Juniper Networks launched new enhancements to boost the capacity of its flagship MX Series 3D universal edge routers today to support the demands of video and other high-bandwidth applications on networks.
Juniper said that its highest capacity MX router, the MX2020 (pictured at right), has the capacity to simultaneously stream HD video to almost every one of California’s 11.5 households, and can move the equivalent of 187 time the total number of daily Vine uploads “almost instantaneously.”
The new line cards for the MX increase per-slot bandwidth up to 520 gigabits per second and offer hardware support for up to 128,000 subscribers, Juniper said, while a new switch fabric module more than doubles the capacity of some of the MX 3D platforms, including the MX960, with increased capacity and service density so that more customers can be serviced from the equipment.
While Juniper’s operator customers are seeing data traffic grow on the scale of 30% to 50% per year, revenues are flat or growing at a rate in the single digits, explained MIke Marcellin, SVP of strategy and marketing for Juniper Networks.
“Their customers are demanding more and more rich experiences and video and more mobile data, yet they have flat revenue curves, which means they probably have flat budgets to deal with that,” Marcellin said, adding that the investment protection Juniper offers with continued enhancements to the MX line makes the product especially attractive.
Marcellin said that while other vendors often require a new chassis to be purchased in order to get better performance and capacity, Juniper has designed its system so that new line cards can be plugged into the existing MX chassis.
Juniper also says that it is keenly aware of the industry interest in software-defined networking, so its MX hardware is SDN-ready and can be used in conjunction with its JunosV app engine to support network function virtualization. Marcellin said that Juniper is evaluating use cases for NFV and gauging interest from customers on which are most likely to see early adoption.
“I think we’ll see a steady ramp into 2014 of customers probably doing some initial lab trials and picking a single [use case],” Marcellin said.
“Juniper Networks MX Series 3D continues to evolve to meet emerging business and technical requirements from the service provider edge and aggregation network to the data center and cloud,” said Nav Chandler, research manager at IDC. “The ability to add system capacity, subscriber density and virtualized network services to new and installed MX series routers extends the value of the platform and enables providers to fully monetize their networks with innovative services,” he added.
Juniper also recently expanded its partnership with Nokia Solutions and Networks for joint development of solutions to cover secure IP connectivity for mobile broadband networks. That partnership focuses on four key areas for delivering mobile broadband: mobile backhaul for LTE and LTE-Advanced, radio access security, mobile site connectivity, and carrier-grade network address translation, as public IPv4 addresses run out and operators must plan for IPv6 migration. Juniper and NSN said that they already have jointly-developed solutions in those areas available; NSN added that many of its LTE customers rely on the IP solutions that it developed with Juniper.
Marcellin said that offering operators an end-to-end solution that includes NSN’s radio technologies and Juniper’s IP technology, and has already been tested for interoperability, has “really hit a sweet spot.”
And, he added, while aspects such as mobile backhaul and security may not be particularly exciting, mobile backhaul represents a key choke point for LTE and legacy networks that must be addressed in terms of scale and capacity, while security needs to be re-thought in a world of all-IP mobile networks.
