Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Network Firewalls
Service providers depend upon high performing, flexible networking solutions. As a result, delivering solutions into the service provider space mandates a sound knowledge of Juniper's JunOS network operating system.
O2 Networks have extensive experience in building telco grade networking solutions based upon Juniper's routing, firewall and switching platforms.
Juniper Networks is an information technology and computer networking products multinational company, founded in 1996. It is headquartered in California, USA. The company designs and sells high-performance Internet Protocol network products and services.
Juniper’s main products include T-series, M-series, E-series, MX-series, and J-series families of routers, EX-series Ethernet switches and SRX-series security products. JUNOS, Juniper’s network operating system, runs on most Juniper products.
JUNOS is the operating system that runs on most of Juniper’s networking equipment. It is Juniper’s single in-house network operating system spanning routing, switching and security platforms on its router products.
Juniper JUNOS was the first commercially available full-fledged modular OS with full memory protection available for routing products. JUNOS features both vertical and horizontal modularity, and provides APIs for third-party applications (known as “JUNOS Space”).
Although JUNOS was originally derived from FreeBSD, subsequent product development resulted in major kernel and infrastructure improvements (like In-Service Software Upgrade and real-time packet forwarding plane).
Unusually for a vendor with comparable product breadth, Juniper sticks to a strict software release discipline, with four major JUNOS releases per year covering all supported platforms.
E-series routers are broadband edge routers. The E series was developed by Unisphere, which Juniper acquired in 2002. The E series routers run the JUNOSe operating system inherited from acquisition of Unisphere. The J, LN, M, MX, and T series routers run JUNOS.
While the E, LN, M, MX and T series are all high speed ASIC based devices capable of terminating multiple broadband optical connections, the J series forwarding plane is partially software-driven. J-Series also is capable of carrying non-Juniper hardware in the form of Avaya IP Telephony module.
Juniper did not offer Ethernet switching products for the first ten years of its existence. Despite market predictions it would buy a switching company, Juniper took the task seriously and invested in developing a full range of Ethernet products in-house.
EX Series Juniper’s switch products were introduced in 2008 and run JUNOS. Available in fixed and modular form factors with full or partial PoE functionality, EX represents Juniper’s bid for enterprise switch market, augmenting the “One Operating System” strategy.
SRX Series Dynamic Service Gateways is a series of security services devices running JUNOS. Ranging from compact branch-office models to 16RU SRX 5800 (dubbed “the world’s fastest firewall” by ComputerWorld in 2010), SRX combines security, routing and switching in one chassis.
Security features include the full UTM functionality previously found on ScreenOS, including web filtering, IDP and anti-virus. Although high-end and low-end SRX platforms differ in the underlying hardware, common software base enables feature consistency and signature Juniper routing code.
The NetScreen 5200/5400, SSG Series and ISG Series firewalls run the ScreenOS operating system and deliver firewall, anti-virus, intrusion protection and VPN services. Intrusion detection and prevention appliances (IDP series) provide zero-day protection against worms, trojans, spyware, keyloggers, and other malware. Acquired with NetScreen Technologies, these platforms were originally powered by ScreenOS and now in transit to JUNOS and SRX technology.
Juniper Secure Access products provide SSL-based VPN services to remote users through regular web browsers (e.g. Mozilla Firefox) on a variety of Java-enabled platforms (Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Apple iOS). This product line came to Juniper from NetScreen via last-minute acquisition of Neoteris and became one of the company’s technological wins. Unlike legacy IPsec tunnels, basic SSL VPN access works right out of the box on virtually any SSL-capable device (e.g. iPhone with mobile Safari browser) without a specialized client.
NSM Network and Security Manager is an enterprise-wide management tool for Juniper devices that features single-point bastion control over multiple Juniper devices, a syslog host and configuration backup repository, and the NSMXpress appliance that provides distributed hierarchical features.