Sonic is an extensible platform, providing centralised management of switching platforms and related software.

Juniper said the integration would offer its cloud and service provider customers with various benefits, including open programmability, disaggregation, automation, and access to a broad ecosystem.

Juniper Networks chief product officer Manoj Leelanivas said: "At Juniper Networks, we recognise how important open programmability is to our customers, already evidenced in our support of OpenConfig, Open/R and P4.

"To continue this support, we're excited to announce the native integration of Juniper's platforms with Sonic to offer hyperscale data centre customers another option in data centre architecture."

Microsoft corporate vice-president of Azure Networking, Yousef Khalidi, said: "The integration of Juniper's platforms with Sonic shows the company's commitment to open networking and is an important step in our mission to revolutionise networking for today and into the future.

"Customers will be able to take advantage of this simplified and automated switch management platform, enhanced by rich routing and deep telemetry innovations."