News & Events
NetworkWorld - Juniper aims new gear at branch office, Cisco
New J-Series routers will integrate VoIP, WAN acceleration.
October 30, 2006
During the next 18 months, Juniper Networks plans to roll out branch-office devices that integrate MPLS routing, VoIP and WAN acceleration capabilities - a combination designed to streamline architecture and reduce administrative costs.
The goal is to wrestle business away from Cisco's highly successful integrated services router (ISR), which supports comparable functions, but at a higher price, Juniper says.
With the demand for branch-office gear increasing 10% per year, Juniper stands a chance of tapping a growing reservoir of customers, says Johna Till Johnson, president and chief research officer of Nemertes Research and a Network World columnist. "This is an opportunity to take from Cisco, but it depends on the execution."
Juniper's plan streamlines branch-office architecture by merging functions of three boxes - router, WAN acceleration appliance and VoIP gateway - into one. Fewer devices can help reduce the cost of branch IT support, Johnson says, and that is significant. "Nearly 40% of IT time and energy goes to support branches," she says, quoting statistics her firm gathered from multinational corporations based in the United States.
To kick off the effort, Juniper this week plans to announce availability of two J-Series routers, J4350 and J6350, that are based on the same hardware as Juniper's branch Secure Services Gateways, the SSG 520 and SSG 550.
They differ in that the J4350 and J6350 run on Juniper's highly regarded router operating system called Junos. The SSGs run on ScreenOS, the security-tuned operating system Juniper acquired when it bought Netscreen.
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