can make, and more. We'll roll into GA in 2012 but to do this the right way let us know what you'd like to see. You can either ping me directly or send email to developer@juniper.net. This is going to be your site - and we want your help to build it right.
The networking paradigm is shifting quickly and there's a revolution about to start with network software development. The Junos Developer Platform and JDN give you the tools and products to be ahead of the curve and start innovating now.
Find out more and join today: www.junosdeveloper.net or http://developer.juniper.net
Enjoy!
/LC
