Juniper Networks this week unveiled hardware and software enhancements for its service provider edge routers that add intelligence and support for more applications and services.
The expansions involve the company's MX-Series of Ethernet routers and M-Series edge routers. They are designed to further converge various services onto platforms initially designed or optimized for a select set of applications.
The enhancements also tightly integrate the features and functions of products from companies Juniper has acquired over the years into its JUNOS operating system. Specifically, technologies from NetScreen, Unisphere and Kagoor have now been woven into JUNOS.
They include:
- Subscriber management from Juniper's E-series broadband services routers, obtained through the acquisition of Unisphere.
- Dynamic application awareness from deep packet inspection technology in NetScreen's VPN and firewall systems. This has been wedded to JUNOS security and policy management capabilities to provide stateful, subscriber-aware application monitoring for application-specific service levels and QoS treatments.
- Intrusion prevention, also from NetScreen.
- Session border control functionality from Kagoor, to manage VoIP and multimedia sessions to ensure quality of service and security.
Juniper says the integrated features will simplify the network edge for service providers by reducing the number of network elements and operating systems within the network. It will also create an environment where services can be implemented more rapidly since integration among network devices and with back office systems is minimized, the company asserts.
Additionally, by decreasing the need for service-specific appliances, the integrated edge environment can reduce power, space and cooling requirements, Juniper says.
The hardware extensions are intended to help deliver these new services. They include the MultiServices DPC, a processing engine for the MX-Series routers dedicated to running the new JUNOS services without impacting the routers' forwarding performance.