Juniper Networks announced Junosphere Lab, a cloud offering that provides a testing ground for network engineers, technicians and other staffers.  This network-as-a-service offering is the first of its kind, according to Juniper, which also claims companies can reduce overhead costs by 90 percent and speed service delivery by 30 percent when using its product.

Junosphere is a more economic alternative to setting up a network lab on-premise, partly in due to the fact it provides a virtualized environment.  This also boosts network modeling and design efficiency, on top of other advantages Juniper noted such as a reduction of the risk of network changes.

“It can be used to speed service introduction, plan more effectively and reduce the risk of network changes. Using Junosphere Lab, network personnel can create and model virtual networks running the Junos operating system as a substitute for or supplement to physical test labs…”

Several customers have already signed up for Junosphere, including Cariden Technologies, Mu Dynamics, Spirent Communication and others, but Juniper still has a long way to go before hoping become the AWS of the networking world.  Its newly debuted offering compares well with Amazon’s cloud business, though the emphasis is on cutting the costs of having to create an in-house alternative to the service.

Pricing starts at $5 per virtual image per day, with a minimum of ten VMs.

Last week Juniper also had an update, debuting three switches and a WLAN controller, and gave a boost to its mobile portfolio.  The  EX3300 Ethernet switches  and  EX6200 switches are designed for enterprise-scale deployments with an emphasis on workload and cost efficiency respectively, while the EX2200-C line is designed for use by SMBs and more casual uses. The WLC880 Wireless LAN controller is scheduled to start shipping sometime this month. Juniper also released the latest version of the JunosPulse Mobile Security Suite in the same time frame.