As the year comes to an end it’s always interesting to look back at the changes in the industry and the progress that we made as a company in the last year. There were many trends that emerged or took further hold of the industry in 2014. Let’s take a look at them and see how Juniper delivered innovation in these areas. Cloud computing and the need for on-demand resources was a big one. The open source movement is continuing to grow in the cloud space and OpenStack and CloudStack are gaining momentum. The Dev/Ops movement and the need for automation of IT resources was another big trend in the news. We saw Dev/Ops extend to networking equipment like the top of rack switch, when it had previously been mainly for server configuration. Overlay networks took hold in 2014 with the likes of Juniper’s Contrail and VMware’s NSX gaining momentum. New network fabric architectures were introduced like IPClos that is popular with the MSDC’s or Massively Scalable Data Center Operators and Spine and Leaf architectures that offer simplified deployment and management. The rise of the Open Compute Project and its move to include networking was a bit of a surprise for me. There is certainly something going on there.
Openstack/Cloudstack Integration
Cloud computing is transforming the way business is done today. It’s not hard to see why when you consider all the benefits that the cloud promises such as flexibility, business agility and economies of scale. As you look into the underlying layers of compute, storage and network, there is complexity in managing such an infrastructure in a dynamic environment. Organizations that are building clouds need a platform to automate the deployment of infrastructure. In addition to offerings from commercial vendors this type of software stack is being developed by the user community of open source organizations. In the interests of being open and offering our customers choices Juniper announced support for OpenStack back in 2013. We continued this momentum by announcing support for CloudStack in 2014. For more on CloudStack see, CloudStack and Juniper’s MetaFabric, Enabling Private and Public Cloud.
Automation Integration with Puppet, Chef and Ansible
Juniper has always been about being open. We serve a diverse set of customers with different use cases who like to use different tool sets. Back in 2013 we announced support for Puppet. We kept up this momentum by later announcing support for Chef and then for Ansible in 2014. There are sysadmin using Puppet or Chef to manipulate infrastructure as code. Because we are open, we’ve productize the capability to work with these tools into both our hardware and software solutions. Ultimately this gives our customers greater flexibility, without having to do a costly rip and replace of their infrastructure, in choosing which automation tools to use. Of course Juniper has had on the box automation as a part of JUNOS for many years. For more on automation see, Automation with Chef, Puppet and Ansible.
Showing posts with label ethernet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ethernet. Show all posts
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Announcing Juniper's Most Highly-Available Campus Distribution Switch
Recently Juniper Networks announced the EX4600 switch that is built for the distribution layer in campus networks. It is designed for IT networking teams of enterprises and SMBs who are rolling out new applications and services and require higher performance to support them. This compact switch delivers innovations that were developed in the data center including ISSU for hitless upgrades, Insight Technology for performane monitoring and 40GbE ports for high speed uplinks. It works as a standalone switch as well as in Virtual Chassis and MC-LAG architectures as an options providing simplified management and network resiliency.
IT organizations are concerned about having sufficient switching performance to support increasing access to applications in the cloud from the campus. They need to support diverse devices for the current BYOD trend as well as support the demands of services like VDI, the growing use of wireless access and unified communications. As they continue to scale, designing their operations to accommodate increasing volumes of traffic, IT organizations are concerned about managing secure access, connectivity and bandwidth usage. However, despite the increasing and ever changing network usage patterns and the demands of supporting more devices and services IT teams are still expected to make things work with limited staffing resources and budgets. What the IT teams require is an easy-to-manage solution that delivers high-performance connectivity at an affordable price.
“More than three-quarters of the IT organizations we surveyed have either already standardized their campus networks on 10 GbE or are actively planning a move from 1 GbE to 10 GbE. Drivers include bandwidth-intensive applications, current or anticipated traffic levels and falling costs of the technology,” said Bob Laliberte, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group.
