Disaggregating Juniper OS for Data Center Modernization

The fundamental substructure of the modern day IT data center has to be constructed on a concrete base, but one which is flexible enough to acclimatize to the daily ever-changing business requirements. That flexibility needs to also encompass the data center networking equipment and software; they need to permit users to activate new features, functionalities, and services with the same speed as today’s evolving business needs.

Juniper has identified a requirement for a disaggregation of networking equipment and software to provide IT companies with the flexibility to run the software they require, when they require it, on the hardware platform of their selection. This disaggregation also permits enterprises to control their software expenditure over time, while interchanging their deployed equipment as and when needed.

To provide for this requirement, Juniper has designed a disaggregated version of the Junos Operating System substructure. It’s modular, founded on Linux, and constructed from the ground up for automation and programmability. The disaggregated software permits users to administer the data center switch similar a server—you can run 3rd-party applications, tools, and virtualized services in a virtual machine (VM), or as containers right on the switching device.

Why the need for Disaggregated Software?

This improved software infrastructure provides a plethora of advantages. Administering the system as if it were a server breaks up the preexisting IT silos, and it permits DevOps and NetOps teams to cooperate, so they can minimize delivery times and expenditures for IT services. The substructure also leads to increased dependability, integrating In-Service-Software-Upgrade (ISSU), with Junos software running on a Virtual Machine (VM). And with these modularized constituents, the software can comprise faults inside an affected module.

Disaggregated software allows companies to install whatever 3rd-party applications, tools, and services they require directly onto the switching device. They are able to upgrade applications which are running natively by utilizing normal Linux depositories, without needing to wait for a new Juniper OS release.

Automation and programming tools like Puppet, Chef, Ansible, and services including firewall, analytics, deep packet inspection, Wireshark, and zero touch provisioning (ZTP) is able to run right on the switching device. IT staff is now able to program the switch’s control or data plane straight via APIs, thereby enhancing networking processes.

Data Center Innovations Platform

Juniper’s disaggregated software substructure opens up a new platform which empowers companies and Juniper’s partners to bring more IT revolutions and provide value-added services for the data center, in a structural model similar to application stores for smart phones.

Supplementing the improved Junos software substructure, Juniper has launched a data center switch which provides support for Juniper’s disaggregated hardware and software model. The QFX5200 pools high-performance switching with the features, functionalities, and processing power of a quad-core CPU server, supplying speeds ranging from 10GbE to 100GbE and providing support for the evolving new 25GbE and 50GbE Ethernet standards.

The QFX5200 switch having disaggregated Juniper OS software is supported closely with Juniper’s open, easy, and intelligent MetaFabric structural design, therefore allowing companies the flexibility they require to construct the best-in-class public, private, or hybrid cloud data centers which will power their business into the next decade.

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