Juniper's new separate modular chassis that handles all of the control plane traffic for its carrier-class T-Series makes it possible to scale the control plane hardware totally independent of the  forwarding plane hardware, reports Network World's Tim Greene. Juniper says this feature allows the routers to be expanded more efficiently and reduce the cost of deploying services over networks based on these routers. Cisco doesn't have a similar separate control-plane device, but does separate control plane functionality within its CRS-1 router, according to Glen Hunt, an analyst of Current Analysis. Is not having a separate control-plane device a disadvantage?

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