IT organizations are concerned about having sufficient switching performance to support increasing access to applications in the cloud from the campus. They need to support diverse devices for the current BYOD trend as well as support the demands of services like VDI, the growing use of wireless access and unified communications. As they continue to scale, designing their operations to accommodate increasing volumes of traffic, IT organizations are concerned about managing secure access, connectivity and bandwidth usage. However, despite the increasing and ever changing network usage patterns and the demands of supporting more devices and services IT teams are still expected to make things work with limited staffing resources and budgets. What the IT teams require is an easy-to-manage solution that delivers high-performance connectivity at an affordable price.
“More than three-quarters of the IT organizations we surveyed have either already standardized their campus networks on 10 GbE or are actively planning a move from 1 GbE to 10 GbE. Drivers include bandwidth-intensive applications, current or anticipated traffic levels and falling costs of the technology,” said Bob Laliberte, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group.
Thursday, March 6, 2014
The Critical Role of the Business Edge Network
The Service Provider’s Challenge
Businesses are increasingly using service providers to host critical applications and data in order to better control the security and availability of the data and to mitigate the expenses associated with hosting and serving data locally to the entire business user base. They access these applications and data over the service provider’s business edge network. This creates a challenge for the service provider, because their customers measure the success of the network by its ability to handle critical data and provide a superior user experience. With more and more applications and data centralized, the importance of the network, and its role in the success of the business, becomes ever more critical.
Market forces have created an environment of unpredictability for the service provider. Mobile devices, new applications, and the flood of new content place a direct strain on the business edge network, forcing the business and the service provider to address the network in creative ways. Maintaining and evolving the end-user experience is critical to the success of the network and key to enabling the service provider to meet its business goals.
The business user base, places considerable expectations on the network. Users expect their business e-mail and voice over IP calls to work flawlessly, while also expecting mobile video and applications to perform seamlessly. The impact of network performance is real and must be factored into the design of future business networks. This challenges the business edge provider to optimize the design and find ways to reduce the cost in the face of the increasingly complex and growing demand for a high-quality end-user experience.
Businesses are increasingly using service providers to host critical applications and data in order to better control the security and availability of the data and to mitigate the expenses associated with hosting and serving data locally to the entire business user base. They access these applications and data over the service provider’s business edge network. This creates a challenge for the service provider, because their customers measure the success of the network by its ability to handle critical data and provide a superior user experience. With more and more applications and data centralized, the importance of the network, and its role in the success of the business, becomes ever more critical.
Market forces have created an environment of unpredictability for the service provider. Mobile devices, new applications, and the flood of new content place a direct strain on the business edge network, forcing the business and the service provider to address the network in creative ways. Maintaining and evolving the end-user experience is critical to the success of the network and key to enabling the service provider to meet its business goals.
The business user base, places considerable expectations on the network. Users expect their business e-mail and voice over IP calls to work flawlessly, while also expecting mobile video and applications to perform seamlessly. The impact of network performance is real and must be factored into the design of future business networks. This challenges the business edge provider to optimize the design and find ways to reduce the cost in the face of the increasingly complex and growing demand for a high-quality end-user experience.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Choosing the Right Switch is Critical to your Transformation Project
If your organization is going through a data center transformation project you are probably looking at your options for switching infrastructure. As you design your network to support the move to virtualized compute infrastructure and the roll out of new application deployments the choice of switching infrastructure becomes a critical decision. One of the most versatile switching platforms on the market is Juniper’s QFX Series 10GbE/40GbE devices. I’ve had the opportunity to talk with many of our customers about the projects that they are using the QFX switches for and why they chose it over the other options in the market. I’d like to share these examples with you.
Many organizations are undergoing data center transformation projects such as moving to a virtualized data center, deploying large scale Enterprise applications, converging data and SAN networks, and undertaking big data analytics projects. They are looking for a versatile switching platform that they can deploy in any of these scenarios. The QFX switches are high-performance, low-latency, 1RU edge devices that are installed at the top-of-rack in the data center. They include rich Layer 2 and Layer 3 support and standards-based bridging, routing and FCoE capabilities. They can be deployed as standalone switches and then as the deployments increase in scale they can be converted to a QFabric node through a simple software upgrade. This makes them ideal for these types of projects.
