Juniper aims new gear at branch office, Cisco

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.

The SSGs are security platforms with the full-featured NetScreen firewall and advanced gateway security features including VPN, antivirus and antispam functions, and content filtering.

The new J-Series routers are sophisticated routing platforms that support MPLS, VoIP and WAN acceleration.

The six-slot J-Series chassis support WAN acceleration blades that perform the same function as Juniper's separate WX WAN acceleration devices. The chassis also support VoIP cards being developed by Avaya in partnership with Juniper. Both types of cards will be available next year.

The differences with Cisco that Juniper hopes to exploit are that its WAN acceleration technology, acquired through its purchase of Peribit, is considered among the best, and Avaya's VoIP gear - particularly its failover capabilities - is highly regarded, says Jon Oltsik an analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group.

"This is an attempt to leverage acquisitions it has made and to develop its enterprise market," Oltsik says. Juniper bought NetScreen and Peribit for their security and WAN acceleration equipment respectively, with the hopes of making inroads with corporate customers.

It's bold to take on Cisco, Oltsik says. "You need to sell, and selling against Cisco is harder," he says. Plus the ISRs enjoyed the most popular launch of any Cisco product, with more than 500,000 sold in the first two years.

The Juniper plan also calls for a unified management interface for its products, as well as support services that Juniper partners will supply to help customers migrate to Juniper's branch equipment.