Juniper Makes Networking Splash At NYSE

Juniper made a full-court networking press on Thursday, with a high-profile briefing at the New York Stock Exchange at which it celebrated its listing on the exchange. The meat of the event was a passel of strategic announcements.

Leading the list was Junos Space, a new software integration program which present an open platform through which third parties can develop applications to run under the company's flagship Junos network operating system. Also unveiled was Junos Pulse, which is an integrated software client, and the Trio chipset, which powers a new family of Juniper MX 3D routers.

Finally, Juniper detailed a cloud computing initiative intended to deliver a host of services such as scaling, application visibility, and threat protection.

On the partnership front, Juniper emphasized its OEM deals with Dell and IBM, and disclosed a new software licensing partnership with Blade Network Technologies to build Junos-powered blade switches, a move which competitively drives right at the heart of rivals such as Cisco and HP.

Missing from Juniper's product plans was storage networking, but it seems that Juniper is focused on delivering networking services and integrating with computing equipment vendors. The more important announcement today is Space.

Tech Perspective

In terms of its technology, Junos Space is an integration SDK and API, which allows third parties to tightly integrate with Juniper's products running the Junos operating system. This allows companies to create software and services that respond quickly to changes in the network and opens up opportunities for Juniper partners to differentiate their product sets from competitors.

Unlike some competing programs, such as Cisco's AXP and 3Com's OSN (which both requiring daughter cards inserted into their respective multipurpose routers), space applications can integrate across the Junos product line.

As for Junos Pulse, it seems to be a rebranding of the company's Odyssey Access client. Back in June, Juniper announced plans to unify its client software for SSL VPN, Universal Access Client (UAC), and WAN optimization and acceleration client, as well as integrating anti-malware software from WebRoot.

For service providers, Juniper launched the MX series of routers, containing technology Juniper has dubbed 3D scaling. The routers are powered by Junos' new Trio chipset, which is the result of an $80-million, five-year effort. Juniper sees it offers a massive jump in router scaling over previous chipsets, . Targeted for service providers and large enterprises, the MX routers are recall the products that built its business on -- robust, high throughput, multi-service routers, which are stable and reliable.

Finally, Juniper announced a cloud-ready infrastructure based on their SRX router line, increasing capacity with 10Gb connections, as well as support for 10million concurrent sessions and coordinated threat control. The cloud initiative, through integration with Altor Networks, sets access policies for virtual and physical machines.

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