Many organizations are undergoing data center transformation projects such as moving to a virtualized data center, deploying large scale Enterprise applications, converging data and SAN networks, and undertaking big data analytics projects. They are looking for a versatile switching platform that they can deploy in any of these scenarios. The QFX switches are high-performance, low-latency, 1RU edge devices that are installed at the top-of-rack in the data center. They include rich Layer 2 and Layer 3 support and standards-based bridging, routing and FCoE capabilities. They can be deployed as standalone switches and then as the deployments increase in scale they can be converted to a QFabric node through a simple software upgrade. This makes them ideal for these types of projects.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Solving the Network Services Provisioning Challenge
Centralization of applications at large scale in a consolidated data center, and the increasing size of software-as-a-service application deployments, create the need to deploy thousands of 1GbE/10GbE ports to connect to servers and storage devices in the data center. Service providers need a way to terminate application servers without having to build layers of separately managed networking devices. They also need to be able to configure services from a central location and automate the provisioning of their network devices. This is driving the need for a device-based solution that can control thousands of network ports from a single point and that can interface with service orchestration systems.
The Services Provisioning Challenge
As service providers seek to deploy new cloud and network services at high scale, managing and maintaining individual network devices adds additional layers of operational complexity. As layers of network devices are added to the environment, service providers have to work with multiple management systems to provision, troubleshoot, and operate the devices. These additional layers may translate into additional points of failure or dependency reducing service performance. To meet this challenge Juniper Networks has released the Junos Node Unifier, a Junos OS platform clustering program that reduces complexity and increases deployment flexibility by centralizing management and automating configuration of switch ports attached to MX Series 3D Universal Edge Routers acting as hubs. You can visit the landing page for the product launch here, link.
Simplifying the Network
The Junos Node Unifier enables scaling up of applications in the data center by supporting a low cost method to connect network devices to a central hub. It reduces equipment and cabling costs and increases deployment flexibility by centralizing management and automating device configuration, while overcoming chassis limitations to enable the connection of thousands of switch ports to be attached to the MX Series platform. The Junos Node Unifier solution leverages the MX Series modular chassis-based systems as well as access platforms including Juniper Networks QFX3500 QFabric Node, Juniper Networks EX4200 Ethernet Switch and EX3300 Ethernet Switch, to be used as hub and satellites respectively. Junos Node Unifier leverages the full feature set of these devices to support multiple connection types at optimal rates, with increased interface density as well as support for L2 switching and L3/MPLS routing on the access satellites.
The Services Provisioning Challenge
As service providers seek to deploy new cloud and network services at high scale, managing and maintaining individual network devices adds additional layers of operational complexity. As layers of network devices are added to the environment, service providers have to work with multiple management systems to provision, troubleshoot, and operate the devices. These additional layers may translate into additional points of failure or dependency reducing service performance. To meet this challenge Juniper Networks has released the Junos Node Unifier, a Junos OS platform clustering program that reduces complexity and increases deployment flexibility by centralizing management and automating configuration of switch ports attached to MX Series 3D Universal Edge Routers acting as hubs. You can visit the landing page for the product launch here, link.
Simplifying the Network
The Junos Node Unifier enables scaling up of applications in the data center by supporting a low cost method to connect network devices to a central hub. It reduces equipment and cabling costs and increases deployment flexibility by centralizing management and automating device configuration, while overcoming chassis limitations to enable the connection of thousands of switch ports to be attached to the MX Series platform. The Junos Node Unifier solution leverages the MX Series modular chassis-based systems as well as access platforms including Juniper Networks QFX3500 QFabric Node, Juniper Networks EX4200 Ethernet Switch and EX3300 Ethernet Switch, to be used as hub and satellites respectively. Junos Node Unifier leverages the full feature set of these devices to support multiple connection types at optimal rates, with increased interface density as well as support for L2 switching and L3/MPLS routing on the access satellites.
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