The world’s most programmable core switch?

Juniper Networks has unveiled three new products designed to boost business agility and simplify network management. A massive spike in BYOD, mobile users and new enterprise application deployments has created network congestion and complexity. Compounded with the challenge of contracting IT budgets, these trends have severely restricted IT’s ability to quickly respond and maintain network reliability.

  • Friday, 5th April 2013 Posted 11 years ago in by Phil Alsop

Many enterprises use single purpose legacy infrastructures, built in silos and defined by their location in the enterprise, that can’t keep pace with rapid changes in compute, storage and application requirements and often inhibit service delivery. In order to maximise delivery and availability of next-generation cloud services, server virtualisation and rich media applications, Juniper introduces a new agile, “programmable” network. This will enable network operators to respond to business changes and monitor and react to how the network meets application service level agreement (SLA) requirements in a matter of seconds, not days or weeks.


Juniper Networks has addressed these challenges with a series of new products for enterprise campus and data center infrastructures. The new Juniper Networks® EX9200 Programmable Switch enables accelerated response to changing business needs, while its built-in ability to support a virtual WLAN controller, the Juniper Networks JunosV Wireless LAN Controller, will deliver high levels of reliability and flexibility across the enterprise to lower capital expense. The Junos® Space Network Director provides a single-pane-of-glass network management solution for wired and wireless LANs and data centers, consolidating multiple management tools to simplify network operations and deliver a comprehensive advanced platform that prepares enterprises for tomorrow’s applications, services and workload demands.


Industry Leading Programmability – To prepare enterprise campuses and data centers for new technologies and business requirements, the EX9200 provides the industry’s highest level of programmability required for emerging applications and environments. Built upon the Juniper One Programmable ASIC, the EX9200 prepares enterprises for emerging Software-Defined Networking (SDN) protocols, allowing for network automation and interoperability without the need for additional hardware. This eliminates cost, complexity and time delays from line card upgrades or new infrastructure deployments, empowering enterprises to be more nimble and efficient. In enterprise campus and data centre deployments, the EX9200 Virtual Chassis technology simplifies the network architecture, reducing network devices and layers of up to fifty per cent. The EX9200 will ship with 1/10/40GbE interfaces and it is scheduled to deliver 100GbE performance this year. As with other next-generation offerings from Juniper Networks, the company will provide a ‘Getting Started’ program to enable enterprises to evolve from their current infrastructure to the EX9200 platform.

Wireless LAN Controller Delivered as a Service for the Enterprise – Addressing the need to support the growing trend of BYOD and seamless integration between wired and wireless networks, Juniper Networks is the only vendor to deliver a flexible virtual WLAN controller designed to run on any combination of physical appliances, on a virtual machine (VM), or directly on Juniper Networks switches (future). Juniper has made wireless controller functionality a service on the network while offering consistent, industry-leading capabilities such as controller clustering, in-service software upgrades, self-organising adds, moves and changes, and local switching across the portfolio. At the same time, none of these implementations is tied to a specific location within the enterprise. This simplifies network deployments, increases flexibility, reduces costs with a pay-as-you-grow model and delivers high reliability for wired and wireless networks. Enterprises don’t need to have multiple islands of networks within their infrastructure and can instead have a common, unified end-to-end network for user access -- whether it’s wired or wireless.

Managing the Network from a Single Pane – Increasing network complexity makes network behavior unpredictable and difficult to forecast the effects of network changes. Junos Space Network Director, a single campus-to-data centre management tool, provides a holistic view into the enterprise network. By administering the wired and wireless infrastructure, users, applications, and services from a central location, Junos Space Network Director accelerates application deployment time and reduces complexity and operational expenditures. What has previously been delivered as three to four different management tools can now be consolidated into a single application.