Juniper ‘Flattens’ Data Centre Networks

Juniper Networks has this week announced a new set of software, services and partnerships, as part of an agressive play against data centre networking market leader Cisco.

At an EMEA press summit in Barcelona, Juniper’s chairman, chief technical officer and founder, Pradeep Sindhu, explained that the company’s “new network” for data centres can cut time to operation by up to 50 percent, and eliminate up to 35 percent of data centre networking costs.

In particular, the company emphasised the drive towards simplifying, automating and securing enterprise and data centre networks, while providing a solid foundation to manage and deliver cloud services. Sindhu dismissed Cisco’s ongoing attempts to acquire new markets, claiming that Juniper’s strong focus on networking makes for a better business model.

“The thing that makes companies successful is focus and, when you lose focus, you lose,” he said. “Juniper is completely focused on the networking infrastructure market and we see that because of the issues of scaling the network, the problem is actually phenomenally complicated just by itself. So either Cisco is a hundred times better than Juniper or they are going to fail in their current strategy, and our bet is they are going to fail.”

Flattening the data centre

Central to Juniper’s strategy is the concept of “flattening” the data centre networking infrastructure, as the company moves towards a single-tiered offering called Project Stratus, due to launch some time in 2011. At the summit, Juniper executives outlined the company’s “3-2-1” strategy, introducing features such as greater automation and virtualisation capabilities.

In the mean time, however, Juniper has a host of new products and services designed to help businesses reduce the number of networking layers in their data centres from three to two.

Networking infrastructures are currently too complex, slow, costly and inefficient, said company executives. Cutting out entire layers in the network can lead to reductions in latency of up to 85 percent and TCO of almost 40 percent.

Juniper is rolling out the EX 4500 – a 48-port Gb Ethernet switch that, being CEE (converged enhanced Ethernet)-capable, pushes forward the idea of a converged networking layer. It’s also data centre bridging-capable. With both abilities, the switch can support multiple traffic sources – such as storage on Fibre Channel – and can be used for both servers and storage.

The EX 8200 40-port 10Gb Ethernet core switch also offers CEE capabilities, while the MX 80 3D Ethernet edge services router offers greater virtual machine mobility between data centres that are connected by Ethernet VPLS (Virtual Private LAN Services).

Applications, software and security

Juniper also is unveiling four new applications based on Junos Space – a development and deployment platform the company first rolled out in October. Included is Virtual Control, which is designed to enable administrators to manage physical and virtual networks from a common interface. Juniper is working with VMware to make use of that company’s APIs with Virtual Control.

The Ethernet Design management software lets businesses power up or down the network as needed depending, on demand from users and applications. Through the automated capabilities in the software, network administrators can manage thousands of network devices as easily as one, the company said.

Security Design is designed to enable simpler management of security devices and services, while Service Insight aims to give administrators greater insight into what’s happening in their networks.

In the security arena, Juniper introduced its AppTrack software, which gives IT administrators greater visibility into their SRX Series services gateways, and AppSecure, which protects the network against DDoS (distributed-denial-of-service) attacks.

Juniper is partnering with FireEye for greater malware protection. Juniper officials also announced partnerships with IBM, which is now selling OEM versions of the SRX Series, and Dell, which will sell the SRX Series and EX switches as an OEM in the summer of 2010.

In addition, the company unveiled Juniper Care Plus, a services offering that provides a greater level of support, plus automation tools, consulting and account management features.

An increasingly competitive market

Juniper’s announcements come as network vendors, including Cisco Systems, Brocade Communications Systems and Extreme Networks, look to play a larger role in the evolution of the data centre.

For example, Cisco already is extending its reach through its new server business and partnerships with storage giant EMC and virtualisation technology maker VMware. Extreme is building out its strategy for helping enterprises migrate from traditional physical data centre infrastructures to virtualised ones.

While Juniper is keen to make strong alliances, the company is also determined to stay independent. “Juniper’s strategy is to bring innovation to the networking ecosystem, which badly needs it because the ecosystem is not working currently,” said Sindhu. This business model is not going to be solved by consolidation. It’s going to be solved by innovative companies doing things that actually solve the real problems that the industry is facing.

“That is what Juniper’s focussed on. We are focussed on the most important problems that our customers have, both in the service provider and the enterprise, and the best way in which we can do that is by staying independent, so that is the company strategy,” he said.

Additional reporting by Jeffrey Burt